Back in 2021, alt-rock hitmakers Incubus had big plans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their album "Morning View," but the COVID-19 pandemic had other plans.

So how about a 23rd anniversary celebration instead? In May, the Southern California five-piece released "Morning View XXIII," a rerecorded version of the 2001 album (a la Taylor Swift — call it "Morning View: Incubus' Version"), and they'll perform it in full on their latest tour, which kicked off last week.

"Morning View" marked the group's commercial peak, and it featured the hit singles "Wish You Were Here" and "Nice to Know You." It's a mixture of moods, from crunching hard rock to melodic, earthy ambient rhythms, and the album and its making — it was recorded in an oceanfront Malibu mansion located on Morning View Drive, hence the album title — holds a special place in the heart of Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd.

We spoke to Boyd, 48, last month from his home in the Santa Monica Mountains about the album and the band's legacy, as well as his admiration of Royal Oak-born actor Bruce Campbell. (Note: Questions and answers have been slightly edited for clarity.)

Q. How do opening nights usually go for you guys? And how do you evaluate them afterward?

A. It's an interesting thing. We've been at this for quite a long time now, and you would think that it would mostly, you know, fit the way an old hat does. And I suppose for the most part, that is the case. But really it's the first handful of shows where we always feel a little bit rusty, no matter how much rehearsal we've had. We could be rehearsing for an entire month, and we'll go into the first show and feel a little bit out of sorts. But the truth is most of the time people can't tell if we're feeling a touch out of sorts, and maybe that's a testament to how long we've actually been at it. And even if we're having, God forbid, a night where we're feeling a little bit rusty, we're able to smile our way through it. We take what we do very seriously, and I've said this millions of times before, but we don't necessarily take ourselves that seriously. So when we make mistakes, they're inevitable. We're not playing to tracks, there's really nothing automated about what you hear when you see us on stage. We have samples we're playing with, and even those are being manipulated live. So what you hear is is five people pooling their talents and bringing them to the show. So for better or worse, it's us.

Q. How has how has Detroit been to Incubus over the years? Do you remember your first time playing here?

A. My earliest memories of playing in Detroit were actually at Pine Knob in the parking lot at Ozzfest, and it would have been 1998. We were on like the super-duper side stage, out amongst the trees. I remember being really excited, like I was playing in Detroit for the first time, and then we were outside amongst pine trees, and I remember it wasn't really what I expected. (Laughs.) I'm sure we played in a bar or two before that show, but the days of touring in a van and trailer, playing every bar in the United States, they're a little bit blurry. Not because I was imbibing or anything, I literally didn't have the time or the energy to sit down and have a drink during that period of time. It was more that we were in this sort of whirlwind opening up for any band that would have us, in bars and sometimes in small theaters, and so I have, like, an impression of that period of time, but specific memories are sort of scarce.

Q. You guys were scheduled to come here in 2020 with 311 before everything shut down. The pandemic altered your plans as a band quite a bit, yeah?

A. Yeah, as with the rest of the world, it threw a wrench into things. We were really looking forward to doing that run with 311, those guys are old friends of ours, and they were one of the first big bands to take us under their wings and bring us out on tour with them, and they were extremely generous with us in the early days of our career. So after all these years, we honestly hope to make that up at some point.

Brandon Boyd of Incubus performs at the Welcome to Rockville Music Festival on May 21, 2023, at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Q. Were you guys always planning to re-record "Morning View?" or were you just planning to do the anniversary tour behind the album? What was the order of events, and might we not have have gotten the rerecorded album had everything not shut down in the pandemic?

A. So many things, I don't even know where to begin, would not have landed the way they did had the world not taken the turn that it did. I don't remember the order of events, though I know that we were musing about doing some kind of 20th anniversary, at the very least, a show of some kind, the way we had done a whole tour around the 20th anniversary of "Make Yourself" in 2019. Shortly after we got home from that run was when everything kind of, you know, went to s---. So trying to parse through the order of events: We were still in a kind of musing stage about doing something similar for "Morning View," but what wound up happening was kind of interesting and cool in its own right. This band is adaptable. I think one of our strengths as a unit is that we have learned to adapt to any number of different circumstances. (During the pandemic) this idea of doing live streams was gaining steam, and the guys in Good Charlotte had their live streaming platform, so we signed up with them to do that. We commandeered the house and living room were we had wrote and recorded "Morning View," and we did a live stream from there, and it seemed to go over really well. So the idea was to put out that recording as a 20th anniversary celebration, and from there, fast forward, we ended up rerecording the entire thing, except for the drums. We kept the drums from the live stream.

Q. Since the release of "Morning View XXIII," the most streamed songs on the album aren't the singles, they're "Echo," "Circles" and "Under My Umbrella." What do you make of that?

A. I can only speculate. I have to assume that some of it is the singles continue to have a life of their own, and the album cuts have always been there, but for whatever reasons, we haven't played them as much live. "Echo" is a song that we've played quite a lot over the years, but the other ones you mentioned, we haven't touched as much. And so when we were coming into the recording process, they kind of felt like they were still new songs — listened to, you know, millions of times by lots of different people, but we never really reimagined them much in the live sphere, like we had done the single so often. So when we got to recording them, they had a freshness to them, and that was fun and we really leaned into that.

Q. I understand you're a bit of a horror movie guy. What types of horror films do you love?

A. I do have a soft spot for horror films. It's not just horror films across the board, there are some caveats in there, but I definitely am a fan. My caveats started to emerge around the era of "Saw" and some of those, like, gratuitously disturbing type horror films. Some of them are great, you know, but some of them feel a little bit unnecessary to me. They don't really like resonate with me as much as, like, the "Evil Dead" trilogy. It still warms my heart to see those, and I find them ingenious in the weirdest possible way. It's hilarious to me that part 2 is essentially a remake of part 1, with a bit more of a budget, and they kept Bruce Campbell. I love that. (Laughs.) But after that trilogy I became a Bruce Campbell fan, my friend and I would geek out over anything he was in, and I still find him to be kind of amazing. He's an incredible pop culture/horror icon. I've never met him but I would really like to, it would be really great to meet him and give him a high five and thank him for bringing a lot of joy and amusement into my life over the years.

Q. What do you take from the experience of going through something like "Morning View" and revisiting it 20 years later? What do you take from the journey and knowing you'll continue to live with "Morning View" even 20 years from now?

A. I imagine if we're still a band that we will be performing songs from "Morning View" probably for the rest of our lives. And it's not a small thing to make something that swaths of people enjoy and continually go back to. What I'm trying to do is remain as much in a place of gratitude for that kind of attention and appreciation towards our art as I know how. I've witnessed quite a few musicians over the years come to land in a place of disdain over their success, so much so that they refuse to play certain songs. And I understand it from a certain perspective, but at the same time it seems terribly foolish to bite the hand that feeds you. So I will do everything in my power to remain as much in that place of gratitude towards the attention and the affection of the listeners, even if it means reinventing the songs, if that's the only way we can stand to play them 20 years from now. As for finding success in music, that's something that the longer I'm engaged in it, the more apparent it is as to how rare and unique the circumstance is. When we were kids — we were only 15 years old when we started this band — I'm sure there's some part of us that had big dreams, but I didn't know what that looked like, so it would be disingenuous for me to say I knew where we were pointing. I really didn't. I just knew it felt amazing and it felt like we were tapping into something that was authentic, and it felt like we were expressing ourselves in a very authentic way. And so we just kept leaning into it, and that's still what we do to this day.

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