Mike Provides (Another) Linkin Park Update

[hahninator]

In talking with Zane Lowe on Beats 1 today for the debut of his solo song "About You", Mike was asked about Linkin Park. The full clip can be seen here.

 

Zane Lowe: "Are you going to play some Linkin Park songs in the live shows as well, and maybe some Fort Minor things?"

Mike: "You know, originally I was saying that I wasn't going to be doing much of that because I don't want to confuse people across the streams. "Is this supposed to be a Linkin Park show or a Mike Shinoda show or what?" But the more I talked to people they were kind of like, "you know if I came to a show by you and didn't hear some Linkin Park stuff, I'd be pissed at you." Look I could do like... there is a universe of possibilities. I could do covers but why would I do covers if I could perform songs I wrote and performed vocals on?"

 

(Mike launched a setlist poll earlier this month to choose between "Roads Untraveled", "Petrified", "In Stereo", or "Sorry For Now", so there is a likely chance at least one Linkin Park song makes it into his live show.)

 

Zane Lowe: "Have you discussed with your friends what the future of the bands feels like?"

Mike: "Yeah we talk. I get texts and calls from the guys, and emails and stuff from everybody every couple of days or so."

 

Zane Lowe: "Do you think you'll carry on? Have you had a discussion as honest as that?"

Mike: "We have a lot of questions to answer in terms of how to do that. It'd be one thing to just say "let's go in the studio and write some new stuff", that's just the easiest thing in the world - yeah we can do that.

 

But what happens after that? That's the big question mark. I don't want to get out on stage...and if it's just the five of us how are we going to play "One Step Closer"? There are certain songs that the fans are going to want to hear and I am going to want to play, and I don't know how to do that.

 

And some people say just bring someone else in. Yeah that is a nice idea, but there is a lot to that. It's more than just the voice, which number one, nobody has a voice like Chester's so that's a huge hurdle. And maybe t's not A person, maybe it's a combination of things. And that's just me talking. If you talk to Dave, Rob, Brad, or Joe you probably get other ideas.

 

The other part of it is you have to like go on tour with the person. What if they're just a shitty person? My gut tells me that by doing this solo record, by being out there, out on festivals, out on shows, you're in the world... it affords me a greater chance that I will figure those things out naturally."

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

To me what Mike just confirmed is that nobody will join the band to record a new album... next album it will be just the 5 of them... a famous tour vocalist like M. Shadows, Corey etc will attract crowds... look at ACDC they have Axl and people love that shit.

 

A random guy would get punched so hard by fans that wouldn't work.

[Geki]

I feel extremely relieved after hearing this today. I hope they carry on as a 5 piece. I don’t want them to ever replace Chester ever. I couldn’t support it. But I don’t think Mike will do it. So yeah, I feel super relieved. I have full confidence in them carrying on as a 5 piece. They could do many songs. I can even see Mike being able to do stuff like Papercut or Bleed It Out. Stuff like Given Up or Keys To The Kingdom and songs like those weren’t being played even before Chester died. OSC maybe they could have Mike sing the verses and some of the chorus and let the crowd just sing the other parts for that one. I’ll elaborate more on this when I get home, I’m posting from mobile right now.

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

I feel extremely relieved after hearing this today. I hope they carry on as a 5 piece. I don’t want them to ever replace Chester ever. I couldn’t support it. But I don’t think Mike will do it. So yeah, I feel super relieved. I have full confidence in them carrying on as a 5 piece. They could do many songs. I can even see Mike being able to do stuff like Papercut or Bleed It Out. Stuff like Given Up or Keys To The Kingdom and songs like those weren’t being played even before Chester died. OSC maybe they could have Mike sing the verses and some of the chorus and let the crowd just sing the other parts for that one. I’ll elaborate more on this when I get home, I’m posting from mobile right now.

 

I'll stick with my opinion they can't do a Linkin Park show without playing their hits and most of them have vocals that are out of Mike's range ... the crowd could sing some iconic parts like the ITE bridgebut if I go to a show I don't wanna pay to be at a massive karaoke party.

 

If they become a club band where they could just play rare songs for people like us I wouldn't mind... but people at a festival would not go crazy for High Voltage.

[loulax07]

 

I'll stick with my opinion they can't do a Linkin Park show without playing their hits and most of them have vocals that are out of Mike's range ... the crowd could sing some iconic parts like the ITE bridgebut if I go to a show I don't wanna pay to be at a massive karaoke party.

 

If they become a club band where they could just play rare songs for people like us I wouldn't mind... but people at a festival would not go crazy for High Voltage.

