Articles Focused on, you guessed it, CHRIS
Here are articles that discuss only Kilmore or anything that he does. I haven't found many, but I stumble upon some every so often or people send them to me, and this is where they land.
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Incubus Bucks Nu-Metal With New Single
Despite an admitted allegiance to the Family Values tour/Ozzfest aesthetic, Incubus DJ Chris Kilmore tells Billboard.com he could care less about the nu-metal movement from which the group was spawned. He points to the choice of "Nice to Know You" as the next single from Incubus' recent Epic/Immortal album "Morning View," which offers a more refined approach toward the craft of songwriting.
"We want to keep it pretty much rock based, that's where our roots are," Kilmore says. "For example, releasing 'Nice to Know You' is a good decision or maybe 'Circles' or something like that--more rock based songs, because there are definitly pop songs on 'Morning View' that could actually go on pop radio. That's where I think if you get into that genre--pop music--you have to have a very solid base to stay there or else you'll just be popular for a minute and then be gone."
As evidenced by "Morning View" and its ubiquitous single "Wish You Were Here," the Calabasas, Calif.-based band is intent on creating textures and movements based more on passion and emotions, and less on the angst of the day. This lightening up of material began on 1999's "Make Yourself" and its subsequent tour, which included two Ozzfest stints ("We got to show our diversity to a lot of screaming, drunk, mullet-heads with no teeth," quips Kilmore).
Fans feeling abused by this obvious new direction may want to invest in the band's 1997 album "S.C.I.E.N.C.E.," which Epic/Immortal has remastered and will re-release Tuesday (Nov. 20). The original version never made a dent on the Billboard charts, but has gone to sell 370,000 copies in the US since it's release, according to SoundScan.
"We try to be different from [newer hard rock] bands intentionally, because a lot of what is out there is pretty much crap," Kilmore says. "There are good bands--Korn, Deftones, and even Limp Bizkit. Limp Bizkit came along and they are good at what they do, but they sort of followed the steps of the Deftones and then blew up on top of that. I think a lot of bands saw that and said, 'Oh wow, if we just make this style of music this way like this, we're going to sell a lot of records and make a lot of money.' And because of that, I think that makes that category and that genre weak."
The band hits Seattle tonight (Nov. 14) and wraps its latest round of North American dates Dec. 1-2 at the Universal Amphitheatre in Hollywood, Calif. As firsthand witnesses to the destruction of Sept. 11 and one of the first bands to play New York after the terrorist attacks, Incubus isn't letting the uncertain international picture stand in its way. So far, seven European dates are confirmed after the new year, beginning Jan. 14 in Wolverhampton, England.
"We're taking the stand that we're not going to let some idiot who just wants to kill everybody affect our lives," Kilmore says. "We're just going to keep doing what we do, and hopefully, everything will be alright. I think it gave us an all-new perspective on the power of music and how it does help people get through bad times. Music is a universal healing agent."
Fly Magazine
(from Philly)
DJ Kilmore of Incubus: Dillsburg native goes big-time
by Jeff Royer
Ten years ago, Chris Kilmore was a bored kid kicking
around the outskirts of Dillsburg, Pa., working a
minimum-wage job at McDonald's and playing DJ at high
school dances. Perhaps the times wouldn't have been so
hard, the days wouldn't have passed so slowly, if he
could have known that, a few years down the road, he
would be the DJ for one of the world's most successful
contemporary bands, the multi-platinum-selling
Incubus.
"I started in Dillsburg. You know, not too many
concerts came our way," laughs Kilmore (pictured
second from right) during a recent Fly interview. "One
of the concerts I saw when I was little was the [DJ]
Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince concert. And I saw Jazzy
Jeff, and I was just like, 'Yo, man, that dude's sick.
I don't know what he's doing, but I want to know what
he's doing.'"
After scoring a pair of turntables, Kilmore started
spinning in all the, er, hottest clubs in Dillsburg.
"I mixed some under-21 clubs on the Carlisle Pike and
did all the high school dances and middle school
dances and stuff," Kilmore explains. "When I
graduated, I was like, 'I'm going to Hollywood.' So I
just pretty much up and left with a buddy and went out
there. And after two years of me doing the same thing
in L.A. that I was doing here, just DJing and stuff
like that, just trying to make ends meet, Incubus
called me up."
So, Incubus just called him up? Out of the blue? "They
found out that I was a DJ, and they needed one. And
that was pretty much it," he chuckles. "I tried out -
you know, they had a couple of DJs try out - and they
called me back the next day and said, 'Hey, we leave
in two days for a tour. Can you learn 18 songs?' And I
was like, 'Tour? Tour? Yeah, sure, whatever!'" And so,
with a phone call, Kilmore's life changed from that of
a starving artist who couldn't even afford electricity
to that of a rock and roll luminary.
Formed in 1991, Incubus squandered its first several
years trying to imitate funk/rock groups like Red Hot
Chili Peppers and touring with rap-metal pioneers like
Korn and Limp Bizkit. By the time Kilmore joined in
February 1998, the band had signed a deal with Epic
Records and released its first album, S.C.I.E.N.C.E.
"They had done maybe half a year's worth of touring
already with an old DJ, and they found out that he
really didn't work out as soon as they got on the
road," Kilmore laughs.
