Vegas solo gig gives Incubus DJ an opportunity to ‘do it crazy’
Thirty years of spinning records, nearly 20 years of touring with Incubus and firsthand experience of the highs and lows of the music industry have more than prepared Chris Kilmore for a solo spot in the heart of Las Vegas.
Since age 6, he has been playing some sort of musical instrument. His mom introduced Kilmore to piano lessons in first grade, he said, which was “the most amazing thing in the world.”
Everything came naturally after that.
“Then I ran into turntables,” he said.
Taking a break from relocating from one home in Los Angeles to another earlier this month, the 43-year-old recounted his climb to alt-rock fame.
After moving to Washington, D.C., to study communications in the late 90s, he graduated from George Washington University with his bachelor’s degree.
It was time to put his talents and education to work, and Hollywood was calling his name. Kilmore moved there in 1998, right after graduation, and never looked back.
“I was in Hollywood living paycheck to paycheck,” he said. Because of botched management and record contract issues, Kilmore’s first L.A. band didn’t work out.
Then, he got an invite to audition for a band he’d never heard of: Incubus.
“I didn’t know who they were,” he recalled.
Members of the Calabasas, California, alt-rock band — Brandon Boyd, Mije Einziger and Jose Pasillas — were looking for a turntablist to tour with them up and down the coast for a week.
The seasoned musician clicked instantly with the other men.
“We just sat around and talked,” he said, about conspiracy theories, aliens and favorite foods.
Then they jammed.
“Their jaws just kinda dropped,” Kilmore recalled.
It was a Friday, and by the following weekend, he said, he received the tour and rehearsal schedules. Quickly, Kilmore realized the rehearsal schedule interfered with his personal one.
After missing the first practice to spend time with his girlfriend, Kilmore said he was forced to learn 18 songs in less than 48 hours.
It was not a challenge, he said.
“It’s just what I knew to do,” he said, reinforcing that he has always DJ’d.
He wasn’t thinking about the future, he said: “I was kinda young and dumb back then.”
Nineteen years later, the turntablist and keyboardist is still with the group.
Hearing their first hit song, “Pardon Me,” opened Kilmore’s eyes to the idea that he and his bandmates could make a living playing music.
“We all were together,” he said, when the song debuted on L.A.’s KROQ radio station in 1999.
At the top of the 5 o’clock hour, the then-unknown musicians sat in a golf course parking lot with the windows and doors of their cars open listening to themselves.
“It was huge for us,” Kilmore said. The song went to No. 3 on the charts.
“This was it,” he said.
The band’s next two singles took it to No. 2 and then No. 1 that same year.
“We were on the scene,” he said. “There was no stopping.”
They were also on tour.
“We were touring in an abandoned trailer when I first got with Incubus,” Kilmore said with a laugh.
It would be a nearly decade before the band and its tour bus ran out of gas. In 2008, the men decided to take a break.
“Brandon was running out of stuff to write about,” he said. But Kilmore tried to keep his hand in the now-struggling music industry.
“I can’t sit home and twiddle my thumbs,” he said.
But things had changed.
“Nobody sells records anymore,” Kilmore observed.
Record labels are extremely invasive and there’s a lot less money to be made.
“It’s extremely different,” he said, citing shorter attention spans for the lack of consumer desire for full-length albums.
Kilmore continued to write music and started to tour solo.
Inspired by his self-described “random” taste in music, Kilmore would make fake songs that sometimes took him outside the rock genre — music just for the sake of making music.
“I have a lot of funny songs,” he said.
When he’s in Vegas, he says he plays to a different crowd and keeps his silly originals to himself. Admittedly, he’s a little bit out of his element.
“When I go to Vegas, I play all the cool stuff and do it crazy,” he said. The cool stuff: hip-hop, electronic and rock music.
He’s usually here for Memorial Day weekend, he said, because the holiday falls around the same time as a friend’s birthday. He likes to “get the whole crew together and rage.”
This year is no different.
On Saturday, Kilmore will take over the tables at the Hard Rock Hotel’s Center Bar. There’s no cover, and the show starts at 11 p.m.
Those who can’t make it to the show but still want to hear the DJ’s sounds, fret not. Kilmore promises the band that made him famous will be putting out new music by next year.
Contact Kimberly De La Cruz at kdelacruz@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5244. Find her on Twitter: @KimberlyinLV.