 

Remember, they are all VERY creative and smart, they'll think of something IF they ever go back on tour

[Geki]

I'll stick with my opinion they can't do a Linkin Park show without playing their hits and most of them have vocals that are out of Mike's range ... the crowd could sing some iconic parts like the ITE bridgebut if I go to a show I don't wanna pay to be at a massive karaoke party.

 

If they become a club band where they could just play rare songs for people like us I wouldn't mind... but people at a festival would not go crazy for High Voltage.

Idk man. I look through all of their singles from OSC to OML (All Singles) and I could see Mike being able to handle 90% of them. The only ones he probably wouldn’t be able to do are like stuff like OSC, GU. And a lot of the scream parts, they aren’t for the whole song. The crowd could do those parts even. Mike could sing MANY of the hits, including stuff like Numb, Crawling, LOATR, ITE and more. He is a good singer and who knows, we haven’t heard him ever try to sing sing aggressive or scream before. What if he actually could? You honestly never know. Piano versions of Numb and Crawling would be cool. A lot of possibility with stuff.

[Randee]

"But the more I talked to people they were kind of like, "you know if I came to a show by you and didn't hear some Linkin Park stuff, I'd be pissed at you."

Shit like this pisses me off. Be thankful the man is even performing. He doesn't owe you any Linkin Park songs when he is performing solo.

[Astat]

Idk man. I look through all of their singles from OSC to OML (All Singles) and I could see Mike being able to handle 90% of them. The only ones he probably wouldnt be able to do are like stuff like OSC, GU. And a lot of the scream parts, they arent for the whole song. The crowd could do those parts even. Mike could sing MANY of the hits, including stuff like Numb, Crawling, LOATR, ITE and more. He is a good singer and who knows, we havent heard him ever try to sing sing aggressive or scream before. What if he actually could? You honestly never know. Piano versions of Numb and Crawling would be cool. A lot of possibility with stuff.

Listen to how strained Mike's voice is trying to sing the WFTE chorus at the beginning of the Hollywood Bowl performance and tell me again that he could sing any of those songs, lol. Mike literally used Chester's voice as a compositional tool to sing parts of songs that he wasn't capable of singing himself. If Mike could do all of that stuff Linkin Park never would have been a six-piece band to begin with.

 

And lmao @ people already taking this out of context and running with the "Mike said LP won't hire a new singer" narrative. He didn't fucking say that.

Edited April 27, 2018 by Astat

[Geki]

Listen to how strained Mike's voice is trying to sing the WFTE chorus at the beginning of the Hollywood Bowl performance and tell me again that he could sing any of those songs, lol. Mike literally used Chester's voice as a compositional tool to sing parts of songs that he wasn't capable of singing himself. If Mike could do all of that stuff Linkin Park never would have been a six-piece band to begin with.

 

And lmao @ people already taking this out of context and running with the "Mike said LP won't hire a new singer" narrative. He didn't fucking say that.

 

That's just one performance. And he could easily train his voice to do harder stuff if he wanted to. I actually believe in Mike. I mean at the end of the day, it's up to Linkin Park, obviously, what they want to do. As an individual fan, I couldn't support a replacement for Chester, but that's just me.

[Hybrider]

I support a replacement for Chester. Yes, he has right that nobody has voice like him, but Mark Wakefield is his friend and original singer from Xero. They can make new songs with him. I want hear new songs with Mark Wakefield. The old ones with him were good and they would be much better if they record them in studio not garage.

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

Listen to how strained Mike's voice is trying to sing the WFTE chorus at the beginning of the Hollywood Bowl performance and tell me again that he could sing any of those songs, lol. Mike literally used Chester's voice as a compositional tool to sing parts of songs that he wasn't capable of singing himself. If Mike could do all of that stuff Linkin Park never would have been a six-piece band to begin with.

 

And lmao @ people already taking this out of context and running with the "Mike said LP won't hire a new singer" narrative. He didn't fucking say that.

You are a great musician could you please tell me which singles/fan favorite songs Mike could pull on his own without external help?

 

Your example of WFTE made me think about the horrible NRL attempt.

[hahninator]

And lmao @ people already taking this out of context and running with the "Mike said LP won't hire a new singer" narrative. He didn't fucking say that.

 

He certainly doesn't want to do it, look at the way he speaks on it and his body language. Looks like someone else suggested it to him and he was like ehhhhhhh.

[Soeffingnaive92]

Please guys, stop pretending Mike can sing WID, BID and Faint or stuff like that. He s AWESOME but he just can t Hit those notes. Give him ( them) time to Figure out how to find a solution.