As luck would have it, Kilmore saddled up with Incubus
just as guitarist Mikey Einziger started to blossom as
a songwriter. Incubus soon charged into the national
spotlight on the momentum of its sophomore album, Make
Yourself, a showcase of rhythmic and melodic
innovation. The record sold over 2 million copies and,
more importantly, distanced the band from the sinking
ship that was rap-metal.
Buried in the middle of the album was an oddball
acoustic track called "Drive," an upbeat,
vocal-centered tune with the feel-good lyrics,
"Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there/ With open
arms and open eyes."
"When we wrote 'Drive,' we were like, 'This is a weird
song. This is so different from us, nobody's going to
even like this song,'" says Kilmore. Imagine the
band's surprise when the track blasted into the Top
10.
Between the ubiquity of "Drive," a relentless touring
schedule, and frontman Brandon Boyd's metamorphosis
into a reluctant teen heartthrob, Incubus was
catapulted into rock and roll superstardom. Kilmore,
for the most part, seems unfazed by the band's
newfound celebrity. "It's pretty cool. It's really not
that hard. There are so many positives to it that all
the negative sides, you're just like, 'Whatever. I'll
take 'em all. Bring 'em on,' you know?" Kilmore
exclaims. "We get to travel the world and play music
every night, and every day meet new people. It's so
cool. And we don't have a nine-to-five job sitting
behind a desk in a collared shirt."
Touché.
The band wrapped up an arena tour in October 2002 in
support of its most recent release, Morning View
(2001), which spawned the modern rock hits "Nice to
Know You" and "Wish You Were Here." After a
well-deserved hiatus, Incubus returns to the studio
this month to begin work on the next album. As far as
musical direction goes, your guess is as good as
Kilmore's.
"You know what? We don't really try to say, 'This is
the way we're going to go.' We more say to ourselves,
'OK, this is the way we're not going to go,'" he
explains. "We're not going to try to really repeat
things we did before. And you know, other than that,
we just sort of leave it open. I have a feeling that
the songs are going to be a little bit more complex, I
think, as far as structure. ... I think our
songwriting is becoming more and more advanced as we
grow."
What Kilmore does know is that Incubus can finally go
to work without the stigma of being a rap-metal band.
"I think that is leaving us. We're going beyond that
now," he says with a sigh of relief. "Because of our
album, S.C.I.E.N.C.E., people labeled us as a
rap-metal band. And that was written in '96 and '97.
We've had a couple EPs and some DVDs and two
full-length albums that show you that we're nothing
like that. So I think we're really coming into our own
thing. But people need to classify it, so they're
going to classify it as something. You need to find it
in a record store under something. You know, if I had
to say what we were, we're just a straight-up rock
band."
He may have traded the hills of Dillsburg for the
sunny skies of Southern California, but Kilmore says
he still thinks fondly of his hometown. Watch for him
to make a homecoming trip in 2003 to an arena near
you. Visit www.enjoyincubus.com for additional info on
the upcoming album and future tour dates.
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A Dream of The Kil's
On the Morning View Sessions DVD, there is an option you can choose: "At the Concert". Well, for those who don't know, it is basically a slideshow of the NYC Morning View Sessions concert for MTV....you know what I'm talking about. As for sound through the slideshow, they have Kilmore describing a dream he had. So, i decided to bag it for the site. Here it is, Kil's dream word for word. (For the most part, anyway. I had to make up words for various sound effects he used) But you get the idea. Enjoy!
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"I asked him, "Is the ground shaking right now?" And he said, "no." But my whole bed...in MY mind, was rocking reeeal slow. And I'm real sensitive to that shit. I mean when I'm on stage, man...I can fell ANYTHING, y'know? It's like I'm real in tune with that, I'm always thinking that the ground is shaking. I think i can feel it. And I fall asleep and the next thing--I think I'm awake, but I'm really still asleep, but I still think I'm awake, when all of a sudden--you know how my room has a big mirror? Well, all of a sudden it just starts getting bigger, and the whole house and the fucking room's just gonna fall. And I'm right in my bed but it just blows right past me and I can see everything flying around like a tornado or something. So my bed blows outside and I'm standing there. Just standing there and it's all still flying past me. Like, flying back. And I'm standing there seeing my towels (?) and everything being blown off the Earth. All the dust, all the dirt. And I was freaking out at first and then I realize I'm not moving, and nothing's hitting me. And I'm like, this is pretty fucking, this is pretty fucking cool! Y'know? And I was like, what the hell's happening? Atomic bomb, tornado, at first I thought it was a tornado, then it was an atomic bomb, and then all of a sudden, like, my perspective went from my eyeballs watching everything, to straight up out of my head, and they just kept going up into space and shit, like that, and saw the whole entire Earth, like going through space, with its orbit, but now all of space had an atmosphere blowing everything off of the surface of the Earth. It was spinning in like this fiery compound, y'know, and I'm going way up outta me and I just see everything blowing around and what happened was that it vibrated itself out of its orbit or something, and it was either crashing into the sun or something, and I went out and I went the whole way out, and everything just got like, super bright white, and that's when I opened my eyes and I woke up. And I'm laying in my bed and I still felt my bed was slowly rocking. And I was like.....It tripped my out. I had to get up, and I was like, ~*~WHOA~*~ I mean, I fall asleep to take a nap and I have dreams like that."
And that's it! Hope you liked it. If I find any other Kilmore dreams I'll be sure to share.
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