| Fungus Amongus | ||||
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | November 1, 1995 | |||
| Studio | 4th Street Recording (Santa Monica, California) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 38:08 | |||
| Label | Chillum | |||
| Producer | Jim Wirt | |||
| Incubus chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Fungus Amongus | ||||
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Fungus Amongus is the debut studio album by American rock band Incubus, released on November 1, 1995, by Chillum Records, Incubus' own independent label. It was later re-released under Epic and Immortal Records on November 7, 2000, after popular demand.
Incubus formed in 1991, while its members were still in high school, and recorded several demos over the next few years. In 2017, drummer José Pasillas described Fungus Amongus as "our first concerted effort at putting a group of songs together on an LP". [4] However, guitarist Mike Einziger has said that he views it as a compilation of demos they had recorded while in high school, rather than as a cohesive studio album. [5] He stated in 2017, "making recordings back then was really challenging, especially for a bunch of high school kids. We didn't have access to anything. We didn't have money to make recordings. We didn't have a studio. We didn't have any equipment. We didn't know how to use the equipment. But we slowly began to meet certain people. We ended up working with a producer who owned a recording studio." [5] Einziger also claimed in 2011 that the writing process was different to later records, since the band hadn't done any touring yet at that time. He said, "it's definitely different when you're in kind of a closed environment and writing music for your friends, which is what I think we were doing in our pre- S.C.I.E.N.C.E. days." [6] Incubus had trouble attracting the interest of major labels during their early years, which led to them releasing Fungus Amongus independently in 1995. [7] [4] The band printed 1,000 copies and sold all of them. [4] [8] Vocalist Brandon Boyd remembered in 2020, "It was a win for us, but let me tell you like selling 1,000 copies was hard. When we did get to work with a major label, it was definitely exciting." [8]
The album cover image is of a fly agaric mushroom. Many of the names given under "Personnel" are actually pseudonyms for the band members. "Fabio" is Mike Einziger; "Dirk Lance" is bassist Alex Katunich, who later adopted the moniker as his stage name; "Brandy Flower" is an actual Sony employee; and "Happy Knappy" is Brandon Boyd. "Bett" and "Brett Spivery" refer to Brett Spivey, longtime friend of the band, who went on to make their first two DVDs and the videos for "I Miss You" and "Summer Romance (Anti-Gravity Love Song)". [9]
"Hilikus", "Shaft!", "Take Me to Your Leader", and "You Will Be a Hot Dancer" were all re-recorded for the 1997 Enjoy Incubus EP, which was the band's first release after signing to Epic/Immortal Records in 1996. The EP also included additional material, such as a new song called "Version". The re-recordings of the Fungus Amongus tracks featured added DJ scratches by DJ Lyfe, who joined Incubus in late 1995, after Fungus Amongus had been released. The re-recording of "Hilikus" had a new, untitled hidden track, which plays after several minutes of silence. [10] [11] On this release, some of the band members were given new pseudonyms; Einziger's was "Dynamike", Boyd's was "Brandon of the Jungle", and DJ Lyfe's was "Kid Lyfe". On S.C.I.E.N.C.E. the band continued to create new pseudonyms, before abandoning this concept on later releases. [12]
Stylistically, Fungus Amongus shows strong influences of funk metal bands such as Faith No More, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus, and Mr. Bungle, [13] most of whom are mentioned in the liner notes of the 2000 reissue. In subsequent interviews, Boyd has cited all of these artists as influences on the band [14] [15] and has mentioned his enjoyment at later having Incubus perform alongside them, including with Mr. Bungle at the 2000 SnoCore Tour and with Faith No More at the 2015 Soundwave Festival in Australia. [16] [17] In a 1995 review of an Incubus concert, Traci Esslinger of Music Connection magazine described their sound as "funk-thrash" , noting that the "vast majority of songs begin with oozing funk grooves". [18] The group also presents a quasi-rap style on Fungus Amongus, which continued onto 1997's S.C.I.E.N.C.E., showing Boyd rapping on songs such as "Psychopsilocybin", "Trouble in 421", "Speak Free", and "Take Me to Your Leader". [19]
