LPA Podcast w/ Mike Summary

[RogueSoul]

Our friends at LPAssociation just released Episode 6 of their podcast, and scored a huge guest... Mike Shinoda! Lots of great topics were discussed and some good questions were answered during the conversation... Here's a summary of it:

• Mike has found some weird things on the Wiki pages for Fort Minor and himself... He referenced the line in 'Until It Breaks': "My mama taught me words, my daddy built rockets" and said that they were true... but taken out of context. Somehow, his dad being an engineer and his mom being a teacher attributed him to Tchaikovsky.
• Over the coming year, Mike wants to do some projects with fansites like LPA and LPL as 2016 rolls by.
• Mike talked about one of the band's first big shows - playing in the parking lot of a Best Buy store, and how fans still come up to him and saying "We were at the Best Buy show!"
• He went even further back to talk about opening for SX10 when they were still Xero... He has memories of System Of A Down coming up, and learning from those bands, HOW they could improve their live act.
• The recent Fort Minor shows at the small venues reminded Mike of the old times of Linkin Park... playing small club shows on the LPUnderground Tour then going straight to big shows.
• The guys tour at a pace that's comfortable for them... Mike would like to do one more show a week than they're doing now as well as playing very fan-oriented shows. He doesn't want to make more money from more shows - he wants to have a good time with the fans at an intimate show where he could play things the fans want to hear, like 'No Roads Left'.
• Mike would love to play in certain places liked India and Latin America... they try their best to go to certain countries but it unfortunately doesn't work that way. A lot of issues come up with the fans that they want to get to the bottom of: Chester himself bought Linkin Park Christmas merch, and literally said: "Our wrapping paper is FUCKING terrible!" The band sent out apologies, adjusted prices as such, and so on to make up for this. They truly care about the quality of their merch and fan interaction!
• The band is looking at a late-2016 release for the next album, with a 6 month hit-or-miss.
• The band is working on words and melodies first, for the first time. When they have that down, THEN they ask, "What style should we play this in?"
• The LPU CD tracks are a good insight into what the band considers a "demo"... that's why they often time lack vocals.
• The band knew that when they released A Thousand Suns, that there would be a very polarizing reaction to it.
• Mike thinks that a lot of the gear-based questions like, "Where the fuck is the guitar?!" comes from the older fans of the band, because when they were growing up, that was the focal point of their generation's music, whereas the younger fans have had more of an exposure to different genres.
• Mike's favorite things about bands like Bring Me The Horizon and Dangerkids is that he hears that they reference Linkin Park as influences, and then seeing them grow into their own sound.
• The band doesn't really care about trends in music for two reasons: 1) their recording process takes too long to really grow on a song, and 2) they simply don't care.
• The band had a lot of pressure on them by the "music industry officials" during the recording of A Thousand Suns, which is why there were a lot of tense situations shown in the "Meeting Of A Thousand Suns" DVD. The record label has no influence on what music the band makes.
• The band goes to the record label not for what they think about the album, but for them to help get it out to the people. The label wanted 'Final Masquerade' or 'Until It's Gone' as the lead single, but the band thought 'Guilty All The Same' more accurately embodied the album. The band, particularly Joe, didn't truly like like the campaign for GATS (like the video)... but they can move on.
• Mike loves marketing, and setting up different organized events and activities, and just general fun with the fans for promotion of their albums.
• The picture Mike took with Martin Garrix was nothing more than meeting with him and throwing out ideas
• Mike loves everything Kendrick Lamar is doing. He loves the visuals, the artistic choices he makes, and the overall feel that he has. He feels that Kendrick embodies Los Angeles.
• Mike has been listening to Halsey, Wolf Alice, and more - check out his Spotify playlist for what he's listening to! Machine Gun Kelly is a big go-to for him, Mike finds him really interesting.

Quick fire round!

