Mike Einziger and Brandon Boyd
John Stanton/WireImage
With their band enjoying a year on hiatus, singer Brandon Boyd has enrolled at a Los Angeles-area art college for the fall term, while guitarist Mike Einziger heads to Harvard.
"[I'm going] back to school, to prove to Dad that I'm not a fool," Boyd, 32, tells PEOPLE, borrowing a line from the Adam Sandler comedy Billy Madison, about a man in his 30s who returns to the classroom.
Why now? "I never really had the time in the past 12 years," says Boyd. "I actually left the beginnings of art school to go on tour."
As for Einziger, 32, he was looking for a challenge. "It will be the first time in my whole life that I've ever gone to school because I wanted to go. I'll appreciate it a lot more than I ever did as a kid," says the guitarist, who spent the last year writing his first orchestral composition, which will be performed in Los Angeles next month.
Einziger will study music and science. Boyd will focus on painting and sculpture. Although Boyd's artwork has appeared in Incubus videos and he has published two art books, the singer says he has "a need to humble myself in the presence of other artists who are younger, better and hungrier than I am. I think it will do good things for my ego."
The musicians don't, however, plan to partake in the non-academic side of the college experience. "If I was the old guy trolling for freshman on campus, that would be really weird," laughs Boyd. "I'm probably not going to be experiencing too much of that."
Incubus performs on the VH1 Rock Honors tribute to The Who, which airs Thursday, July 17 at 9 p.m.
• Reporting by SCOTT HUVER
