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Post Traumatic Press & Chat

hahninator

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hahninator

hahninator

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On the 29th, Mike visited KROQ and Alt 98.7 FM to discuss Post Traumatic, his solo career, Linkin Park, and more.
On the 30th, he did a lengthy Instagram live chat.
KROQ summary:
-Everyone clamored to get the Hollywood Bowl tickets and Mike said he thought everyone felt like “ok we got tickets… what does this show even mean?”
-It was a super hard show to do, longest show they have played was around 90 minutes and this was three hours. “We wanted to do something to bring our whole Linkin Park community together since there was no public funeral, and celebrate him and the catalogue and the community.”
-The EP songs were helping me navigate, emotionally and logically, everything that was going on. “There weren’t going to be any clear answers to things and we were going to have to just go with the flow.” Some of the songs have moved away from grief because some days you just feel better. “Like “Crossing a Line”, you realize you can go outside and have a normal day. I’m not confined to my room or my bedroom or being sad.”
-He talked about if Linkin Park music hits you at the wrong time now, it can be really intense
-Post Traumatic is about the journey out of the darkness. He wants the fans to not be scared to go on the journey with him.
-”It was a fear that I don’t have control over anything. I think that’s one of the worst human feelings, to feel like you are completely out of control. I felt like I wanted to have a purpose.”
-”I feel like when I have spoken to fans, it has been helpful to explain how I feel that day.”
-”I wanted the new videos to feel like I am FaceTiming or Skypeing you, like there is no fancy editing or director. I wanted to shoot the “Crossing a Line” video to feel like it was intimate with the fans.”
-”This totally disrupted my life’s work. We built this thing as a group of six guys and it all relied on the six of us. So I thought “does this mean I’m not an artist anymore? Any weird thought you can have, I had those thoughts often in the first couple of months especially. As it went along, I realized that if I took the reigns on it and decided to go out with the stuff on my own, I could navigate it on my own.”
-”I felt like I could wipe the slate clean and start new, not under Fort Minor. And I was nervous when I told the guys in Linkin Park that. But they were very supportive and have been the whole time. Brad texted me just yesterday saying he was happy for me.”
-He has never done an album as long as Post Traumatic beforehand.
-He thinks he will start the solo shows as just himself and he might add people later on.
-Mike enjoyed just saying on social media that he was making a solo album, versus with Linkin Park he’d have to run that idea by managers, the band, and a bunch of other people, etc. He feels fully in control with this solo project.
-He really enjoyed meeting fans and learning about them and hearing their stories about Chester at the “Crossing a Line” video shoot in Hollywood.
-Rick Rubin is who told him he was actually producing Linkin Park’s music, which was a surprise to Mike.
-”Grief is a personal thing. The things I had to say were specific to me.” He was already talking to Linkin Park about putting out more Fort Minor stuff as far back as a year ago and they were supportive of the idea. But this music is under his name since it is so personal.
-The art booklet has drawings in outline style that he made in the last eight months. He thought it’d be fun to not fully complete them so he could give them to fans to let them finish them on their own. “Art really clears my head so I wanted to put them out there in drawing form so fans can experience the same thing I experience.”
-Everything is doing their own thing. Phoenix is doing the Member Guest podcast. Rob is doing a vegan cleanse meditation journey, Mike imagines him looking kind of like Jared Leto.
-Mike says Chester was one of the greatest rock singers of all time. In discussing the future of Linkin Park… “If we play a song of ours and let the crowd sing Chester’s parts, that’s very heavy for us to deal with. Looking forward, those questions have to be answered and right now, I don’t have those answers. By going out into the world on my own, I am looking forward to finding out those answers myself.”
-The Los Angeles show will likely be just a one man show before he adds members for future shows.
ALT 98.7 summary:
-The road from July to now is the beginning of a story.
-”We were brothers, we were always together. The only person I spent more time than I spent with Chester is with my wife.”
-One of the first things he turns to in a stressful time is art. “Eight days after Chester passed, I knew that if I didn’t get into the studio, I knew my fear of doing it would just grow so I forced myself to do it.” “In the beginning, the songs were very dark and revealing and as my life as gone on, the songs don’t stay there.”
-”The other day I was talking to Chino about their bassist Chi passing away. He was a friend of ours.” He told a story about doing a photoshoot for a rock magazine in Europe when Linkin Park was touring with Deftones and Chester was late. Chi stepped into the room with the band, and they did the photoshoot pretending Chi was Chester. The photographer didn’t know because Linkin Park was a new band
-”Everything felt out of control. I wanted to be in control, so this is my way to tell the story that is true to me. I shot the videos myself on my bad camera on my phone, and I wanted to put as little distance between me and the listener as possible”