• Most fun album to record? A Thouand Suns - The Rising Tied at a close second.
• The band's least favorite song as a collective is 'Easier To Run'... Mike thinks it's melodramatic.
• Mike has been watching Fargo and The Walking Dead... he'd do a soundtrack for them if he could.
• Mike thinks they should've done a video for 'Rebellion'. It was unfortunately too late into the cycle for that. It's one of his favorite songs on the album.
• Mike thinks 'Mark The Graves' has a big At The Drive-In vibe.
• Fort Minor has become more of a fan-centric project now, and for music that Mike thinks won't fit inside the world of Linkin Park.
• 'Pictureboard' probably won't get released - it has a sample in it, and it isn't even that good.
• You simply can't just remake Hybrid Theory - it's a different time, and a different place. Fans asking the band to go back to that sound is the reason there's so many songs from that album currently in the set... The band thought that they had moved on from that sound at a point in their career, which is why there was a lack of them in the setlist. Now, the band plays those songs out of respect for these fans.
• They COULD drop all those songs if they wanted to - all they'd have to do is write a new setlist.
• Mike doesn't hate playing any songs live. He feeds off of the reaction of the crowd.
• The intensity and enjoyment of playing shows is kind of drained from playing too many shows over a week.
• Mike doesn't have a favorite Linkin Park show.
• Mike finds it interesting that they feel so obligated to play at a venue... setting up in a backyard even sounds like a good idea to him. They're gonna set up a random place like a high school in Boise by using the power of technology.
• There aren't any songs yet that Mike can say will 100% be on the next album.
• The band is going to start opening up the process on social media next year. Mike feels it's going to be an important album for the band. It's going to be something completely different from what the band has done in the past.
• "COM 2 BRAZIL" is the most asked question the band gets, narrowly beating out India and Portugal.

 

Check out the full podcast here! Great work to the guys at LPAssociation!

 

[LPAAltwireDerek]

Thank you massively for your support guys.

 

We look forward to what Mike has planned for the fansites. Especially if it means us working together. 2016 should be a big year for the fansites, or in other words: "DIS GUN BE GOOD".\

 

Although, I'd recommend listening to the podcast and not reading the summary first because it spoils a lot of the surprises haha.

Edited December 8, 2015 by LPADerek

[Jesper]

Really insightful

 

 

• The band's least favorite song as a collective is 'Easier To Run'... Mike thinks it's melodramatic.

 

Sad they think about it that way, it is literally one of my favourites, but yeah that is more of a personal reason. I am curious about the next album and process on social media, will be interesting.

[NimaLP]

Awesome interview. It's probably the best interview we've got in the last few years! Thanks LPA.

[linkinepi]

Such a great thing for Mike to do, he's awesome. Very good podcast, I like that they're shooting for late 2016 and switching things up again. It makes me excited that they're changing their approach one more time and taking their time, I hope they do actually take as much time as they need. Hopefully this will be their best album yet.

[iPodwithnomusic]

Awesome interview, would have been nice if they asked what the 17 MtM tracks were so we could finally get that resolved.

[LPAAltwireDerek]

Awesome interview, would have been nice if they asked what the 17 MtM tracks were so we could finally get that resolved.

....damn. Knew we forgot something

[RickLPL]

this was a great podcast, I really enjoyed this

[Razorkvn]

Great podcast!!!

[RhinestonePT]

Nice interview

[FLAME-XIII]

thank you

so sad to hear this about 'Easier To Run', coz one of my favourite...and i don't understand, why there is always so much negative attention around ATS, even more than around MTM.....for me, ATS is the best what this band have ever made

[HybridT]

Very interesting interview and I agree with Flame, very sad to hear this about Easier To Run. One of my favorites from Meteora.

[Mau]

AMAZING interview!

[Mesck547]

Great podcast. Congrats to LPA for getting Mike to do this, one of the best interviews with him I've heard in a while. Seems like he's very excited about the new album. I'm interested to see how this different approach to writing songs turns out. It seems to me like they're giving the lyrics more attention this way, which is always a good thing.

Edited December 9, 2015 by Mesck547

[LPAAltwireDerek]

Very interesting interview and I agree with Flame, very sad to hear this about Easier To Run. One of my favorites from Meteora.