[RogueSoul]

Mike can definitely do songs like Numb and BID with a key change. Nothing wrong with dropping things down a few steps, plenty of bands do it. Hell, LP should've been doing it with songs like New Divide in recent years. Of course Mike can't scream stuff like the Faint chorus or OSC, but like ITE from the Bowl I can definitely see them doing a "crowd sing-a-long section" in each set where Mike does the verses and the crowd sings the choruses. ITE, OSC, Faint could work in that function.

 

 

I support a replacement for Chester. Yes, he has right that nobody has voice like him, but Mark Wakefield is his friend and original singer from Xero. They can make new songs with him. I want hear new songs with Mark Wakefield. The old ones with him were good and they would be much better if they record them in studio not garage.

 

Why does everyone think Mark Wakefield is a viable replacement? He wasn't very good/confident with Xero and I'm sure over 20 years later he's not interested or in the same vocal shape, especially considering he doesn't sing anymore.

[HybridParty]

I don't see why people would expect them to play songs like OSC or Faint when the lead singer's gone and they (probably) won't bring anyone in to sing said songs.

 

I could see the Mike handling singles like WID, WTFTE, and BID if they were watered down a notch.

Edited April 27, 2018 by HybridParty

[KeysToTheLinkinPark]

I don't see why people would expect them to play songs like OSC or Faint when the lead singer's gone and they (probably) won't bring anyone in to sing said songs.

 

I could see the Mike handling singles like WID, WTFTE, and BID if they were watered down a notch.

He could even do Rebellion with another type of "scream".Like the way he did the last part of the bridge at the Hollywood Bowl Shows. Everything's possible.

[Geki]

Mike can definitely do songs like Numb and BID with a key change. Nothing wrong with dropping things down a few steps, plenty of bands do it. Hell, LP should've been doing it with songs like New Divide in recent years. Of course Mike can't scream stuff like the Faint chorus or OSC, but like ITE from the Bowl I can definitely see them doing a "crowd sing-a-long section" in each set where Mike does the verses and the crowd sings the choruses. ITE, OSC, Faint could work in that function.

 

 

 

Why does everyone think Mark Wakefield is a viable replacement? He wasn't very good/confident with Xero and I'm sure over 20 years later he's not interested or in the same vocal shape, especially considering he doesn't sing anymore.

 

For once Soul, I agree with you fully. Mike can sing stuff like that. Of course it won't sound the same as how Chester sang them, and why would it? So many of the singles that have ''scream'' sections are for a very short period in the song, such as Faint or One Step Closer. So why not simply just have the crowd chant those little parts? Seems logical to me. Hell, Chester even used to let the crowd do that a lot. Look at Faint from Summer Sonic 2006 as example, he let the crowd do the ''I won't be ignored'' scream.

 

There are so many damn possibilities of what they could play. They could EASILY do a 25 song set no problem. And it wouldn't have to be full of ''rare'' songs, either, although I think some of those would be cool to hear.

 

Let's look at the singles. The main singles from Hybrid Theory were One Step Closer, Papercut, Crawling and In The End. Mike could easily whip up a nice piano version of Crawling, with him singing, similar to the 2017 version. He could easily do that. He could easily do In The End, IMO. He could easily do Papercut, IMO, since he basically always sang the chorus during live performances anyways. And he has even done the bridge along with Chester in that one. Easy. One Step Closer, he could sing the verses and most likely the chorus, or even have the chorus sing a line, etc. Fans are gonna be singing along anyways. He could let the the crowd do the small ''shut up'' bridge, easily. So there's that album. Meteora, the main singles were Somewhere I Belong, Faint, Numb and Breaking The Habit. Mike could easily sing Numb and Breaking The Habit, maybe even doing really nice piano versions of those. Somewhere I Belong, I don't see him having much of an issue. Faint would be the only challenging one, but he could easily let the crowd chant the ''I won't be ignored'' part. The chorus isn't that bad, especially since Chester sang it WAY less aggressively during live performances than on the studio version. Minutes To Midnight had What I've Done, Bleed It Out, Shadow Of The Day, Given Up and Leave Out All The Rest as main singles. Mike could easily sing What I've Done, Shadow Of The Day and Leave Out All The Rest, IMO. Once again he could do piano for those, etc. if he wanted. Given Up would be very hard for him, I admit that, but why would they play it anyways, it wasn't played on the OML cycle and it wasn't a big single. Bleed It Out would be a little challenging but not by much. He could easily sing his own version of the chorus, IMO. The bridge would be hard but the crowd could easily do that short part. He could even just sing the ''ohhh'' part that he does normally. Who cares. ATS had The Catalyst, WFTE, BITS and Iridescent as main singles. I can't see them playing BITS ever again, since it wasn't played since 2011. But he could easily sing that one. Iridescent he could easily do, he even sang the original demo for it, so why not? WFTE he could most likely do, IMO. Doesn't seem too challenging to me. The Catalyst would be kind of hard but for some reason they might not even play it. He could do the chorus, though, I'm willing to bet. LT had BID, LITE and COG for singles. BID and COG he could easily do. LITE would be hard but they haven't played the full version in a while and they honestly don't need to play it, it wasn't that huge of a single. THP would be hard for him but they were only playing 1 song from the album in 2017 as it was, and it wasn't a ''big hit'' by any means. He could do UIG or Final Masquerade, IMO, once again, he sang the original Final Masquerade. He could even do a beautiful piano version of it, or acoustic, like that track the band put out. Fans would like it. I could even see him doing Rebellion, sing he sings a lot of the song anyways. Just let the crowd sing the chant part from Chester. He could improvise with it, too. OML, I could see him being able to handle all songs on the album, honestly. No problems there. And as far as the singles, he could easily do Heavy and OML. So that's their whole main discography dissected. Also, keep in mind that they have many rare songs they could now do that hardcore fans would like, so they could throw those in, too. Roads Untraveled and Sorry For Now are musts, too. And this would all also be with new songs that they write with Mike in mind as the lead singer as well. Could very easily work, IMO. Fans just don't support Mike enough. He is very good at what he does and he is very underrated.