-”I couldn’t believe the volume and the intensity of the reaction from the fans everywhere in the weeks after Chester passed. There were thousands of tributes and memorials and people showing up singing songs with flowers and balloons. Fans held tribute concerts singing Linkin Park music.” He tells a story meeting a fan at the “Crossing a Line” video shoot in Hollywood (where Linkin Park first started) who was in the area to perform at The Viper Room and who had a Linkin Park cover song in his set.
-He says the fans are so great and he is appreciative no one leaked the song when hundreds of fans showed up to the video shoot to listen to him perform the song.
-”The relationship we have with our fans is so special and unique. Those fans have held me up and held me together in some ways in the past eight months.”
-The interviewer says the attention has been on Mike and Linkin Park since July but they have been very classy to the fans in that time period while dealing with the grief.
-Mike says watching Dave Grohl get back up and create Foo Fighters after Nirvana is inspirational and shows it can be done.
-The “Place to Start” demo was from One More Light with the music and vocal idea, intending for it to be the first song on the album. After July, Mike changed the lyrics and felt like it was a good entrypoint/first song for his solo project.
-There are a couple of collaborations that he hasn’t revealed yet. He has had conversations with Dave and Brad. Mike is really close to Brad and talks about Brad being really good with arrangement and song structure… so he had Brad look at a few songs.
-He constantly is talking to the Linkin Park members.
-He doesn’t know when Linkin Park will happen again. Everyone processes this experience differently and right now, a solo project is what he needs to deal with this.
-Rick Rubin told the band to play the Hollywood Bowl show and even suggested multiple shows. His idea was for LP to play the shows with the crowd singing Chester’s parts for the entire show. When Linkin Park rehearsed, they did that and Mike felt like it was too hard for him to handle to do that for an entire show, so he only did it a few times during the show instead of the whole show.
-He hasn’t written a setlist yet for the live shows.
-He wants to do a one man show because it will be hard and he wants to experience that challenge. Likely he will bring a few people up to help him eventually.
-Fans know that there are a lot of unreleased Linkin Park songs and demos. The band already talked together and with Talinda about the unreleased music. The timing is not good right now, but someday it will happen.
Instagram summary:
-He feels like this is his debut as a solo artist, since it isn’t Linkin Park or Fort Minor.
-Hit up radio and even YouTube channels to get the songs played.
-LP has not broken up. “We just don’t have answers to what to do”, it would be easy and fun to make new music with the guys but getting on stage is the big question mark as to how to make it great and to make it what you guys would expect and want to come see. When we figure that out eventually, we will move things forward but until then, everyone is doing their own things.”
-More Asia shows are being booked.
-A Thousand Suns is one of he and Chester’s favorite albums.
-The earliest stuff that was written is first on the album (starts in a really dark place) and almost goes chronologically. “Nothing Makes Sense Anymore” is early, then as things go, things are less dark. It starts becoming less about grief and more about other things.
-Keep voting on WeDemand. It isn’t about going to the places with the biggest draw, it’s about setting up a show that is appropriate for the demand (ex: playing a big venue when only a small crowd will come). Eastern Europe… Russia… Kazakhstan… Ukraine are near the top of the list. They are starting to get to the WeDemand list to book shows. Latin America is strong. UK and USA are more spread out but Mike notices the top cities.
-The rest of Linkin Park won’t join for the MS solo shows. The band is talking a lot and all is good but Mike wants to do this on his own.
-”Nothing Makes Sense Anymore” video… after the fires calmed down that he talked about in the Watching As I Fall video he went up on the hill near the big fire to shoot a bunch of footage for the video. There will probably be videos for more songs.
-There are collaborations on the album. “...and that’s all I’m going to say about that.” Mike self-produced almost all of it. Rob is on Place To Start, Brad helped with some structure and writing, and a few other friends.
-He is still decided on which songs will make the album. “If I keep this one song, there will be guitar by a friend”, “If I keep this other song, there will be a little bit of musical production”. “I am putting finishing touches on it right now, so it’ll be 95% produced by me. I decided to not mix it by myself this time. Manny is mixing the album.” “There are other vocal collaborators on the album.”
-”The record has tons of rapping, some of it is straight rapping, some is sing-rapping, some of it is singing”. “Some music is heavy on the beats, some have more live instrumentation. Expect a wide range of stuff on the album.”
-”I don’t think Looking For An Answer will be on the record. I thought about putting it on but I don’t think it’s going to be on it at this point. I may just throw that in the live set, come to the show so if you want to hear that, come to the show and I can do that, it just takes a piano and a microphone.”
-The live show can undergo changes. Maybe he will play solo at first but then add musicians.
-LP changes styles so much that they will always get people like “what the fuck is that?” in terms of the genres.
-Mike checks the blank merch before they print it to make sure it’s comfortable and it’s something he’d wear before they make it and sell it.
-He did the artwork for Post Traumatic along with Frank Maddocks.
-He loves that his flannel shirts have taken off amongst the fanbase.
Link to comment
https://lplive.net/forums/topic/13201-post-traumatic-press-chat/
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RogueSoul

