#trying to break down all the thoughts that go thru my head when writing etho is. so difficult

[catmaidetho]

:0 i would love to hear how you write etho!

after making that post and going to bed i've realized that it's so hard for me to describe all the thoughts that go into it so

tl;dr: i have consumed an ungodly amount of ethoslab content to the point that writing him is kind of second nature

you could also probably go thru my archive for etho text posts i've rb'd, cuz those have also influenced me a lot and i'll link a few at the end. i also sincerely recommend watching and rewatching his hc7 because that is like, everything i love about etho in 40-smth episodes.

long and kind of complicated/messy answer under the cut. i tried to go as in-depth as i could w/o being overly rambly

when you think of etho, what do you think of? you probably think "mysterious cryptid redstone guy who is scary." that is the devil talking. he is not mysterious, a cryptid, or scary at all. he is just a guy who's reputation is bigger than him.

here's some (very basic) traits i'd assign to etho before any of those:

humble

reflective*

confident

competitive

friendly

mischievous

avoidant

*reflective in the sense that he mirrors other people's energy.

originally i had a whole rant typed up explaining these personality traits, but i realize you are probably a fellow ethogirl and a lot of these need no explanation. if you want an explanation/to better understand why i chose those personality traits, i am going to once again recommend his hc7, as well as checking out anything he's done with team canada (pick a series and just start watching. if you dont know where to start, one of my beloved mutuals has a neat little guide for ppl new to etho's content that includes some staple team canada content.)

some things i apply to my etho that make sense to me that might go overlooked by the casual enjoyer:

he is so incredibly neurodivergent coded. i am not going to make any assumptions on etho's brain structure, i dont think its my place, but seriously. give your etho some silly thing to be super passionate about on the side. make him easily distracted/get off topic easily. make his storage system start out well but quickly descent into chaos as he gets too lazy to use it.

he goes with the flow! this goes along with me describing him as a reflective person. he "yes, and"'s stuff like there's no tomorrow. he takes whatever energy is thrown his way, and he chucks it right back at you. he gets dragged into shenanigans and goes "oh this might as well happen! let's see how far we can take it."

he likes to avoid problems he doesn't see as immediately his own/aren't immediately affecting him. his response to moon big was literally "i'll let the other hermits deal with it. look this low gravity makes not having elytra so much easier! lets go build a bee farm." if it doesn't affect him right this instant, or there's nothing he can do about it, he will worry about it later (and probably forget to worry about it.)

he prioritizes the "fun" factor above all else. if you know what the bamboozler is, you understand this. also, the bee farm i just mentioned. if there is a very efficient/straight-forward way to do something or a very fun way to do something, he will go with the fun way most of the time. if the only option is boring, he'll find a way to make it fun.

his reputation precedes him, but his reputation is a little inaccurate to modern times. someone who doesn't know him very well might think he's menacing or scary, but the reality is that he's just a silly little guy. don't get me wrong, there is a reason he's seen as menacing, and if he wants to be he can be, but most of the time he's just here to chill.

his humor is very roundabout. he tells a very long story to get to the punchline, or he tells something that plays into stereotypes so much it's ridiculous. here are some examples. he is also a professional "your mom" joker, like i literally cannot link enough examples his staple joke is "your mom."

most importantly, i think, is that etho doesn't take himself too seriously. i think a lot about the quote from cleo that goes like, "etho doesnt say he's a grownup, he giggles and runs away." so dont make etho too serious!

HE IS LITERALLY JUST SOME GUY. i cant stress this point enough. he should have "just some guy" energy. tiny voice he's doing the best he can. things happen to him and he is mildly bewildered. something goes wrong and he needs like, one second dedicated to panicking before he does anything about it.

just for bonus content, some of my favorite posts/clips that heavily influence the way i interpret/write etho. he is so ^-^ | he calls food poisoning an adventure | evidence that etho's a former scene kid | obviously your mother never loved you 'cause you're some sorta monster :) | "you jerk" compilation | etho teasing scar in among us

[fuckyeahincubus]

How Incubus Got Their Groove Back

Incubus recently released their new single, “Nimble Bastard,” from their forthcoming album 8, due April 21. The album is the band’s first full-length in five years and you can feel how the break has rejuvenated the long-running Southern California quintet.

Propelled by producer Dave Sardy, an impromptu collaboration with Skrillex on “Familiar Faces” that came about from their friendship -- Skrillex was just in the studio and decided to work on the song --  and the love they are receiving from their new label, Island, Incubus have delivered a monster rock record, one they cannot wait to take on tour this year with Jimmy Eat World.

