Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Incubus Guitarist Michael Einziger

I recently interviewed Michael Einziger on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is the co-founder of one of America's most successful bands. Michael Eizinger is the lead guitarist and songwriter for Incubus, which has sold more than 23 million albums around the world. Mike, thank you for joining us.

Michael: It's my pleasure. 

Adam: It's always good to have a fellow native of the San Fernando Valley on the podcast. You went to Calabasas High School and like so many other high school students across America and across the world, you started a band with your fellow classmates. Most high school bands disband long before the point of reaching any kind of commercial success. But, Incubus has had four top 5 albums and one number one album. What were the most important variables that allowed Incubus to become such an enormous success?

Michael: It's a complicated question to answer. But, I think that one through-line that goes all the way back to the beginning of the band was why we did it in the first place, which was, someone would have to stop us from doing it. As a musician, as a curious sort of young person, we were gonna write those songs. And we were gonna play the shows. And we were going to explore what it was to be a band, no matter what anyone said or thought. And that type of belief in oneself, you need to have that. It's a requirement because it's so hard to do all these things. And a lot of people would look at a lot of the things that we did early on as a band and be like, oh, that's such a pain, or it's so much work or whatever. But to us, we were just having fun being kids. And having a great time doing the thing that said, to me, it was like playing video games to another kid. You have to make them stop. It's like, get off your computer and go to bed. Well, that was how I was playing guitar. Somebody had to make me stop doing that and anything associated with it, whether it was learning how to make recordings, or playing shows, or learning how all these things worked as a young person. The motivation to figure all that out was something profound to me. And it all seems so logical to me at the time, as we were doing these things in the earliest stages, learning how to write songs, learning how to make recordings, learning how to promote our band, make flyers, and put on these little concerts. If we do all these things, people are going to show up, and it'll be fun for everybody and more people will come the next time. And that's what happened. There's an X factor that I can't really put a finger on because lots of bands do that and do those things. But like I said, it seems so logical to me at the time. And the older that I get now, the more I can't believe what we were able to do. It's pretty crazy to look back on it, to be honest. 

Adam: But when you look back on it, and when you talk about how you were able to do it, there are a number of really important lessons that you share with listeners that are applicable universally. Having incredible passion for whatever it is that you do, having a deep sense of self-belief. So often, our biggest impediment to success is ourselves, our doubt in ourselves. And in your case, and in the case of your band, you weren't held back by any kind of self doubt, you went forward with 100% confidence. And that allowed you to focus on your music, to focus on promoting your music and to just have fun. And by doing all of that you were able to become your best selves and become the kind of success that you have been able to become. 

Michael: Absolutely, it was that period of time for me, let's call it age 15 through 20, was a period of reinvention or just invention, if you will. I guess, before I became a guy in a band or a musician or whatever you want to call it, I was really into snowboarding and skating and surfing. That was really more of my identity as a young person, somebody who's really athletic in that way. And we do all these things that build our identity. And then I was in an accident when I was a kid. When I was about 14 I was in an auto accident. They took all that away from me. It took that athleticism away from me, at least for a period of time. I was injured and I broke my back. It was not a fun experience as a kid but that's also what I credit that period of time for my discovery of music and how much I loved it. So, in the absence of my ability to be athletic, I started playing guitar, and really delving much more deeply into that. And shortly after that was when we started the band. So, like you mentioned, self-belief is everything. 

Adam: And I can't tell you how many people I've talked to, whether it's young, aspiring artists or people starting businesses or whatever. Oftentimes, it's easy to get to this point where you want to look to other people to fill in the blanks for you. Obviously, you want to get help figuring out what your vision is. But ultimately, everything really needs to emanate from the self, it needs to come from you. If you want people to follow your vision, you have to be a leader and proponent. You're your best advocate for that vision. 