RogueSoul

Posted
Posted

Instagram Live Q&A stuff:

  • The EP songs start the album off, as he wants the album to start in a dark place and then move out of that.
  • Make sure to sign up and vote on WeDemand to help Mike know where to play + how big he needs to book his shows! Eastern Europe (Russia + Kazakhstan) in strong, and Mike's starting to book these shows soon. Be sure to spread the word!
  • No Linkin Park members will be joining Mike onstage for these shows, because he feels he needs to do this on his own right now.
  • The 'Nothing Makes Sense Anymore' video was shot after the fires in LA subsided. The chaos of the fires is symbolically connected to the song's meaning itself.
  • There ARE collaborations on the album! Mike had a little help producing the songs (Rob drums on 'Place To Start,' Brad helped write a few bits, etc.), but it is almost entirely produced by Mike himself. He's putting the finishing touches on things now. He's not mixing it, though - Manny Marroquin is doing that.
  • There is a mix of rapping, singing, and both throughout the album. Expect a wide range of stuff!
  • 'Looking For An Answer' probably isn't going to be on the album as of now. Mike might play it live at his shows, though!
  • Mike is a J-Pop star. #confirmed
  • Mike spent the morning testing out the blanks (unprinted) for the merch. The art will be based around the album aesthetics, which he's working on with Frank Maddocks.
martinez

martinez

Posted
Posted

 

He's not mixing it, though - Manny Marroquin is doing that.

 

Yes and CAL & NMSA are also mixed by Manny and mastered by Michelle Mancini. Manny did really great job on NMSA. I wonder why Mike leaves the mixing to someone else instead of doing it by himself. He really good mixed "Place To Start".

ThePretender

ThePretender

Posted
Posted

Living Things had the best mixing out of any Linkin Park album IMO and Manny mixed that album, so I'm sure this album will sound good as far as the mixing goes.

Funny because I think the exact opposite. Imo LT has the worst mixing of all the albums. Manny destroyed a brilliant song like Castle of Glass because it sounds too condensed.

hahninator

hahninator

Posted
  • Author
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I don't feel like I'm being dramatic when I say the Living Things mix is the worst of any LP album, no comparison.

 

Burn It Down has the guitars so low. The song on that Rio Social performance sounds great. I really don't like the LT sound at all and consider it the weakest album.

 

Hope he mixes PT well.

hahninator

hahninator

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I like the comment where he said it'd be easy and fun to just go in and record an LP album right now. The issue is live. They'll figure it out eventually.

 

PT era will be exciting and fun to follow. Then we will be back to business with LP. He keeps issuing statement after statement saying LP is going to keep rolling. I like that a lot.

Geki

Geki

Posted
Posted

What about compared to Minutes to Midnight? I think that's the best mixed album.

 

I think Minutes To Midnight is mixed really well. Neal Avron, who mixed it, also mixed A Thousand Suns as well, and he did good there too. I just really like the mix on Living Things, I just always have. For some reason, it just sounds good to me. The worst mixing by far is The Hunting Party for me but I feel like that's obvious. Hybrid Theory and Meteora have decent mixes and the same person mixed those so idk. One More Light is hit or miss to me. Some are mixed good, some aren't, IMO.

zerothree

zerothree

Posted
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Thank you so much for posting this. I was looking everywhere for the Instagram live video, I missed it and was so bummed. See you in Los Angeles.

 

Welcome to LPLive Elizabeth!

 

 

 

What about compared to Minutes to Midnight? I think that's the best mixed album.

 

I'm with Mark on this one. MTM is easily best mixed.

Edited by ToddWilliamson
thedamian58c

thedamian58c

Posted
Posted
-”The other day I was talking to Chino about their bassist Chi passing away. He was a friend of ours.” He told a story about doing a photoshoot for a rock magazine in Europe when Linkin Park was touring with Deftones and Chester was late. Chi stepped into the room with the band, and they did the photoshoot pretending Chi was Chester. The photographer didn’t know because Linkin Park was a new band

 

Do we have any pictures from this photoshoot?

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