I have known the Incubus guys for years and over the past few years Monica Molinaro and I have been fortunate to have several in-depth conversations with frontman Brandon Boyd. So when we jump on the phone with him the day after the Grammys it is like reconvening with an old friend. In that spirit he opened up immensely on the state of the band, how Sardy pushed him, Beyonce and how he finds it best to write political songs in these crazy times.

Steve Baltin: How is it to go back into the Incubus machine after focusing on your artwork?

Brandon Boyd: It helps to have the might of a major label pushing a project and also, being super behind us too.  We haven’t experienced this kind of enthusiasm from a record label in a long time, which is so heartwarming just because we put everything we have into what we do.

Baltin: It definitely feels like this record had a thematic element. Did you notice that?

Boyd: I’ve really only, in the past couple of months, started to pick up on a couple of these things. It will be some time before a larger, more cohesive unifying theme reveals itself to me. But some of the themes that have come up, some of the thru-lines, are around aging, obsolescence, themes around paranoia that I’m picking up on, noticing patterns that have been repeated where you’re sort of waking up from repeated patterns, whether psychological or emotional patterns, attempting to want to break them perhaps and the sort of scariness and also the excitement of trying something brand new.

Monica Molinaro: What was exciting to me in listening to the album was sensing some frustration. It gave a great energy to your vocals and the guitar and bass parts really stuck out to me too.

Mikey and Ben came into full Mikey and Ben formation when we were writing this. Everything Mikey showed was like, “Check this out,” all these boner riffs. It was fun to hear what they kept coming up with over and over again. I think if anything the process of writing this album was probably the hardest on me because what I was going through in my personal space, but also Dave Sardy, who produced the record, did not take it easy on me as a singer and lyricist. He was like, “Yeah, you’re awesome, man, but try that again and how about again and again and one more time.” We just chipped away at it until it was as awesome as it could be. But I’m actually really happy with how it ended up, so hopefully our fans will feel the same way.

Baltin: Do you feel like you also have more of an appreciation for this period of creativity having gone through ups and downs?

Boyd: Mikey and I have been talking a lot about it in the past few weeks as we’ve been finishing the record and talking to people a little bit about it and playing it for some close, trusted friends and that’s really where we keep landing, like, “Holy s**t, we have been a band for 26 years and we’re still in love with the process of making album.” As difficult as it can be sometimes it still, at the end of the day, brings a level of joy and creative satisfaction. I’m certain that the challenge inherent in writing music and writing original music and hopefully writing innovative music is something that keeps us coming back to the table.

Baltin: What did you learn about yourself from this album?

Boyd: Working with Dave, he really, really challenged me. I love this dude to the end of the earth, but I would come to the studio and be like, “I did it, check it out, I got this badass chorus.” I’d sing it, lay it down and then go in the studio like, “Check it out, it’s cool, right?” He’d be like, “Hmm, no, I just…” He was just not there with me. And he kept reminding me, “I’m one of your biggest fans, Incubus has meant a lot to me over the years. So I’m coming at producing this album like I am a super fan who gets to finally produce an Incubus record. And I am not letting you get away with anything that’s not amazing.” So, on paper, it’s like, “Right on, man, that’s a great idea.” But the reality of it was holy s**t, he was hard on me. He did not let me sleep on any part. I did every part like a hundred times and he would kind of like brutalize my voice to the point where I would start to lose it towards the end of the day and he’d be like, “Just one more.” Then that was the one he would use. You can hear the strain in my voice on this album. As far as I can tell it’s never really been there. It sounds kind of cool cause he was able to unearth another layer of my voice as a singer. I think it’s a really good producing ethos for any band or artist coming up, work with a producer who knows what you’ve done thus far and has really enjoyed it, but also has really unrealistically high hopes for what you can still achieve.

Molinaro: When you talked about stretching your vocals it made me think of the Beyonce song “Sandcastles,” where she cracks in it. It’s like heart wrenching and it makes you more invested in the music because you can tell it’s really special and meaningful to them.

Boyd: Yeah, there’s something to that. I just heard the song today funnily enough and I heard the same thing. I was like, “Wow, I’ve never heard Beyonce kind of crack, I’ve never heard the grumble in her voice before and it makes me like her more.” It’s interesting because we live in this time of incredible technologies where any person can go into a recording studio and go, “Ah, ah” into a microphone and a producer can turn that into a hit song. So there’s something fascinating about that, but there’s also something that’s lost in that, where we have to remind ourselves sometimes we’re human beings with instruments and we’re making sounds out of nothing. I think that’s something that Dave helped us chip away at hopefully on this record and hopefully our listeners hear the album and pick up on that.

