Brandon Boyd

Drawing and visual pursuits were first. Music came and found me in a way. Really, what it's about is creative problem solving, and music is a lot more an expression of that than painting is for me.

Music is a lot more like solving an intricate puzzle with moments of pure, random creative bliss... whereas painting is much more purely random creative bliss with moments of problem solving.

I have been drawing and creating visual works my entire life, as long as I can remember.

When we make records, it's hard to pinpoint one thing that inspires a record. It's usually a number of different things that lead to inspiration or wanting to write something down and share it with someone.

I get out on my bike almost every day. If I can't walk somewhere, I'll bike or skateboard.

Music is the medium that has taken me around the world, and I would be lying if I said I could live without music.

I am here on Earth to express myself, and the many media of art are my magic carpets that allow me the freedom to do so.

Surf is something I have been obsessed with since I was a child.

I think that what most artists are trying to do is trying to understand. I think what distinguishes creative people and/or artists from another type of person is perhaps a willingness to go headlong into that uncertainty.

Very rarely is there any confusion as to when a painting or a song is finished. You just know when it's done.

To me, it's like the difference between a pen and a paintbrush. Music draws from almost the identical place as art does, which really is that intangible - it's like you're pulling from the ether. I don't know where it comes from. Nobody really does. It sort of arrives when it wants to.

I've actually thought very little about solo work up until just very recently. Most of it is because in my band, Incubus, it is very much a collaborative effort. I do what I do in the band, and everyone plays their respective parts, but in the end, we are sort of a democratic process.

Being an artist for my well being and as a living, I live in a place of observance and interest in what I consider to be the most relevant questions.

I actually believe 'Sustainability', as a concept, is one of the arteries leading to the heart of so many of our cultural transitions at play today. And it's this concept which leads me to bottled water, and its multibillion dollar industry.

As a surfer, I am interested in the ocean. And I am concerned and interested in all of these natural and cultural rumblings underfoot as well.

I learned from a very young age that if I pursued the things that truly excited me, that they would reward in more important ways, like happiness.

Men have a lot less to write about, unless you're somebody like Tom Waits or John Lennon. And the female voice is much more suited to melody. Men have this barky thing - we're domesticated apes with a microphone.

My parents are wonderful, and I'm really lucky - but my mom has always been almost exclusively a right-brained person.

Music draws from almost the identical place as art does, which really is that intangible - it's like you're pulling from the ether. I don't know where it comes from.

No one's played on the moon yet. No one's played in zero gravity. Some bands have played at the Pyramids of Giza, but we'd very much like to do that in the near future.