"Medium" begins with an unknown woman doing an acapella vocal melody reminiscent of a piece of music from a 1939 Looney Tunes short titled Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur . [20] Since "Medium" wasn't re-recorded for Enjoy Incubus, the woman's vocal melody would be added to the end of the re-recorded version of "Take Me to Your Leader", which on Fungus Amongus is the track that proceeds "Medium". The opening track, "You Will Be a Hot Dancer", includes the line "let's get this Marmaduke naked", which is a reference to the comic strip dog of the same name. [21] The song "Shaft!" references Lorena Bobbitt, an American woman who gained notoriety for cutting off her husband's penis in 1993. [22]
Boyd reflected in a 2012 interview that Fungus Amongus was "a very accurate statement of where we were at that time. We were teenagers and had little to no knowledge or understanding of the world. We were learning how to write songs and be a band and had no concept or idea that those recordings would stick. It was almost outsider art. I think Fungus Amongus and S.C.I.E.N.C.E. were Incubus still finding our distinctive voice. So those albums are schizoid amalgamations of many of the bands we were obsessing over in the early to mid-nineties." [23]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [24] |
| Kerrang! | [25] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [26] |
Upon initial release, the album failed to chart; however, when re-released in 2000 by Epic/Immortal Records, it managed to peak at number 116 on the Billboard 200. [27] The album received generally negative reviews from critics. Dean Carlson of AllMusic wrote, "Incubus' independent debut is an unremarkable take on suburban MTV funk." He also criticized frontman Brandon Boyd, writing, "there's much to dislike, notably frontman Brandon Boyd, who growls like he wants the voice of anybody but himself". [24] Tim Grierson of About.com observed, "at this early stage, Incubus just sounded like a tired rehash of Rage Against the Machine and Red Hot Chili Peppers." [28] In 2001, Spin labeled the album as "goofy" and "Primus-obsessed." [7]
The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004) gave the album one star out of five. The review states, "although it may only be vaguely recalled, the great funk metal scare occurred at the dawn of the 90s, between the waning of hair metal and the waxing of grunge." It adds that "Incubus was a latecomer to a boomlet of shirtless suburban funkateers who were greatly inspired by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus and Faith No More" and that "Fungus Amongus, a compendium of slapped bass and forced wackiness, seemed hopelessly dated in 1995." [26] The 2003 book The Rough Guide to Rock describes the album as "a rough-and-ready amalgam of funk, rock, metal and wilful weirdness that merely hinted at what Incubus would go on to produce." [10] Frank Guan of Vulture stated in 2017 that it was "a sincere and skilled pastiche of their funk-drunk idols" and characterized its lyrical content as having "references to 4/20, space aliens, and psilocybin mushrooms." [29]
In 2020, Ultimate Guitar included it on their list of "Top 8 Iconic Funk Metal Albums". [30] Loudwire added it to a list titled "26 Bands Who Sound Nothing Like Their First Album". They stated, "taking cues from Faith No More, Primus and hip-hop, the funk-first rap/rock of Fungus Amongus was a snapshot of heavy music in 1995." [19]
When looking back on Incubus's discography in a 2017 interview with Kerrang! , Boyd observed, "[Fungus Amongus] was super-fun to make, but we didn't know what we were doing. I guess that's why a lot of our fans love that record, but for me when I hear it I truly cringe. I would just as soon bury it forever." [31] In a 2022 Louder Sound article, Boyd placed it last in his ranking of the eight Incubus studio albums. He said, "it doesn’t feel like a studio album. It was barely mixed and recorded — S.C.I.E.N.C.E. was the first time we had a recording budget." [32] When ranking the band's eight studio albums in 2020, Kerrang! placed Fungus Amongus seventh, ahead of only their 2011 album, If Not Now, When? . [33] In 2023, Alternative Press placed it fifth in their ranking, saying that "while the band could surely play, nothing was polished or breakthrough quite yet." [34]