Molinaro: Were there other collaborations or partnerships that were influential to this work besides the Skrillex one?

Boyd: Off the top of my head, no. We’re mostly very insular and mostly everything is in house, kind like a music factory, but also the art and the videos, so it’s all kind of in our close creative family. Maybe it can be limiting sometimes, so we’re always open to inviting new people into our weird polyamorous cult that we have. But, for the most part, it was just us in the man cave creating music.

Molinaro: And was it important to incorporate your thoughts in this political climate?

Boyd: It is definitely one of the most interesting times politically and socially, interesting being the operative term or lack of a better term. I feel like the kind of creative sentiments that are going to be the most beneficial are the ones that are a little bit more lovingly subversive. Yes, there’s the need for open protests, like go into the streets protest. I did the women’s march downtown, it was one of the most beautiful afternoons I’ve ever spent in my city here. I was so proud of Los Angeles, I was so proud that many people could peacefully gather and walk in the streets in opposition to so much of what the coming administration stands for. But, from my point of view, I feel like the types of ideas that are going to be the most lovingly effective and lasting are the ones that people don’t even realize they’re being infected with. So people in Trump country are like, “I love this song.” And they’ll be infected with this kind of west coast ethos.

Baltin: Talk about this tour with Jimmy Eat World, how that pairing came about and what you look for in bands you tour with.

Boyd: You can usually get a sense of that by the kind of music that people are making. I don’t know the guys in Jimmy Eat World very well, I’ve met most of them like in passing. But they’ve always seemed like really rad, genuine dudes that I do very much like their music and I know that they also are doing very well with their new album. So it’s cool, we’ll piggyback with other bands like we did with the Deftones. They were planning on being on tour and we were going on tour so it was like, “Hey, let’s go tandem together forever.”

[myincubusupdate]

