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Interview Day with Chester in NYC


RogueSoul

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Today's ben a busy day for Chester. He has flown out to the east coast to do some interviews in New York City. A lot of information has come today, so here's a summary of everything of importance today. Feel free to translate the highlights into your language and repost.

Do note there are some conflicting statements between Mike and Chester on the album, like rapping vs no rapping, one guest versus other guests, etc.


Chester @ Elvis Duran

  • 'Heavy' was the first Linkin Park song to be released in all formats of radio. Songs like 'In The End,' 'Numb,' and 'Numb/Encore' were all crossover hits.
  • Meteora's sound was created out of the pressure of how big Hybrid Theory was. It was creatively a naïve perspective.
  • Mike wrote 'In The End.'
  • The band never limits their genre while writing. They want to be a band that melts all the walls of genre and to be their own body of work.
  • The band will be releasing more songs from the album to those who preordered it before May. Some may be released to the LPU.
  • There's a class about modern vocalists in the northeast that says Chester is a rare example of someone who screams and sings correctly without damaging their voice.
  • Chester said he thinks songs like 'In The End', 'Somewhere I Belong', 'Breaking The Habit' and 'Pushing Me Away' are examples of poppy Linkin Park songs.

Chester @ Q104.3 FM

  • Linkin Park is the number 1 band on Facebook in the world with 62 million likes.
  • Linkin Park is the first band to surpass 1 billion views on YouTube. They currently have 3 billion views.
  • Linkin Park just surpassed 4 billion streams on Pandora.
  • On most of the songs in the new album, he recorded the vocals literally over a piano or an acoustic guitar (no other instruments whatsoever) which he thought was very calming and trance-like.
  • They brought in vocal producers because they wanted a different perspective on how to approach the vocals.
  • The songs on the new album are more soulful than what people are used to hear from the band.
  • Linkin Park's music has always been fun for him to be a part of because it's like he is in a different band in each record.
  • The band name Hybrid Theory summed up who they were when they were making their first record and it's still a part of who they are today. Unfortunately they had to change it.
  • Kiiara wasn't even born the year Chester graduated from high school.
  • "There isn't anything wrong in making the perfect pop song."
  • It doesn't seem to matter what kind of music they write, whether it's a pop song, a mid-tempo, alternative song, a hip-hop track or a screamer, they get the same polarized response from their fan base every single time, since the beginning.
  • It doesn't matter whether or not other people like what they write, what matters is they like it.
  • When they released Hybrid Theory, they got 2 stars in Rolling Stone, no one wanted to sign them to any deal, no one knew how to push the record, and one article written by a guy in Seattle said Chester was responsible for every horrible thing that's ever happened to humankind.
  • Chester has the highest respect for Stone Temple Pilots. Scott was a huge supporter and introduced him to a lot of people he plays music with. Chester loves Scott and is sad that he's gone.
  • The reason he left Stone Temple Pilots is because his kids would cry when he left on tour with them. When he's not with Linkin Park, he needs to be home.

Chester @ 92.3 AMP

  • Chester talked about how Zane Lowe introduced the band to Kiiara.
  • Mike usually pitches in when he wants to try singing or rapping on a track.
  • Mike is the sole singer on 'Invisible,' 'Sorry For Now,' and 'Good Goodbye' - Chester does the higher harmonies.
  • Mike raps heavily on 'Good Goodbye.' Chester raps on 'Sorry For Now.'
  • Instead of writing tracks piece by piece, the band wouldn't leave a session without having a song. It would all start as a conversation, and out of those the songs would build progressively from a chord progression to lyrics.
  • The band didn't set out and say "let's take the guitars back," it was more about the band having the song ready in the way it was. Chester started most ideas with an acoustic guitar or piano, and things went from there, with the track building around it. Ideas were more about supporting the vocal than placing a vocal on a track.
  • Chester gets excited by heavy, fast music because it evokes emotion. A lot of the times, though, the band finds themselves having a hard time finding the right vocals to fit that kind of music and that leaves a lot of tracks incomplete.
  • Focusing on the melodies and vocals first really made this album process a lot more productive and fluid.
  • The band has recorded over 150 demos for the new album.
  • The band is always thinking about how people are consuming music and how they can reach them.
  • Chester only watched a bit of the GRAMMYs - he had to go to the after parties.
  • Some of Chester's new favorite artists are Watsky and Twenty One Pilots. He also said that one day he'll be listening to Taylor Swift, and then Meshuggah the next.
  • Chester is no longer in Stone Temple Pilots is because that the doube commitment to LP and STP took a lot away from his family. He doesn't have it in him to devote his time to a full project on the side of LP like Dead By Sunrise or STP.
  • Mike is always working on new music - even on the plane!
  • No one else plays on the record, but there are more features on the record and plenty of collaborations with songwriters.
  • In reference to Hellfest, Chester said that they will be the Backstreet Boys of that festival. They're too light for the heavy metal scene, but too hard for the pop scene.
  • Corey Taylor from Slipknot (who Chester has been playing with on Kings Of Chaos) loved 'Heavy' and other songs from the record.