The band has not performed any songs from Fungus Amongus or Enjoy Incubus since 2004. That year, they performed "Take Me to Your Leader" nine times on their A Crow Left of the Murder... tour, having then not played it since 1998. Their last performances of any of the other Fungus Amongus songs were in 2000. [35] The intro to "Trouble in 421" was briefly played at a July 2011 show in Los Angeles, which was recorded as part of their Incubus HQ Live release. [36] While Incubus still regularly performs certain songs from S.C.I.E.N.C.E., Boyd asserted in 2012 that the band has no intention of performing tracks from Fungus Amongus again. He remarked, "what's funny is people are still asking for a lot of those songs. We're very happy that they exist, but we just as soon let them exist in recordings. I don't even know if we'd know how to play them." [37]
All tracks are written by Incubus
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "You Will Be a Hot Dancer" | 3:47 |
| 2. | "Shaft!" | 3:14 |
| 3. | "Trouble in 421" | 4:41 |
| 4. | "Take Me to Your Leader" | 4:27 |
| 5. | "Medium" | 3:12 |
| 6. | "Speak Free" | 4:55 |
| 7. | "The Answer" | 3:02 |
| 8. | "Psychopsilocybin" | 4:20 |
| 9. | "Sink Beneath the Line" | 3:15 |
| 10. | "Hilikus" | 3:15 |
| Total length: | 38:08 | |
| Chart (2000) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| US Billboard 200 [27] | 116 |
Incubus is an American rock band from Calabasas, California. The band was formed in 1991 by vocalist Brandon Boyd, lead guitarist Mike Einziger, and drummer José Pasillas while enrolled in Calabasas High School and later expanded to include bassist Alex "Dirk Lance" Katunich, and Gavin "DJ Lyfe" Koppel; the latter two were eventually replaced by bassist Ben Kenney and DJ Kilmore, respectively. Nicole Row replaced Kenney in 2024.
Make Yourself is the third studio album by American rock band Incubus. It was released on October 26, 1999, through Epic Records and Immortal Records. The album received double platinum certification by the RIAA and produced three charting singles—"Pardon Me", "Stellar", and "Drive"—all of which reached the top three of the Billboard Alternative Songs chart, with the latter topping the chart and also becoming the band's sole top ten hit to date on the Billboard Hot 100, where it peaked at number nine.
Brandon Charles Boyd is an American musician, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Incubus, with whom he has recorded eight studio albums.
Primus is an American rock band formed in El Sobrante, California in 1984. The band is currently composed of bassist/vocalist Les Claypool and guitarist Larry "Ler" LaLonde. Primus originally formed in 1984 with Claypool and guitarist Todd Huth, later joined by drummer Jay Lane, though the latter two had departed the band by the beginning of 1989, and were replaced by LaLonde and Tim "Herb" Alexander respectively.
S.C.I.E.N.C.E. is the second studio album by American rock band Incubus. It was released on September 9, 1997, by Epic and Immortal Records. The album was certified gold by the RIAA, and is the second and final release to feature Gavin Koppel, who first appeared on the 1997 Enjoy Incubus EP. It has been occasionally considered the band's proper debut album, due to the nature of their independent release Fungus Amongus.
Funk metal is a subgenre of funk rock and alternative metal that infuses heavy metal music with elements of funk and punk rock. Funk metal was part of the alternative metal movement, and has been described as a "brief but extremely media-hyped stylistic fad".
Morning View is the fourth studio album by American rock band Incubus, released October 22, 2001, through Epic Records. A companion DVD, The Morning View Sessions, was released on May 29, 2002. Continuing the move away from nu metal, the album ranges widely from soft to hard rock sounds in the style of alternative rock. Morning View was the last Incubus album to feature bassist Alex Katunich.
A Crow Left of the Murder... is the fifth studio album by the American rock band Incubus, released on February 3, 2004. The album marks the first appearance of bassist Ben Kenney, following the departure of founding member Dirk Lance. The singles from the album are "Megalomaniac" and "Talk Shows on Mute". "Agoraphobia" was released as a promo single.