How Incubus Got Their Groove Back Steve Baltin , CONTRIBUTOR I write about music and the business of music. Incubus recently released their new single, “Nimble Bastard,” from their forthcoming album 8, due April 21. The album is the band’s first full-length in five years and you can feel how the break has rejuvenated the long-running Southern California quintet. Propelled by producer Dave Sardy, an impromptu collaboration with Skrillex on “Familiar Faces” that came about from their friendship -- Skrillex was just in the studio and decided to work on the song -- and the love they are receiving from their new label, Island, Incubus have delivered a monster rock record, one they cannot wait to take on tour this year with Jimmy Eat World. I have known the Incubus guys for years and over the past few years Monica Molinaro and I have been fortunate to have several in-depth conversations with frontman Brandon Boyd. So when we jump on the phone with him the day after the Grammys it is like reconvening with an old friend. In that spirit he opened up immensely on the state of the band, how Sardy pushed him, Beyonce and how he finds it best to write political songs in these crazy times. Steve Baltin: How is it to go back into the Incubus machine after focusing on your artwork? Brandon Boyd: It helps to have the might of a major label pushing a project and also, being super behind us too. We haven’t experienced this kind of enthusiasm from a record label in a long time, which is so heartwarming just because we put everything we have into what we do. Baltin: It definitely feels like this record had a thematic element. Did you notice that? Boyd: I’ve really only, in the past couple of months, started to pick up on a couple of these things. It will be some time before a larger, more cohesive unifying theme reveals itself to me. But some of the themes that have come up, some of the thru-lines, are around aging, obsolescence, themes around paranoia that I’m picking up on, noticing patterns that have been repeated where you’re sort of waking up from repeated patterns, whether psychological or emotional patterns, attempting to want to break them perhaps and the sort of scariness and also the excitement of trying something brand new. Monica Molinaro: What was exciting to me in listening to the album was sensing some frustration. It gave a great energy to your vocals and the guitar and bass parts really stuck out to me too. Mikey and Ben came into full Mikey and Ben formation when we were writing this. Everything Mikey showed was like, “Check this out,” all these boner riffs. It was fun to hear what they kept coming up with over and over again. I think if anything the process of writing this album was probably the hardest on me because what I was going through in my personal space, but also Dave Sardy, who produced the record, did not take it easy on me as a singer and lyricist. He was like, “Yeah, you’re awesome, man, but try that again and how about again and again and one more time.” We just chipped away at it until it was as awesome as it could be. But I’m actually really happy with how it ended up, so hopefully our fans will feel the same way. Baltin: Do you feel like you also have more of an appreciation for this period of creativity having gone through ups and downs? Boyd: Mikey and I have been talking a lot about it in the past few weeks as we’ve been finishing the record and talking to people a little bit about it and playing it for some close, trusted friends and that’s really where we keep landing, like, “Holy s**t, we have been a band for 26 years and we’re still in love with the process of making album.” As difficult as it can be sometimes it still, at the end of the day, brings a level of joy and creative satisfaction. I’m certain that the challenge inherent in writing music and writing original music and hopefully writing innovative music is something that keeps us coming back to the table. Baltin: What did you learn about yourself from this album? Boyd: Working with Dave, he really, really challenged me. I love this dude to the end of the earth, but I would come to the studio and be like, “I did it, check it out, I got this badass chorus.” I’d sing it, lay it down and then go in the studio like, “Check it out, it’s cool, right?” He’d be like, “Hmm, no, I just…” He was just not there with me. And he kept reminding me, “I’m one of your biggest fans, Incubus has meant a lot to me over the years. So I’m coming at producing this album like I am a super fan who gets to finally produce an Incubus record. And I am not letting you get away with anything that’s not amazing.” So, on paper, it’s like, “Right on, man, that’s a great idea.” But the reality of it was holy s**t, he was hard on me. He did not let me sleep on any part. I did every part like a hundred times and he would kind of like brutalize my voice to the point where I would start to lose it towards the end of the day and he’d be like, “Just one more.” Then that was the one he would use. You can hear the strain in my voice on this album. As far as I can tell it’s never really been there. It sounds kind of cool cause he was able to unearth another layer of my voice as a singer. I think it’s a really good producing ethos for any band or artist coming up, work with a producer who knows what you’ve done thus far and has really enjoyed it, but also has really unrealistically high hopes for what you can still achieve. Molinaro: When you talked about stretching your vocals it made me think of the Beyonce song “Sandcastles,” where she cracks in it. It’s like heart wrenching and it makes you more invested in the music because you can tell it’s really special and meaningful to them. Boyd: Yeah, there’s something to that. I just heard the song today funnily enough and I heard the same thing. I was like, “Wow, I’ve never heard Beyonce kind of crack, I’ve never heard the grumble in her voice before and it makes me like her more.” It’s interesting because we live in this time of incredible technologies where any person can go into a recording studio and go, “Ah, ah” into a microphone and a producer can turn that into a hit song. So there’s something fascinating about that, but there’s also something that’s lost in that, where we have to remind ourselves sometimes we’re human beings with instruments and we’re making sounds out of nothing. I think that’s something that Dave helped us chip away at hopefully on this record and hopefully our listeners hear the album and pick up on that. Molinaro: Were there other collaborations or partnerships that were influential to this work besides the Skrillex one? Boyd: Off the top of my head, no. We’re mostly very insular and mostly everything is in house, kind like a music factory, but also the art and the videos, so it’s all kind of in our close creative family. Maybe it can be limiting sometimes, so we’re always open to inviting new people into our weird polyamorous cult that we have. But, for the most part, it was just us in the man cave creating music. Molinaro: And was it important to incorporate your thoughts in this political climate? Boyd: It is definitely one of the most interesting times politically and socially, interesting being the operative term or lack of a better term. I feel like the kind of creative sentiments that are going to be the most beneficial are the ones that are a little bit more lovingly subversive. Yes, there’s the need for open protests, like go into the streets protest. I did the women’s march downtown, it was one of the most beautiful afternoons I’ve ever spent in my city here. I was so proud of Los Angeles, I was so proud that many people could peacefully gather and walk in the streets in opposition to so much of what the coming administration stands for. But, from my point of view, I feel like the types of ideas that are going to be the most lovingly effective and lasting are the ones that people don’t even realize they’re being infected with. So people in Trump country are like, “I love this song.” And they’ll be infected with this kind of west coast ethos. Baltin: Talk about this tour with Jimmy Eat World, how that pairing came about and what you look for in bands you tour with. Boyd: You can usually get a sense of that by the kind of music that people are making. I don’t know the guys in Jimmy Eat World very well, I’ve met most of them like in passing. But they’ve always seemed like really rad, genuine dudes that I do very much like their music and I know that they also are doing very well with their new album. So it’s cool, we’ll piggyback with other bands like we did with the Deftones. They were planning on being on tour and we were going on tour so it was like, “Hey, let’s go tandem together forever.”