Michael: So, maybe I had things in my life that enabled me or were supporting my ability to do that. But that's also one of the great things about starting a band, you're not in it alone, you've got your band members to work with you and help you build the vision. But I say it a lot, I feel like being in a band taught me much of what I ever needed to learn about building anything, really, team-building and leadership and cooperation and teamwork and all of these things. They're just life skills. But the thing is, I didn't know I was learning all that. I learned it all because I was doing a thing that just came naturally and that I loved so much with my friends. So, I didn't even realize I was building a business. I had no idea I was doing that. I learned that I actually didn't even realize I was doing that until much later down the road. So go figure, building a business on accident, building a big global business by accident. I wouldn't say it was by accident, but maybe accidents is the wrong word, maybe it's more like, I don't even know, it was just fun. It was hard. But it was fun. But that wasn't the goal. The goal wasn't to build the business, the business was like a consequence of what we were doing, a positive consequence. 

Adam: And that can be the best way to do it. By leaning into what you're passionate about, by leaning into what you're great at, by focusing on your superpower. And by ignoring the rest, by ignoring any kind of doubt, by ignoring any kind of voices from the outside or from the inside. That might tell you what about this, what about that. You didn't have any of that. You shut out any kind of noise and just push forward. And a couple other things that you shared that I loved, you spoke about the car accident you went through at a very young age. And all too often in life, we go through setbacks. I can only imagine at the age of 14, what an extremely difficult setback. I remember when I was around that age, I was 12 years old, and I was playing football and I broke my ankle. And I loved playing sports. And it was just devastating for me. In your case, instead of sitting around and crying, you moved on to the next thing. And you said to yourself, you know what, I can't play sports right now, I can't do what I love doing. But I'm gonna instead figure out what else I can do. And that led to this incredible discovery of being unbelievably talented in music. A couple of other points you shared around the importance of understanding yourself, before you can effectively lead others you need to be able to lead your own life. Before other people are going to follow you, you need to become someone worth following. So much in there that I think listeners, no matter what they're doing, can take away from it.

Michael: Yeah, I had a friend relatively recently who asked me for some advice. Someone who's an artist, someone who's a songwriter, really talented singer, really beautiful. She's got this incredible voice. And at the end of it, this discussion that I had with her, her big takeaway was I just need somebody to give me a record deal. Someone just needs to give me a record deal. And if you think like that, you'll go nowhere. You have to give somebody a reason to give you a record deal. 

Adam: You just said you need to have a vision for what you're trying to do. And this person was frustrated, I understand the industry can be really frustrating. And it's like, well, if you can just give me this record deal, then I can go out and build my vision. It's like, no, that won't work. You need to build your vision and then they will come to you. I think it's that way with anything. It doesn't matter what it is. You have to build the initiative yourself. And everything else will emanate from that if you have the conviction and the stamina and all the other things. There's no question about whether or not it's going to be hard. You just have to accept that off the bat. Everything is hard. One of my guests on this podcast was Brian Dawkins, one of the greatest defensive players in the history of the NFL, and something that Brian shared with listeners is the importance of having a vision for your own life. In his words, if you don't have a vision for your own life, someone else will. And as he said, I can guarantee you that their vision for your life is going to be a lot more beneficial to them than it will be for you. Have a vision, take control of your life. And by doing that, you'll be all that much more successful.

Michael: And the other thing that's hard to put into words is even having to voice the desire or the need to create your own vision. In my case, no one ever told me that. I just did for whatever reason, it was something that I was just directed towards naturally. I realized, maybe that's unique. I'm not sure. I always thought that everybody was just like me when I was a kid, or that people saw things in similar ways to me, but I didn't even realize that's what I was doing at the time. It's the same with other things that I've done in my life, where I've reinvented myself. Those reinventions happened as a result of my own inner process. But I never did that intentionally. And it's also that way with writing music. If you ask any of the guys that are in my band how we wrote all of these songs, etc., that we weren't trying to do any of it. We were trying to write songs, but they weren't conceived of in a way that was like, oh, we're gonna write one song that sounds like this. And then we'll write another one. None of that was mapped out. We just did what was natural to us. And somehow it all worked out. But I'm still dumbfounded by that. That still blows my mind. But it felt, like I said, it felt so logical as it was happening. It's really tough to put into words sometimes. But I was never bored as a kid. And I never really get bored as an adult, either. 

Adam: You spoke about the period in your life where you discovered that you had this incredible passion for music and potential to be a great guitarist. How did you take that skill set to the next level? What did you do to become such an elite guitarist?