Enjoy Incubus is the second EP and major label debut by American rock band Incubus. It was released on January 7, 1997, by Epic and Immortal Records. It contained re-recordings of songs that were featured on their previous, independent releases Let Me Tell Ya 'Bout Root Beer and Fungus Amongus, as well the previously unreleased song "Version" and an untitled hidden track at the end of '"Hilikus". It was the first appearance on a release by DJ Lyfe, who added turntable scratches to the Fungus Amongus songs, and also supplied saxophone samples. This release was also noted for its introduction of 'Chuck', the mysterious mustachioed man who has become an icon for Incubus's early work. It is also the only Incubus release to feature a Parental Advisory label, despite many of their other albums also containing profanity.
George Alex Katunich is an American musician. He is best known as the founding bassist of the Californian band Incubus. He left the band in 2003.
Audiovent is an American alternative rock band from Calabasas, California. Initially forming as "Vent" in the early 1990s, the band changed their name to Audiovent upon signing with Atlantic Records in 2001. The band released their one and only album on a major record label, Dirty Sexy Knights in Paris, in 2002. Two singles were released to rock radio and charted with moderate success - "The Energy" and "Looking Down". The band began work on a second album in 2003, demoing over 19 tracks over the course of the year, but disbanded in mid-2004 before the album could be formally recorded, due to creative differences between band members. They reformed in 2017 for several reunion shows, then began writing and recording new material in 2022. They released their first single, "Sleepless Machine" in late 2023, with more music to follow.
Funk rock is a fusion genre that mixes elements of funk and rock. James Brown and others declared that Little Richard and his mid-1950s road band, the Upsetters, were the first to put the funk in the rock and roll beat, with a biographer stating that their music "spark[ed] the musical transition from fifties rock and roll to sixties funk".
Dirty Sexy Knights in Paris is the only major label album by alternative rock band Audiovent. It was released in 2002 on Atlantic Records. The album had two singles, "The Energy" and "Looking Down". Audiovent toured with Saliva and Theory of a Deadman in promotion of the album.
Light Grenades is the sixth studio album by alternative rock band Incubus, released on November 28, 2006, on Epic. The album sold 359,000 copies during its first week of release worldwide, and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 165,000 copies in the US in its first week; it is the band's first number one album. The album achieved Gold certification, less than the band's previous Platinum records beginning with 1999's Make Yourself.
"Pardon Me" is a song by American rock band Incubus. Released on October 5, 1999, as the lead single from their third studio album Make Yourself, it was the band's first song to receive considerable radio airplay, reaching number three on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart, number seven on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number two on Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart.
"Stellar" is a song by American rock band Incubus. It was released on June 13, 2000, as the second single from their third album Make Yourself. The song reached number 2 on the US Modern Rock Tracks and also reached number 17 on the US Mainstream Rock charts and number 7 on Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles.
"Take Me to Your Leader" is the debut single by American rock band Incubus, released in 1996. It is a re-recorded version of the original version from their 1995 debut album Fungus Amongus. The song was later re-recorded again for their 1997 EP Enjoy Incubus.
Monuments and Melodies is the first greatest hits compilation album by American rock band Incubus released on June 16, 2009, through Epic Records. It was released as a double-disc set, the first disc featuring 13 previously released singles from the albums Make Yourself, Morning View, A Crow Left of the Murder..., and Light Grenades, along with two new Brendan O'Brien–produced tracks, "Black Heart Inertia" and "Midnight Swim".
If Not Now, When? is the seventh studio album by American rock band Incubus, released on July 12, 2011 and named after the novel by Primo Levi. Preceded by the singles "Adolescents" and "Promises, Promises", the album represented the band's longest gap between studio albums at the time, and their final full-length release through long-time label Epic Records. Described by guitarist Michael Einziger as "a very straightforward, concise album," If Not Now, When? was recorded in the wake of an extended hiatus, and produced by frequent collaborator Brendan O'Brien. The album's cover features high wire artist Philippe Petit.
8 is the eighth studio album by American rock band Incubus. It was released on April 21, 2017, through Island Records. The album takes its name from being the band's eighth LP. The release of 8 in 2017 saw the longest time between full-length albums for Incubus. The album was previously produced by Dave Sardy, and later re-produced and mixed by Skrillex, a close friend of the band. The album's first single, "Nimble Bastard", peaked at number 4 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart in April 2017. 8 is the last studio album with bassist Ben Kenney before his departure in 2024.
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