Chester @ KISS-FM

  • The band sampled their kids and put them in the demos, but Chester said they distracted from the songs so they removed them.
  • It was very surreal for Kiiara to record a song with Linkin Park, about eight months after she started her career. Chester compared it if LP had released 'One Step Closer' and then he had hypothetically guested with Depeche Mode...he'd be super nervous.
  • Chester originally wanted Julia Michaels, one of the songwriters on 'Heavy', to record the guest vocals. She turned it down because she wanted to be "behind the scenes", but now she has a number one single. At first, she was super quiet when she worked with Linkin Park but now she is quite outgoing due to her recent success.
  • The line "I don't like my mind right now / Stacking up problems that are so unneccessary" in 'Heavy' is a very personal lyric for Chester. He said he has a very negative mindset sometimes and there's "a different Chester inside me, trying to bring me down"...so he counters it by trying to be a good husband, dad, friend, band mate, and more. He finds positive activities to do in life because he often is thinking quite negative thoughts when he's alone. When he's in that mindset, he just wants to get out of it. He was in a complete mess, a total wreck mentally, about a year ago.
  • Along with the problems he was going through, the other band members in Linkin Park had tough times in life recently and it was inspiration for the album.
  • Chester used to practice bad habits on tour and he feels that he's lucky his voice lasted so well through it all (staying up late, talking too much, drinking, doing drugs, not drinking enough water, etc).
  • The one thing he makes sure to do every single day is to work out at the gym, no matter where he's at.
  • He realizes there are crazy fans, less than 1% of the fans..."0.0001%" so he doesn't let the bad experiences with those fans ruin it for everyone else. He still enjoys fans, talking with them, taking pictures, etc.

Chester @ 106.1 BLI / WBLI

  • Having Julia Michaels in the studio inspired them to have a female feature on 'Heavy'.
  • 'Heavy' is a song for people who have feelings of being trapped and stuck in a moment in time in their mind or in their behavior or in their life.
  • The subjects on Linkin Park's songs always comes from within but they try not to be too on the nose when writing the lyrics.
  • All the songs on the album started with conversations about what was going on in the band member's lives.
  • 'Heavy' has female vocals, no heavy guitars, and Chester is singing in a lower register (basically talking) in the first couple of lines of the song. It doesn't surprise Chester that people don't recognize who's playing it at first and he feels like that's an accomplishment.
  • It was flattering to play at Warped Tour and hear from every artist they met that his band was an inspiration to them.
  • Linkin Park's formula has always been to be theirselves. They've always wanted to be a band that broke down the barries of genre and became its own thing. Part of that has been to experiment with new things to keep things fresh and make music that excites them as opposed to make music that has been succesful to them in the past.
  • A couple of weeks ago Chester started working with a vocal coach for the first time in his life. Mostly because a lot of the songs they'll be playing are pretty stripped down and hopefully they'll play intimate sessions. Thanks to him, his range has expanded significantly.

 

Chester @ Music Choice 100: Kiiara's Heavy Feature | Heavy Music Video

  • Julia Michaels' participation in the writing process of 'Heavy' sparkled the idea of having a female vocalist in the song. They heard her sing and asked her to be on the song but she "didn't wanted to be out in front."
  • Chester did a version of the song all the way through in case they didn't find someone else for the song, but they happened to be introduced to Kiiara who is a big Linkin Park fan and has a voice as unique as Julia's, so they had her to come in and do the vocals.
  • 'Heavy' is not a heavy song, but it was more violent and intense making this video than any other Linkin Park video. He's got into fist fights with himself and other people, threw a lamp into a television set, and "wrecked so much stuff it was awesome."

 

Mike also gave an interview to LPAssociation which can be read here.

We will gladly highlight Chester on SiriusXM if anyone has a link to this interview. We cannot find it, as of right now.

Feel free to post links to the other interviews if you come across them.

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Releasing more tracks? of a 10 song album? meh what's going to be left? 7 tracks?

 

The only thing that annoys me is that that if they wanted they could easily make a 15 tracks album but somehow they dont' want to, I used to think that it was because they HAD to play the full album live but now they just play like 5 songs and that's it.

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Releasing more tracks? of a 10 song album? meh what's going to be left? 7 tracks?

 

The only thing that annoys me is that that if they wanted they could easily make a 15 tracks album but somehow they dont' want to, I used to think that it was because they HAD to play the full album live but now they just play like 5 songs and that's it.

Yeah I agree. I am still puzzled why they need the time until May to release a 10-track album and also want to release a few other cuts of the already short album. But I guess we have to deal And even though I am all quality over quantity, I must say that if only 10 tracks make the record from 150 demo's, damn.

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The band will be releasing more songs from the album to those who preordered it before May. Some may be released to the LPU

 

wonder why this isn't mentioned in details for One More Light pre-order...this is why I started thinking about pre-ordering at least cd bundle

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