Incubus Brandon Boyd Has a Surprising Fascination With Fungi

Brandon Boyd may have risen to prominence as the lead singer of the rock band Incubus, but his interests outside of music run the gamut.

“I am fascinated by plants and fungi,” Boyd, 48, tells Us Weekly exclusively as part of his 25 Things You Don’t Know About Me feature. “I’ll talk about it all day if given the opportunity.”

The musician went on to recount his love of collecting books and tattoos, painting, writing, accents, surfing and his late, beloved French bulldog, Bruce — who lived to a whopping 15 years and three months!

One of his longest-standing loves, though, is music. Boyd cofounded Incubus with Michael Einziger and José Pasillas in 1991, when they were just 15 years old. Nearly 33 years later, the Grammy-nominated band is still touring stadiums across the country.

“[Incubus] has sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 23 to 24 million albums” Boyd tells Us. “I have a sneaking suspicion that our parents bought most, if not all, of those albums and are storing them in their garages.”

Keep scrolling to learn 25 things you might not know about Boyd:

1. I cry on airplanes [watching] bad movies.

2. I’ve been collecting books since I was a kid. I love the opportunity to interact with other people’s brains, and reading is a perfect way to do so.

3. I love cartoons.

4. I’ve been collecting tattoos since I was 15.

5. I started a fine art print company called Moonlight Arts Collective three years ago. We’ve been doing limited edition, hand-signed print editions of original art by musicians, actors, comedians, athletes, etc.

6. I am fascinated by plants and fungi. I’ll talk about it all day if given the opportunity.

7. I love writing, so much so that I felt compelled to share more on the Substack platform.

8. I am a painter and have been making art for as long as I can remember and showing works since the early 2000s. My most recent gallery show is up now in Dallas at Samuel-Lynne Galleries.

9. I’ve made three solo albums: 2010’s The Wild Trapeze, 2013’s Sons of the Sea and 2022’s Echoes & Cocoons.

10. I cofounded Incubus with Michael Einziger and José Pasillas when we were 15, in 1991, making our band almost 33 years old.

11. I’m fascinated with accents, dialects and languages. I’m also fascinated with how other animals communicate.

12. I grew up in L.A. but never acted until last year, when I played White Jesus on Reservation Dogs. It was a really fun experience.

13. I’ve been surfing since I was 10 years old.

14. [Incubus] has sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 23 to 24 million albums. I have a sneaking suspicion that our parents bought most, if not all, of those albums and are storing them in their garages.

15. I’m a bit obsessed with horror films. When done well, I see them as high art!

16. My first recollection of the magic in sound was when my grandfather Isaac would play his nylon-string guitar and sing softly in Spanish as we fell asleep.

17. I was severely burned as an infant by a rogue pot of coffee. I still have the scars, yet by some twist of cosmic irony, coffee is one of my dearest loves.

18. I have a bunion that I named Paul. Get it?

19. My kneecaps have names, too: Chet and Garrison.

20. My mother had a painting she’d done while pregnant in art school that was a self-portrait of herself as the virgin mother. That painting haunted my brothers and me as children, and we would avoid being in the same room with it for years. I have it in my home now.

21. I’ve made a jigsaw puzzle and a memory game.

22. I love to go on long walks and purposefully get lost.

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23. When I was 6 years old, I was convinced the Big Bad Wolf lived in my toilet. I wouldn’t go to the bathroom alone for almost a year. I resorted to paying my younger brother my chore earnings to accompany me.

24. I may have been the human to the oldest surviving French bulldog in recorded history: My dearly departed Bruce lived to be 15 years and three months.

25. In August, Incubus is doing a 10-arena tour in the U.S., where we’ll perform Morning View in its entirety each night.

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