Mike on "Wrong End of the Snake"

[LPLStaff]

Mike joined Pooch and Tater on "Wrong End of the Snake" on May 26th. Jim Digby and Shelby Cude also joined in. Here's the recap!

 

Mike said that the band expanded their gear arsenal going into the Minutes To Midnight touring cycle, and he asked the crew how to down size some of the things he had, like the grand piano he used on the Meteora tour.

 

He wanted the band to pick good members for their touring crew, not just friends. But the exception to that was Mark Fiore, who took it seriously and studied hard to become their videographer. At first he was just a friend holding a camera but he wanted to become actually good.

 

Pooch mentioned that Mike asked him to do a "mic shootout" in rehearsals to pull together all of the professional microphones they could find. Mike listens to all of the TV broadcasts, live releases, live mixes, etc and oversees it with the mixer. He wants it all to sound good. So he wanted to make sure that the audio coming into the shows was also good quality. Mike mentioned it's not about how expensive it is, but he is talented at finding out how different gear achieves the sound he wants on stage. The plexiglass that was put up around Rob is because of the drum sound bleeding into the vocal microphones, so the band was changing microphones and trying any way they could to eliminate that bleed. Finally, the band didn't feel obliged to use a certain sponsor company's gear just because they were a sponsor, they'd branch out and use something else to get their desired result.

 

Jim explained that behind the scenes, the crew was testing out different PA systems for the band as well.

 

The band had shows with gear missing but the crew intentionally did not tell them so they didn't want the band to be nervous. The Austria show in 2007 was one of those shows. In Toronto in 2008, there were band members not showing up on time to the show due to their travel, as we know. The playback rig for the crew was also not there so they couldn't do a proper sound check of the PA, and then Dylan had to buy a new computer that day as well. Mike said that Linkin Park had five songs they could do piano style, and thankfully they only had to play two. Mike thought the set was starting to get obscure and thankfully the rest of the band was there because they didn't want the set to have so many obscure songs to start the show.

 

Mike is currently mixing his CoronaJams and about to put them on streaming services, relatively soon. They are all instrumental.

 

Mike said he really enjoys the huge crowds so he isn't very interested in playing socially distanced concerts. The band wanted the barricades as close as possible to the stage and the band, he didn't like them being so far from the stage at some shows. He said the band feeds off of the crowd being so close to the band, but also the crowd being close to each other.

 

About DSPs, Mike said it was so hard recording every show, mixing it, and getting it out to fans in a reasonable amount of time. Towards the end, the crew was turning them out every few days. It was crazy because the crew was kind of getting burnt out on it. At the first, they had to have a shipping container where Pooch and Dylan mixed the shows, but then they finally were able to cut it down to smaller gear after technology improved. At the start, Jim and the band had to review the edits but the band ended up trusting Pooch and Dylan with the mixing. Pooch says the fans still share and talk about the DSPs a lot to him.

 

Mike says the band wanted Ethan involved in the mixing at times too but he already knew that might upset Pooch in a way since Ethan mixed too. Pooch says it made him be a better mixer. Mike explained that the band brought their studio drum tech to help their live drum tech with sound too at that time. Pooch and Ethan still communicated a lot about the non-DSP live releases. Pooch could call Ethan before rehearsals to get all the plugins used in the studio because he'd give them the heads up on that sort of thing before LP would go out touring with a new album.

 

When building LP's live rig and when it came to maintaining it, Mike wanted someone who was smarter than him when it came to the new technological gear. Mike said he'd overload it or break it, or some idiot would knock it over and break it. So LP brought in coding geniuses and put them next to their touring crew.

 

Tater said that when they were promoting Post Traumatic with a TV show in New York and they were playing with The Roots. They went to play the first run through of the song... Tater wasn't allowed to touch anything because he isn't allowed to touch the console at a TV show. Tater immediately told Jim when he heard the click track that he knew things were wrong, but he couldn't touch anything.

 

Mike said the house band (aka The Roots) was two measures off. In Mike's click track, he only heard himself and the click. He said he wanted to just keep going, and the band ended up just playing around Mike. Mike's manager was there and Mike immediately asked him how it was... his manager wanted to do it again. Tater explained the house guy had the wrong program open in the console. Anyway, they played Crossing A Line again and then they were good to go on the second play.

 

Mike closed by talking about the Billboard Music Awards in 2012. An actor was supposed to introduce LP, and they went over it one hundred times, and then told LP, "the skrim in front of you will raise with smoke machines happening, etc"... very scripted. LP is backstage... came to the stage and was waiting, just hanging out. The show was live on TV and another person is talking, and the screens suddenly come up catching LP totally off guard. Brad's guitar tech has his guitar still, Mike has a mouth full of water, and they were supposed to start Burn It Down. Mike threw his water, ran to his keyboard, barely made it in time... Brad was rushing to the stage... and Mike said LP finally calmed down two minutes into the three minute performance. The band went off stage to watch the performance ASAP and saw that the smoke hid all of the chaos the band was going through.

 

Check the full stream out!

[Coizu]

7 minutes ago, LPLStaff said:

 

Mike closed by talking about the VMA's in 2012.

 

He said it was the VMA's but it most probably was the Billboard Music Awards show. They never performed BID at the VMAs, just at the Billboard Music Awards and the American Music Awards. When comparing both performances the Billboard one looks like it was more chaotic with people running of the stage in the beginning.

 

Edit: Listening to it again. Mike even said "BMA's" 😄 But I think most people misheard it.

Edited May 26, 2020 by graveguard

[michalangelo]

22 hours ago, graveguard said:

 

He said it was the VMA's but it most probably was the Billboard Music Awards show. They never performed BID at the VMAs, just at the Billboard Music Awards and the American Music Awards. When comparing both performances the Billboard one looks like it was more chaotic with people running of the stage in the beginning.

 

Edit: Listening to it again. Mike even said "BMA's" 😄 But I think most people misheard it.

Yeah we misheard it. He said BMA's and Mike starts too early with the keys! haha

 

That's my actual question about the DSPs:

 

 

 

 

[sordomuda]

Cool story about BMA. It was a good performance considering these circumstances. A solid one i’d say. 

[hahninator]

Seems like there is a false start here before the song and the normal start of the song is a bit rough lol

 

 

[Somebodyangry]

1 hour ago, Hahninator said:

Seems like there is a false start here before the song and the normal start of the song is a bit rough lol

 

 

Love how they re-created the set of the video here

[LPLStaff]

Pooch and Tater answered questions, including ours about ATS, after the Mike stream. Great answers here, highly recommended watch.