Michael: Well, the guitar for me, was really just a tool in the larger set of tools that I needed to figure out how to use in order to achieve goals that I had. It really didn't matter that it was the guitar. It started with the guitar. When I was younger, actually, prior to playing guitar, I picked up the piano first and learned how to play drums at an early age. I just knew that I liked music. And then I picked up the guitar when I was about 12. And it became like a puzzle. I was trying to solve, like, a Rubik's Cube type thing. I wanted to learn how this whole thing, this guitar instrument, fits together. How do you play on it? Like you're playing on a jungle gym or something. I wanted to learn it from that perspective. And so it was fascinating to me for those first few years in that way, where I wanted to learn how to play all the songs on it, which I did. But then, when we started the band in high school in 10th grade, actually, specifically, it was like, oh, this guitar is a piece. It's a cog in a wheel in a larger wheel. And I was really curious how songs fit together and how pieces of music or how different instrumentations layered in on top of itself to form a unit that became a song. And how a vocal and a melody would fit into all that. Then it became this orchestra, which was different. My interest changed from the guitar specifically, much more profoundly, to how all of these other instruments fit together. And the fact that I was holding a guitar really didn't matter. It was just the thing that I used to express myself, in that set of circumstances. I was the guy holding the guitar and another guy had a microphone and someone else was on the drums. And we formed this superhero. That was our goal, to form this superhero and play this music that we conceived. And then further from that, once we got to this place where we can play songs, versus started with covering other people's songs. Then we started writing our own songs. And once we had those, it's like alright, well now what do we do? We had to record those songs. So, I got a job at a recording studio. Because I wanted to learn how all that worked. I was only 16, barely 16, barely could drive. So, as soon as I was able to, I wanted to get right into the process of figuring out how do you make an album? How do you record a song? What is that all about? And that was fascinating to me. And I got a job at a great recording studio in Santa Monica called Fourth Street Recording. The studio had been owned by the Beach Boys in the past and this is a really cool little small recording studio. And that process exposed me to all sorts of things, all sorts of different artists. I've really learned that creative process inside and out. And it's all I wanted to do was be in that studio and write and record music. And hold it outward from there, even further than I started through being in the studio like that. I started meeting people that worked for record labels because artists that were signed to record labels would come into the studio. And then I'd start getting invited to go and people would come visit me in the office and I ended up getting recruited by Interscope Records, one of their artists was in our recording studio. And to me at the time, and this would have been like 1993, 1994 record labels, to me were a magical place where unicorns and fairies and rainbows and there were these mythological places because I had never been exposed to that. I just knew that they were the home to all these huge artists that I grew up listening to. So the opportunity to visit one of these places was, I just couldn't, it was just mind-boggling to me. So, I ended up getting recruited to Interscope Records, which at the time was a really, really exciting place to be in music. All the death record stuff was happening right then with Tupac and Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. But then, there was a bunch of really great rock music happening too which was Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson and Primus. No doubt there were a lot of artists signed to the label that was really exciting to me as a young person. So, I just found myself in the epicenter of all of this as a 16-year-old, 17-year-old kid, still in high school playing in a band. 

Adam: And you found yourself in the epicenter of because you put yourself out there, you didn't put yourself in a box, you don't label yourself in a certain way. You are a person with intense curiosity and you follow your curiosity. And another important point that you made for listeners, which has been essential to your success, has been the importance of cultivating relationships up and down the industry. You mentioned your experience cultivating relationships with other artists. You've been bandmates and business partners with Brandon Boyd for more than 30 years now. And all five Incubus band members have been together for almost 20 years. You've also had successful collaborations with so many other major artists, Pharrell Williams, Hans Zimmer, Avicii, the list goes on. And in your experience, what are the keys to building and sustaining, winning relationships?

Michael: I think that building those relationships is key to everything. In every industry, it doesn't matter what you're doing. Relationships are so so so important. And you don't want to do that in a way that's not authentic to who you are. But at the same time, I've also noticed other friends of mine, other people trying to build things, genuinely not recognizing the magnitude of certain opportunities or opportunities to build relationships. So, I remember at a certain point, realizing that not everybody was good at doing that, or not everybody recognized when a relationship was a valuable thing, in terms of whatever it is that you're doing or building. Obviously, friendships are so valuable to humanity, but personal relationships build everything in this world. So, it turned out that a lot of the people that I met in the early part of my music career as a young teenager, a lot of those people are now running the music industry. They were interns back when I first met them and now they're the presidents of huge record labels and publishing companies. And it's really interesting. And we've maintained our friendships over the years. And it's really the key to building anything. And your network is what you lean on when you decide you want to build something new, or what you do, who you call, and that aspect of it is critically important. I can't stress it enough.

