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L.A. RECORD finds itself in the unexpected position of talking to guitarist and composer Michael Einziger, who is collaborating with Terry Riley tonight but who is in Incubus most of the rest of his life, which is a magnification of what it would be like to find out David Hasselhoff is truly and deeply into the Monks. This interview by Dan Collins.

You got to go see the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. What was that like?
Michael Einziger: It was outrageous! I don’t even know how to describe what it’s like to be inside a machine like that. It’s kind of like the culmination of all the technology that we have and some of the smartest people in the world. It’s kind of funny because they can’t get the thing to work! But it’s really a monumental thing they’re doing. It’s going to reveal some really profound things about the nature of matter. And stuff like that.
Were there any-time traveling saboteurs from the future on the tour with you?
Michael Einziger: Ha ha! Nothing like that, but what most people don’t realize about what they’re doing there is that the way to solve our energy problems is really by understanding how matter behaves, and a large part of that is understanding what it’s made up of. And once we have a better understanding of that, we can use that knowledge to learn how to generate electricity-energy-power in ways that are not going to effect the environment in the way we have been with fossil fuels. The implications of the work they’re doing there are huge, and it’s unfortunate that all people hear about is ‘potential black holes,’ and ‘these crazy scientists wasting people’s money.’ I wish people could realize that our future absolutely one-hundred percent depends on the things they’re doing there.
It’s rare in this day and age to hear a musician get weepy-eyed about quantum physics, much less studying it at Harvard as you are. But the greats of classical music did love their math—is there something about the scientific mathematical mindset that helps make good music and vice versa?
Michael Einziger: It’s really just about organization. And music is the exact same thing as math—it’s about relationships and symmetries and groups. They’re all mirror images of each other. Studying physics and studying music—they make up the fabric of the world we live in, and it’s really not any different than studying music, or history. It’s all part of the world we live in.
That sounds a bit like a Grand Unified Theory. If music mirrors science, can we use music as a model to help bridge the gap where particle physics and astrophysics fall short of meeting? If quantum mechanics is like Screaming Jay Hawkins and astrophysics is Radiohead, maybe we can find a theory to connect them by studying, say, the Flaming Lips?
Michael Einziger: Well, music on a hippie philosophical level is a great unifier, and I guess the goal in all of physics and all of science is just the unification of things—to figure out ways that different pieces of the puzzle fit together. Because they have to fit together because we see them fitting together in the world. There’s great music, and there’s music that sucks, but it’s all important because without one, you wouldn’t have the other. I mean, everybody can appreciate the power of music. It sort of amplifies life in many different ways. I’ve chosen to make my life based on it. It’s really about solving problems—fitting things together because I think they go together, regardless of whether anybody else thinks they go together.
It seems your composition for Saturday, Forced Curvature of Reflective Surfaces, is trying to piece together the feel of the architecture of Disney Hall with the sounds within it.
Michael Einziger: The instrumentation is twelve string players, which are all violinists and cellists, and I added double bass to it at the last minute. And then the twelve guitarists. What I wanted to do with the piece is to create these spatial curvatures, and the way that the string instruments work is that they don’t have frets. They’re not limited in their pitch. They create continuously curving pitches. I wanted the sound of guitar, but without the sound of the space being defined by perfect pitches. The frets imprison the ability of the player to bend the notes pitch-wide the way a string player would.
Could you do that with a beer bottle?
Michael Einziger: I have all the guitar players using a slide, but in addition, I’m having them use guitars—made by the company Moog—that continuously vibrate all the strings simultaneously. So the slide is used and the state of the Moog is continuous. There’s no picks.
Sort of like Robert Fripp on an Eno album.
Michael Einziger: Yeah—that’s sort of what I was going for, a dissonance between the timbre of guitar and violin.
And a difference in musical tradition. A combination of classically-geared instruments and blues- or rock-oriented ones.
Michael Einziger: It’s not going to sound like either of those things. It’s going to sound different than anything I’ve heard. I wrote this because I really want to hear what this sound sounds like. All these instruments playing pitches that are close to each other, but moving around to different places and different destinations—sort of connecting thoughts. Certain pitches will move through each other and pass each other. Some will meet up in unison with each other. And I think it will create this blanket of strange creatures that I’ve never heard before. And I just want to hear what it sounds like!
Will it be tough to hear it in the middle of the storm like that?
Michael Einziger: It’s going to be really hard for me because I’m not a very good sight-reader of music. I’ve gotten much better at it over the last year and a half that I’ve been studying, but still, I haven’t been playing guitar at all. So I’m going to kind of plod my way through the score and rely on the fact that the people around me are much more proficient.
You won’t be alone. I interviewed Terry Riley yesterday, and he said he needed to practice on the organ before the show because it was daunting. Are you nervous about having to compete against people like Terry Riley and the Kronos Quartet? Are you afraid they’ll outshine you?