I think it's a decent song, but I can see what Mike means about the melodramaticness. Honestly, I think that's my biggest gripe with Meteora as a whole. Instrumentally it's a solid record, but songwriting wise, the lyrics wander far too much into melodramatic territory time and time again. Whereas Hybrid Theory seemed to try to use a lot of metaphors to describe betrayal/anger (the metaphors in APFMH being a huge example), Meteora was at times far too blunt and woe is me.

 

And of course, when you're Mike's age (38) and that album was written when you were basically 25-26...it's really difficult to bring yourself into that same state of mind. I know the things I was worried about 12 years ago, are completely insignificant to me now.

[chmaaoges]

I hope whatever the band is doing with their styles, I hope Chester will keep using his strong vocals and not resort to singing gently all the time. I mean we all know he's cabable of so much more then singing ballads.

 

Have to say tho.. Chester ain't as good as he was with holding long notes, even with just singing. In What I've Done, the final words of the second chorus nowadays he just sings "WhAAT I'VE DOOONE" for two seconds and then gasps for air as if those two seconds of singing completly emptied his lungs XD

 

I hope the band will keep up their creativity and not think commercially anymore. Why the fuck should they? They've already made their millions so I hope they will keep expirimenting. I hope there will be some aggressiveness left in their sound.

[MONDREUS240]

That was a pretty great interview. I'm glad that they are planning to share some studio updates on social media. It definitely will increase the hype for LP7 throughout the year.

[iPodwithnomusic]

Very interesting interview and I agree with Flame, very sad to hear this about Easier To Run. One of my favorites from Meteora.

 

I am surprised Easier To Run was their least favourite. I thought it was pretty cool and did have some unique qualities. I really liked the strings that play during Mike's raps. Also when Chester raps along with Mike is also really awesome. And overall I did like the rap lyrics, they are fun to sing along with.

 

I would have suspected their least favourite was Nobody's Listening or maybe Hit the Floor. I loved Meteora, but these two songs always stood out for me as being worse than the rest of the album. They had really repetitive instrumentals, though Hit the Floor's is admittedly pretty cool. The chorus' felt kinda weak in both, especially Nobody's Listening, and both songs had pretty lame bridges.

 

However, I'm happy he told us, I'm always interested in hearing what the band actually thinks of their songs.

[UltraLinkinPark]

The Song Picureboard is an Instrumental

2:30 with guitar bass and Drumm

[iPodwithnomusic]

The Song Picureboard is an Instrumental

2:30 with guitar bass and Drumm

 

Have you heard it?

[hahninator]

The Song Picureboard is an Instrumental

2:30 with guitar bass and Drumm

 

I highly doubt that. Mark Wakefield is credited for it on BMI.

http://repertoire.bmi.com/title.asp?blnWriter=True&blnPublisher=True&blnArtist=True&page=1&keyid=11261859&ShowNbr=0&ShowSeqNbr=0&querytype=WorkID

[danielpsoad-09]

Pretty cool interview. Hopefully LPL can get something like this at some point. I remember LPL ''winning'' an interview with Mike in an LPU contest a couple of years ago but I don't remember it ever happening, but oh well.

 

I'm glad Mike addressed different topics that ''hardcore'' fans usually talk about. I can't believe he said THP is a thrash metal album though ...

[LPAAltwireDerek]

Honestly, all we do to get these things is coordinate with the publicity teams for the band. We don't have any special treatment, nor do we exploit any kind of special treatment or anything. So LPL and likely any fansite could get these things probably to be honest. Not putting down my own site or anything, just saying the truth.

Edited December 9, 2015 by LPADerek

[Astat]

The Song Picureboard is an Instrumental

2:30 with guitar bass and Drumm

Just like how the voice sample at the end of Don't Stay/beginning of Somewhere I Belong is somehow from Pictureboard, right?

 

Where do you pull this shit from?

[Tirea]

Just like how the voice sample at the end of Don't Stay/beginning of Somewhere I Belong is somehow from Pictureboard, right?

 

Where do you pull this shit from?

"I WILL THE SONG PICTUREBOARD"

I still remember this post. Literally my favorite post ever lol