 

Mark Wakefield, nah. I had that idea at one point but it very quickly faded from my mind. Just can't see it happening. He already struggled and hated playing live as it was, and this was in 1998 and prior, so yeah. I don't think he would even want the position, honestly.

[Justin]

Whatever they decide to do, I'll ultimately support.

 

Personally, though, I would prefer that Mike step up as the sole front man of LP. Play the songs he can pull off. Alter some songs that are out of his range normally. Play some of his solo songs after converting them to full-band material.

 

I realize some people will vehemently disagree with me, and say that it would be inappropriate for Mike to play any of his solo stuff under the LP name, but I disagree. I would have agreed if Chester was alive. I didn't really like Welcome being played by LP, for example. The only positive to that was that it gave Chester's voice a break. Chester is gone, though, as much as that still hurts to say. The Chester-era of LP is over, and the next chapter is LP's to write.

 

If doing any of that would help fill out a full set as a 5-piece, then I would rather that as opposed to bringing in another vocalist on a permanent basis. Outside of a tribute show or special guest, I really wouldn't want to hear anybody else but Mike or the crowd singing Chester's parts on a regular basis

Edited April 27, 2018 by Justin

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

Geki & Astat I would like to see a custom setlist designed for Mike's voice

 

20 songs would be cool...

[Soeffingnaive92]

What about s/thing like This ( no particular order):

1 Iridescent

2 Messenger

3 UIB

4 LOATR ( acoustic )

5 WTCFM

6 RU

7 Invisibile

8 SFN

9 OML

10 LFAA

11 GG ( audience sings Chester s part )

12 Papercut ( audience helps)

13 Numb ( Hollywood Bowl mode )

14 Rebellion ( instrumental bridge)

15 POA ( audience sings chorus)

16 Joe solo medley

17 rap medley

Oh ITE obviously, even with Chester Alive The audience sang The whole chorus and bridge

[Geki]

What about s/thing like This ( no particular order):

1 Iridescent

2 Messenger

3 UIB

4 LOATR ( acoustic )

5 WTCFM

6 RU

7 Invisibile

8 SFN

9 OML

10 LFAA

11 GG ( audience sings Chester s part )

12 Papercut ( audience helps)

13 Numb ( Hollywood Bowl mode )

14 Rebellion ( instrumental bridge)

15 POA ( audience sings chorus)

16 Joe solo medley

17 rap medley

Oh ITE obviously, even with Chester Alive The audience sang The whole chorus and bridge

 

There are PLENTY of main singles that Mike can sing himself easily, yet nobody seems to think Mike is capable. He is very capable. This is Mike fucking Shinoda we're talking about here. So some of these songs here would be good but it's missing a lot of main singles that Mike can sing. I don't even care what they would play but I know some people would.

[Soeffingnaive92]

Regardless of What they ll play ( I d love to hear LP in some form again sonewhere in time, regardless of The setlist) I honestly Think Mike is n t able to perform some songs

[RickLPL]

Regardless of What they ll play ( I d love to hear LP in some form again sonewhere in time, regardless of The setlist) I honestly Think Mike is n t able to perform some songs

He definitely can't perform everything, but like what's been said a few times already, I think he can handle enough songs to make a strong set

[Soeffingnaive92]

Me too

[Chazzy Chazz]

Just be thankful.

Edited April 29, 2018 by Chazzy Chazz