Michael Einziger: They will definitely outshine me. I have nothing to offer compared to what they have to offer. I mean, I’m really honored to be able to take part in something with them. I’ve seen the Kronos Quartet perform maybe a half dozen times. Terry Riley is a genius. I’ve only recently become aware of his significance as a composer, but what a monumental guy. What an amazing musician. And what’s funny is I got a phone call from Matmos the other day, and they didn’t know what they were gonna do and I didn’t know what I was gonna do and they were worried that I was going to show up with some score and wonder what they were doing there because they couldn’t read music or whatever. It sounds like we’re all kind of in the same boat—maybe with the exception of the Kronos Quartet because I know those guys know how to read music!
When you’re at Harvard talking about this stuff, do your classmates get where you’re going? No jokes about ‘string theory’ or anything?
Michael Einziger: The classes I’ve taken are diverse—history majors, economics majors…
What’s the most Real Genius moment you’ve had at Harvard? Has anybody ever frozen the hallway floor with weird chemicals that later dissipate into vapor without a trace?
Michael Einziger: Well, right when I got there… there’s this professor named Howard Georgi, who’s a pretty monumental physicist. He’s the House Master of one of the student ‘Houses,’ sort of this Harry Potter thing we have going on at Harvard. And so I went to go meet with him in his office, and there was a kid sitting in his office—I’m pretty sure he was from India—and he was blind. And we were going over some mathematical proofs, and Professor Georgi was going through this equation with this student, and the student was doing the entire equation in his head. I just couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t even visualize it with it being written out on a board, but let alone only being able to use my mind to do some kind of mathematical proof that was more complicated than anything I’ve ever seen—that kind of gave me a glimpse at what I was going to see at Harvard!
Does the money you make from Incubus cover tuition? Or did you have to get a scholarship?
Michael Einziger: Ha ha—no, it covered my tuition, and then some. This whole being-in-a-band thing makes being a student much more comfortable. The difference between me and the other students I’m in class with is that I do take it seriously, but I know I don’t have to be there doing it, and my livelihood is not dependent on whether or not I do well in these classes. It actually makes learning fun for me. It’s the first time I’ve ever really enjoyed being in a classroom ever. It’s been a great experience for me being able to learn completely based on my own desire.
So you make a lot of money from Incubus?
Michael Einziger: Wow—yeah. We’ve been doing it a long time, and had a lot of success as a band financially for a long time. For like ten years. And I feel like we’re getting away with something every day. I wake up in the morning, and I can’t figure out how in the world… we’re mystified at our success! We’re all really appreciative and thankful.
The things you’re talking about with your composition for Saturday sound so much more intelligent than what I’ve heard from Incubus. Is this going to be a new direction for that band as well? Or is Incubus going to keep doing Incubus stuff?
Michael Einziger: Incubus is a punk band [dakjfhds!??!—ed.] and there’s nothing that will ever replace, you know, picking up a guitar and rocking the fuck out. All the intelligent classical music in the world will never trump that. They all just represent their own thing.
True, but Brian Eno did eventually leave Roxy Music. You don’t think you’ve totally outgrown the simplicity of Incubus?
Michael Einziger: Not at all. We’ve always just done whatever we’ve wanted, and I think we’ll continue to do that as long as we can. Because it’s fun! We enjoy it, and we have a good time doing it, and I can run around and do these other creative directions. And I don’t necessarily want to make classically influenced rock songs or anything.
You’re not going to become ELP? Or ELO?
Michael Einziger: Ha ha, I don’t think so.
But don’t you think you could really stretch what you’re doing with Incubus in new and better directions? Like, when the Flaming Lips started, they were like a more down and dirty ‘real’ rock band that seemed to fit in somehow with the grunge era, yet they really branched out and became this other thing. Even more so with Radiohead, who initially got popular with ‘Creep.’ Do you see other bands and think, ‘Wow, we could really branch out?’
Michael Einziger: I’m trying to think of something profound to say about that, but I really, honestly have no idea what kind of music I’ll want to make in two years, or even six months. I really have no idea. It’s easy to see that in other groups. I remember the Flaming Lips very well, when they first came out… ‘She don’t use jelly… she don’t use cheese…’ I loved it! I thought that song was fucking awesome back then, and they were very ahead of their time, and so was Beck. And I don’t know! I don’t know if we have any contributions like that whatsoever. We’re just a bunch of kids making music in a garage, and it somehow worked out for the better in the last twelve years. And fuck, I don’t know—I just don’t feel like I have any concept of that with my own music at all.
One of the physicists at the Large Hadron Collider—Kate McAlpine—did a rap about the LHC on YouTube and it got five million views! Would you ever collaborate with her on something?
Michael Einziger: That’s awesome! You know what? Anything to popularize science! If the next wave of my musical existence is doing cheesy science infomercials, I think that would be pretty sweet!

MICHAEL EINZIGER WITH TERRY RILEY, THE KRONOS QUARTET AND MATMOS ON SAT., NOV. 21, AT EUREKA! THE WEST COAST LEFT COAST FESTIVAL OPENING EVENT AT WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL, 111 S. GRAND AVE., DOWNTOWN. 9:30 PM / $30-$70 / ALL AGES. LAPHIL.COM.