Adam: You and your wife have co-founded two different technology companies Mixhalo and Versacolor technologies. You've really been an entrepreneur your whole life. As we talked about an accidental entrepreneur, as the co-founder of this unbelievably successful band, what sparked your interest in entrepreneurship? And what are the best lessons that you've learned from your career in music that have been applicable to your career?

Michael: As an entrepreneur, building things is challenging in a lot of different ways. And if you think you understand the challenges that you're facing, when you build something new, the challenges are always different than you think they're going to be. So, you get thrown all these curveballs and how you handle them is really critical to how successful you're going to be, or how far you're gonna go doing it. The number one takeaway from what I learned in music, is that you really have to just love what you're doing. Because there are going to be a lot of times when it's not that fun. You have to love it so much to get you through all the times when it's really hard. Or there could be some aspect of it that you love so much, but other aspects of it that you love less. But the aspects that you love have to outweigh the aspects of it that you don't like or are frustrated by or whatever because everything is hard, it just is. So, you're going to be challenged, you're going to be pushed to the brink of your sanity. But if you really truly love what you're doing and are driven by that curiosity, it will override everything.

Adam: I could not agree with you more. And something that I share with audiences that I speak to, is whether you're trying to figure out what you want to do as an entrepreneur, whether you're trying to figure out what you want to do with your career, or with anything else in any other context, you want to try to check three boxes. You want to do something that you love, you want to do something that you're great at, and you want to do something that allows you to make a positive impact in the lives of others. And if you can check all three of those boxes, you know you’ve found it. You know that's it. And it doesn't only need to be one thing. In your case, it could be starting a technology company, it could be playing the guitar, it could be collaborating with other artists on new projects. But as long as you're doing something that checks all three of those boxes, you're going to be successful, you're going to power through times bad. You can wake up at five o'clock in the morning and keep working until you literally have to fall asleep. And the next morning, you're going to wake up fired up to do it again.

Michael: Yeah, I totally agree with all that. And also emphasizing the importance of being brave, because that's something that, I think, doesn't really get addressed a lot. Just having the courage to reinvent yourself and get over any imposter syndrome that you might have. I've spent my whole life doing things that I'm not qualified to do, that I shouldn't be able to start a networking technology company, I have no training in that. I shouldn't be able to start a biotechnology company, a biopharmaceutical development company, I have no background in any of these things. But yet, I've figured out how to do them. And you really just have to, as with so many things in life, you have to be willing to just put yourself out there and be vulnerable. And people are going to criticize what you do. And you have to not care. Or maybe not caring isn't the right way of explaining it. But you just have to have confidence in your own vision. Because if you don't have it for yourself, other people aren't going to. So, bravery can get you very far in life. I've even seen bravery with no talent, yet people very far in life, or with modest talent, let's say. But if you're talented and brave, that combination of things, there's a lot you can explore in the world with those attributes. 

Adam: Which leads me to the next question. Something that fans love about Incubus is the unique sound, the unique voice, which I would imagine, is a byproduct of talent and bravery. And all too often, we feel compelled to do what others are doing, to work inside the box, to suppress the things that make us different rather than leaning into them. We tend to mistake our uniqueness as a liability rather than understanding it as an asset. And in your case, in the case of Incubus, you've been able to marry the talent with bravery to become this incredible asset. How did you individually and as a group come to this understanding? How did you develop an understanding of your unique voice and develop a confidence to go with it? And how can anyone listening do the same? 

