The Hunting Party Listening Event (w/ Mike Commentary)

[Stranger]

Here is a recap of the listening event for The Hunting Party, created by LPFanCorner! Mike joined in and this year the event was under the "official" status (promoted by the band). Congrats to LPFC for this accomplishment! Like he did with Living Things, Mike gave a lot of background information on the songs.

 

1. "Keys to the Kingdom"

 

"Of all the songs, Keys to The Kingdom was my favorite to open the album because of the constant sonic surprises"

 

"The chorus vocal was a stream-of-consciousness vocal (and lyric) by Chester. He didn't write it down, just sang whatever came to mind."

 

"That's me saying "Try and do the other thing"--I was talking to Rob when we were recording drums"

 

"The "I'm not allowed to say certain things" was a clip we put here because we originally had another clip..."

 

"But we weren't allowed to use it because of legal reasons!"

 

 

2. "All for Nothing (feat. Page Hamilton)"

 

"All For Nothing features Page Hamilton from the band Helmet. Helmet was one of the bands whose aggressive / melodic sound was..."

 

"...one of my inspirations while writing #TheHuntingParty"

 

"If you listen, you can hear my vocal mixed with Page's in the chorus"

 

"The music behind the interlude before "Guilty All The Same" is an original piece. That's me singing "ohhh""

 

 

3. "Guilty All the Same (feat. Rakim)"

 

"Guilty All The Same was the first song on #TheHuntingParty Rob recorded drums for. He worked up to this performance for about a month."

 

".@ask_brittany The artwork was a collaboration between @JamesJeanArt, us, and Ghost @gtmvfx #TheHuntingParty"

 

"Rakim is one of my favorite rappers of all time. His verse here is a perfect example of why. #TheHuntingParty"

 

"To me, Rakim's verse is the perfect mix of technicality, content, and emotional expression. #TheHuntingParty"

 

"HOW REAL COULD REAL BE"

 

"The album began with a series of demos that were more electro/indie/alt. Then I realized I didn't want that."

 

"GATS was one of the early demos that helped define the direction of the album. #TheHuntingParty"

 

 

4. "The Summoning"

 

"The Summoning" was a sonic experiment that we added late in the process, to give the listener's ear a palette cleanser before “WAR"

 

 

5. "War"

 

"WAR was a demo that Chester brought in. Very little changed between the demo version and the final. #TheHuntingParty"

 

"If you listen carefully, Chester actually says "1, 2...1-2-THANK YOU""

 

"There was an alternate version where he said 1-2-1-2-F*CKYOU"

 

"Rob recorded the drums to "war" in one take"

 

 

6. "Wastelands"

 

"My verses in "Wastelands" were written before the music ever existed. Just words on my computer. #TheHuntingParty"

 

"Actually...just the 1st verse. The 2nd verse, on the other hand, got re-written during the final month of recording. #TheHuntingParty"

 

"The last chorus in "Wastelands" completely changes chord structure (it's not the same as the rest of the song)."

 

"I think that was the first time we ever did that on a song."

 

 

7. "Until It's Gone"

 

"The structure of "Until It's Gone" is based on building to a DROP; got the idea when working on "A Light That Never Comes" w/ @steveaoki"

 

"Although it can be about regret (the usual meaning of "don't know what you've got until it's gone"), UIG has an alternate meaning"

 

"As a parent, your child won't grow into their potential until they leave the nest. You don't know what you've got until it's (your're) gone"

 

"There were more trap elements in the album at one point, but we thought they ended up being silly, except this UIG interlude"

 

 

8. "Rebellion (feat. Daron Malakian)"

 

"REBELLLIIOOOON!"

 

"Trivia: our first show EVER was opening for @systemofadown"

 

"We've run into those guys many times over the years. Daron joined me in the studio and brought the guitar riffs that became Rebellion"

 

"One thing I love in "Rebellion" is the cheekiness/sarcasm in the lyrics. We usually have a hard time pulling this off, but it worked here."

 

 

9. "Mark the Graves"

 

"Mark The Graves was one of the earliest demos on the album. At one point, I wanted it to be the 1st song on the album. #TheHuntingParty"

 

"We recorded all the drums on the album to tape instead of computer. I think you can really hear it on this song."

 

"We also set up a really unique kit for this song. In particular: we balanced a couple tambourines upright on Rob's snare, with duct tape."

 

"Chester & I usually do all the lyrics on the albums, but Brad helped too on #TheHuntingParty"

 

 

10. "Drawbar (feat. Tom Morello)"

 

"Tom @tmorello came through to hang/write. The conversation and experience was the best part. We included this jam as a reminder of the day"

 

"Tom's writing style is alien to us, ha. Very "jam" oriented, while ours is more "writing into the computer.""

 

 

11. "Final Masquerade"

 

"Final Masquerade was one of the last songs finished for the album. The original vocal was me singing all the way thru. CB sounds better!"

 

"Rob saved this song, too. The original beat I wrote was more complicated but had no soul. Rob improvised this drum groove & it felt perfect."

 

 

12. "A Line In the Sand"

 

"The opening vocal part on A LINE IN THE SAND was written years ago, while we were making A THOUSAND SUNS #TheHuntingParty"

 

"It didn't work back then. But when I was working on this song, I sang the vocal and it (finally) fit.#TheHuntingParty"

 

"There are lots of different guitar tones and amp setups on this song, giving each part its own flavor, and holding attention over 6 minutes"

 

"LINE IN THE SAND is one of my favorite #TheHuntingParty songs. It feels like it does everything that LP does, in one song."

 

"MOSH PIT"

 

"Brad's solo and Rob's drums at the end of LINE IN THE SAND are one of the best moments on #TheHuntingParty"

 

"The fill that ends the song was an improvisation. I didn't know Rob could play that fast, ha"

[Michelbeats]

After that he did a short Q&A on twitter.

Now i'm REALLY curious if we're going to get a "Making of...". Time will tell

[MONDREUS240]

I hope the version of FM with Mike's vocals ends up on a LPU CD someday. That'd be really cool to hear.

[Geki]

I really would love to see a ''Making Of'' or a lot of full LPTV episodes. This track by track was great with Mike, but I want to see some of the footage. They supposedly recorded the entire process, so why not? That's gotta be awesome, though, to film the entire process of making an album and just watching months worth of footage on how it evolved and changed, etc, not that we would get that, but for the band it must be cool.

[Andros]

I hope the version of FM with Mike's vocals ends up on a LPU CD someday. That'd be really cool to hear.

 

Agree with you, I want the FM version with Mike's vocals. Like "Leave Out All The Rest (demo)"

[gorast]

Yeah, as always, whenever Mike mentions that his vocals on a given track were scrapped, it really makes me want to hear them, just because he sings so differently from Chester.

 

Same for In Between, but the other way around. I wonder if we'll ever get that.

[SpikeMinoda]

would be awesome to get some more tracks with Mike singing.

[Geki]

Same for In Between, but the other way around. I wonder if we'll ever get that.

 

I am interested in that.

[LinkinParkHotspur]

I'm interested in some Chester doing No Roads Left, even though we already heard him doing a tiny bit of it on the making of MTM.

[tfae]

I totally agree with the last 5 posts.

[nikolajlaulp]

"If you listen carefully, Chester actually says "1, 2...1-2-THANK YOU""

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For some reason, this makes the song 10 times more fun to listen to xD

[thedamian58c]

"If you listen carefully, Chester actually says "1, 2...1-2-THANK YOU""

I actually though he says "1,2....1,2 fuck you" until I saw this comment