What first drew you to play Warwicks?
I had never heard of Warwick until '93 or '94. I'd seen one in a music store, and I really liked it. I had always thought P-nut's stuff from 311 sounded amazing. He was like the guy I was looking up to, so I guess I just ripped him off. Then it came time to pick a model and I happened to pick the one he did. You know, I liked the sound before hand. I actually didn't think I was going to start with the Streamer Stage II. I thought I was going to get something else like a Thumb or a Dolphin, But it was a long time ago back before...

How long have you been playing Warwick?
I've been playing them since '96. I own now three fretted Streamers Stage II 5-strings and one fretless Streamer Stage II 5-string. But my first Warwick bass is the same one I've been playing up until a month ago, since '96, I've tried other models, but everything else was just put on the back burner for the same one. Now the new one I have (a year 2000 model) sounds so good, I've had to go back to the drawing board with the other ones and I might not actually play my old ones any more.

What did your fellow band members think when you first brought a Warwick in?
They were like "Holy shit! That's the nicest thing I've ever seen! How much did it cost?"

How have your Warwick's performed in the studio and on-stage?
Fantastic, both studio and stage. I've recorded our last two records with Warwick basses for the most part and I've turned friends of mine on to Warwick, like Sam Rivers from Limp Bizkit. He just wasn't getting good tone, so I took him my base and let him play it on their previous record, and then he switched over to Warwick. Basically, it takes a lickin and keeps on tickin. I had a problem that I'd sweat so much, I'd like fry out the electronics, but the guys at Warwick came up with creative ways to make it so that wouldn't happen. They're really great to work with.

How do you set up your basses?
Nothing particularly unique with the way that I set my stuff up. I play normal tuning on all but two of our songs. We tune down a half step on those to make it easier on our singer. Pretty much with the factory setup, for the most part.

Who were some of your influences?
Definitely Les Claypool. Duff McKagen from Guns n' Roses, he did a lot, he played a lot in that band. There's actually a lot of bass in their stuff. Sting is my favorite bass player by far.

Who are listening to now?
I have my indulging like side tastes, my Victor Wooten stuff. You know when I really want to just bum myself out about how bad my playing really is. I don't listen to much rock music. I listen to a lot of jungle, and drum & bass, a Canadian group called Baxter, and the Police. It has to be the Police... the Police and the new Sting.

Some of the Incubus songs seem to have melodies and basslines that step away from the traditional hard rock/alternative norm and may even have a bit of jazz influence. Was that an influence in defining your bass playing?
Well, early on we listened to too much music and we tried to make every song an opus, with you know, like three different parts from 3 different songs and it's just too much. I can't really say that I have any musical background whatsoever. I just don't know anything about music, it just kind of came to me. I am a much more technical player. I like know way too much shit about that other stuff, that I don't know anything about theory. It just goes to show you that you don't have to know anything to be able to write songs.

But you do have somewhat of a jazz background, right?
Yeah, well... I have a psuedo-jazz background. I actually got kicked out of jazz band in high school because I didn't know how to read music. It actually ended up being a good thing, because I wouldn't really have had time to start Incubus with the guys. Pretty dumb reason to kick somebody out of jazz band, because you can't read music.

On previous records you did a lot of slap & pop, but not much on Make Yourself. It seems much more technical. Was that just a phase for you?
Yeah, I didn't slap too much on this record. But, next time around, who knows, I got a feeling I may do a few things creatively.

How do you feel your playing and writing has changed since your first recording?
I've learned that you don't necessarily have to play ten notes when two will do sometimes. I still have a problem with that. I know that, I mean I don't always listen to my own advice, but I have worked on simplifying things and I'm more focused on melodies and supporting the rest of the band.

Any side projects going on soon? Any new CD's or anything different coming up?
Well, we're going to be touring for a while; I don't think we're done with this record yet. We're always thinking about new ideas, concepts and stuff like that. Have we written any songs yet? No. But, we're definitely thinking about things, depends on how much more touring we do. And that will dictate when we stop thinking about things and actually start writing songs.

Is there any sense of musical direction or things to come in the stuff you gauys have been thinking about?
Well, I mean, it's not like we are going to come out with and anthology album. You know, the more tours that we do, the more other bands we play with, the more we redefine where we want to go musically. So I think there's going to be more drum and bass influence. We'll play around with that, different instrumentations for sure. We always try and do something old and new on each record. It's probably too early to tell for sure.

How do you contribute to the band's creative process?
I write a lot. We all do. I tend to not write on bass very much, actually. When it comes to working on songs, if I'm going to bring something to the band it's usually not a bass line very often. Usually it is a guitar part, verse, chorus, a guitar line and I'll add a bass line later. I'm always involved in the writing, unless there's a song that Mike has completely written already and I'll just add my taste to it. You know he'll say, "Play this..." and then I won't. I'll kind of base it on what he's got going on and just change it a little bit. It's interesting trying to get through writing a new song with five people and five different opinions. Sometimes you can't win 'em all, but we do work really well together.

Any words for aspiring bass players?
I would definitely say start writing your own songs. While I think it's fantatstic to learn how to play other peoples' music, one of the things that actually made me a better player was the fact that I never learned a lot of cover songs. I could never get through the listening/learning process and together as a band we never knew how to play an entire cover song. That kind of forced us to write our own songs because we had no material. I would just say that just never underestimate the value of your own songs and continuing to write, because the first thing you write is not going to be a hit. It's probably not going to be any good at all. Then you write another one and another one, you know and you learn from that experience. The more songs you write, the better you will get at that process. I would also say don't make the same mistake I do about trying to play as many notes as you can. Not everyone needs to be Jaco. Sometimes your band just needs a bass player, somebody to just play root notes. If you're gonna play in a straight ahead rock'n roll band then you don't need to be doing like slap stuff, two-hand tapping and crap like that. Play what the band needs. And to all the kids out there: stay off the pot, stay in school. That would be about it.