Michael: That question doesn't have an easy answer, because I don't know that we did have that realization and we certainly would recognize that. And I don't know why this is. But when we were really young, we would play these little backyard parties. And we would play at these tiny little clubs and they would just be packed and people would be going crazy. And then another band would go on after us. And the place would just empty out and there'd be nobody, and there'd be no energy. And for some reason, people gravitated towards us. And we recognized it. I don't know if we understood. I don't know if we felt like we understood why it was happening. But we certainly acknowledged that it was happening. And that it seemed to be unique. And that when we did the thing that we did that just came naturally to us, people liked it. And it was fun. That was the biggest thing. It was really fun to us. We loved it. Like, I remember the first time Incubus ever played at a club in Hollywood. It was at the Roxy, which is a club on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood and West Hollywood and a famous club. And it was like a random Tuesday or Wednesday night. And it was probably eight o'clock at night. But I remember being on that stage and playing. And just thinking very clearly to myself, I love doing this, I want to do this for the rest of my life, this is so much fun. And just having that realization and feeling that profound sense of joy that came from doing that. I don't know. Anything that makes you feel like that, you're gonna want to do and you're gonna work hard to do it, at least from my perspective. And that was what drove everything. Just this desire to do that and anything associated with it. In order to do that, you got to write and record songs. So we did that too. And that all contributed to the larger vision that was happening. I just think having that primary driving force of inner joy that comes from this thing that you do, I think it gives you an unfair advantage over maybe other people who are doing things that they're not inspired by. It makes sense to me. But it's, again, some of these things are difficult to put into words. 

Adam: I love that. Whether it's as a songwriter or as an entrepreneur, how are you best able to access your creativity? And what advice do you have for anyone listening on how to foster an environment that optimizes creativity?

Michael: Creativity, to me, is all coming from one place. It's all the same. It doesn't matter whether or not it's musically creative, or creative in terms of some entrepreneurial venture, it all emanates from this pattern recognition that applies equally to me. As a musician, when I'm trying to write a song, I'm, in a strange way, looking for certain symmetries and asymmetries and patterns and things that repeat at certain times and things that don't repeat at certain times. There's a method to all of that. But to me, that's applicable to everything I'm looking for. I think it's about achieving a state of flow. That's really what it is when I get into a mindset where I'm creatively problem-solving. How to write a song, for example, it's the same mindset that I'm in when I'm solving any other problem, or attempting to solve any other problem. Whether it's building the right team to accomplish a certain set of objectives or find the right person to join our team or whatever. They're all extensions of the same way of thinking. So, it all fits together. I don't know if it does anybody else, but it does to me. It's interesting in artistic pursuits, I think there can be a tendency for artists, for example, to be tyrannical about their art, when maybe, that works really well for certain artists. And to micromanage the process, maybe that's necessary. And I've seen that if you have a vision for something, and you need it to be done a certain way, then you got to do it. But in terms of creating an environment, where you're building things, and you want people to feel valued, because when people feel valued, genuinely, that's when they're at their best. When people feel like they're really valuable, and feel understood and heard by other people around them, that's when you get the best collaboration. Because collaboration, really, allows you to be a superhero when you've got the right team, and you've got overlapping skill sets that are complementary to each other. And everyone's able to freely contribute to the process. That's when you get the best results. So transparency, and just being kind to your co-workers and people that you're collaborating with. It's so easy for workplaces and for collaborators to go in a negative direction if things get hard. So, you want people to feel like they can be vulnerable. Yeah, maybe the most important thing that I've learned is that you can't always have all the answers. And when you don't have the answers, acting like or pretending like you have all the answers, be vulnerable, be really vulnerable. The more vulnerable you are, it may feel like you're displaying weakness. That's the thing that maybe the tendency to avoid wanting to appear weak in a certain situation, but just the more vulnerable you can be, so the people that are around you, the more quickly the problems will get solved. 

Adam: I believe that, Mike. I'm with you there 110%. Vulnerability - essential to thriving as a leader, essential to building credibility as a leader, essential to building trust. So, I'm with you every step of the way. What can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Michael: I think that's a really good one, is the vulnerable more often. Where, at least if there's a genuine sense of vulnerability, that as a leader, the tendency is to want to project confidence. And you need to be able to do that, obviously. But at the same time, overcoming challenges happens more quickly when you are more, sort of, open about vulnerabilities. Because if you need help, no one knows that you need help until you signal that you need help. So yeah, vulnerability is so important. So so, so important.

Adam: Mike, thank you for all the great advice and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentor. 

Michael: Thanks for having me.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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