Incubus Bassist Addresses The Bands Struggle To Stay Relevant

Incubus bassist Ben Kenney talks about the uncertainty over ending the band's extended hiatus and releasing music that doesn't fit into the current musical climate.

It's not easy for bands to change direction these days, especially when you've been at it for several years. Incubus bassist Ben Kenney understands that concept very well, he recently spoke with Noise 11 about their hiatus, new album, and the current rock music scene:

"The making of music wasn’t the hard part. For us it was ‘are we going to be relevant?’, ‘are we going to able to keep doing what we are doing because everything is changing so fast around us?’. Music is getting louder and louder and louder and it seems like we are not part of that whole thing. It was very scary doing this whole thing. We were jumping off a bridge kind of."

Kenney is of course referring to Incubus' current album 'If Not Now, When?', which is substantially lighter fare when compared to their back-catalog.

This year has seen many 20th anniversary milestones for bands in rock music, though they were not prominent in the hey-day of grunge -- Kenney made mention of Incubus' own milestone:

"It was 20 years ago this year that the guys started the band. Of course they were like 12. There is a lot of time leading to this moment. It’s a good 20 because we don’t look like a band who have been doing it for 20 years."

Though it has been 20 years, Kenney says he has yet to hear an Incubus song on classic rock radio stations -- but he's not completely opposed to it:

“Not yet but I hope they do soon because classic rock radio is one of the few places left where you can hear music.”