Mike Q&A Summary 5/29/2020

[LPLStaff]

Mike ended the week with a THREE HOUR stream and answered a LOT of questions to head into the weekend.

 

- Is there a way for the MS/LP stores to merge because shipping is so expensive? -> "Yeah I wish there was a way to fix the shipping situation. Believe me, if you're selling tshirts you want everybody to buy your tshirts. If there was anything we could do about it, we would figure it out. But those folks have to make their money too, the shipping people."

 

Mike said sometimes they manufacture exclusive merch in other parts of the world, like Asia, but not always. And it's expensive for them to do that.

There might be a few CoronaJams that need more attention, which is very common when he is writing songs and he comes back to them to work on them. Although he does these in like two hours, the process for an actual song can be months for him. He may come back a month in and decide a song needs drums, or guitar, etc.

 

Mike gave an extremely detailed answer about how to record screaming into a microphone in a studio, which shows he has 15+ years of experience with Chester.

He'd like to work with Green Day.

 

- Which LP song would you choose to re record or remake with your current knowledge about songs and music? -> "I don't know if I'd do specific songs, but the era where we were really figuring out stuff was Meteora into Minutes To Midnight. We were still figuring out how to bridge the gap between Hybrid Theory and other things. So I feel like we could have figured out how to make some of those songs even more unique. Not that we don't love the songs, they're great as they are and they are snapshots of where we were at the time."
 

- When making A Line In The Sand and The Little Things Give You Away did you always plan on making them long songs or did they just happen? -> "With The Little Things Give You Away, that was just how the song went. With A Line In The Sand, I did kind of want something.... I think I wrote the opening heavy part first, then I went "oh it would be cool to do a long lead up to that thing." And that kind of happened as I was writing the first part of the song. Because I did most of the music on that one. Man... Rob, and the drums were so funny, because I wrote all the parts in the computer and I had to make sure they were POSSIBLE to be played. And I was like "...I KNOW a drummer can play this. And I KNOW it requires double kick, and you usually don't play it. So can you learn double kick in order to play these songs?" And he was like... "probably!"

 

- Can Linkin Park be a new music festival for new bands? For new bands and to promote mental health? -> "That'd be cool. I mean... there are so many things that one could do in the world. I don't know if starting a music festival at this moment in time is my calling, but I am not opposed to it."

 

- Do you have a say in what bands are added as opening acts? -> "Yes, we do. Bands usually do unless you have a manager that is a lunatic. Openers was always a subject we really got into. Because it matters. There's all these things to balance - who are the fans going to like, what region are we in, what do I like, if you're transitioning from Meteora to Minutes To Midnight, and Minutes To Midnight to A Thousand Suns, you can't just go with like a nu metal opener. The fans are going to want a nu metal opener. If the nu metal opener is there... the fans will be like "yay, we saw a band we liked", but did other people buy tickets? It should be a big plus in some column. It shouldn't be like "yeah the fans like it" and you were going to sell 5,000 tickets and then you add that band and now you're still selling 5,000 tickets. It should be 500 more people or a 1,000 more people came to the show because of that band. Or because of the combination. Sometimes those bands are too expensive, sometimes they are not too expensive. It's so complicated. For me, I do care a lot expanding the fans horizons."

He talked about a Vans collab, but said he preferred drawing on his own shoes because Vans usually just does one release with someone and stops.

- How did you come up with the ideas for music videos? -> "It depends on the video. Joe directed a lot of them, so you can ask him. Some of them, we got involved and suggested things. Joe did not like that, but he dealt with it. My own Post Traumatic videos, I did some on my phone. When we transitioned from the ones on my phone to the ones that were not on my phone, like Make It Up As I Go, I told our video rep at the label that I wanted an animated or motion graphics video. I wanted it be very colorful and kind of represent the album cover and the art. He sent me a link of things, and one of them that I liked was a guy that did a lyric video for somebody else, I think it may have been Green Day actually. And I was like, oh they're good, they're good! Ghosts, that video just popped into my head. I have no idea why, I just wanted to have fun. Part of having good self care is being aware of your state of mind and being like, "today I want to do a very chill track, I don't want to do something really aggressive and stressful, I don't want it to be super stressful today, I've got a really chill energy today." And that's what we did. Hopefully I am doing it right."
 

- What are some difficulties involved with releasing the CoronaJams? -> "You know, it wasn't difficult releasing it. I will tell you what my idea was and why I can't do it. This happens all the time, like I have an idea, then I dive into it and waste a bunch of time and it doesn't happen. I wanted to be able to make one jam, mix it, send it in, and have it show up on all your streaming services as quickly as possible. Wouldn't it be cool, if after I did this one today, I just put it on Spotify and it was there that day? That'd be fucking awesome. That's not possible. They won't do it. Well not they.... the streaming services in general won't do it. There's a one to two, maybe three week lead time on the digital streaming platforms between when you deliver and when it shows up. The thing that I wanted to do that I thought was cool, was a living, breathing album, where I just keep adding songs to it. It's basically an album playlist. You download it as an album, but it just keeps adding and changing because it's actually just a playlist. Nobody does that, nobody will do that for me. The streaming services basically told me they need a UPC, like a barcode for the album and that is associated with the album, like what it is. It's the tracklisting, who wrote what, album art, blah blah blah. The problem is that the system is not set up for my idea. If I wanted to do my idea, I could just upload the stuff to SoundCloud but it doesn't help me because there are only this amount of people that give a shit if it's on SoundCloud. I would rather have it be up on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon, etc. So what I'm going to do is release it a little more traditionally but keep releasing them. So you'll get them. You all listen to music on different things, different places, different ways. I just want you to just go to your favorite thing and type in the name and there it is. So easy. It's just a little bit different than I wanted to do, but no big deal."

 

- Was Robot Boy influenced by Peace by Depeche Mode? -> "No, the chord progression is a 60s/70s progression. You hear it on things by The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix and a host of other bands from that era. And I thought it would be interesting to do that progression. You don't usually hear that progression with modern sounds and sampled beats and things like that. So that was like the chord progression and the music bed. And over the top of that, the lyrics and stuff, I think that was mostly Chester on the lyrics, and I think I came up with the melody or I helped with the melody."

He said things he is currently interested in in music (sounds, etc) usually influences the collaborations he does.
 

 

 

[GreyFox-AFCA]

The part about them choosing the opening act is really interesting.

I really hope Mike wasn’t involved in the decision for the opening act of his PT, Amsterdam Show.

 

Some kind of cheap trashy dutch rap “band” was put up as an opening act, and it sucked donkeyballs.

 

every damn person in the AFAS LIVE Stood still, except those idiots on stage, not to mention the cynical applause these Guys got after every “song”

 

After they went offstage, someone put up a balloon in the centre of the room, we all cheered louder for that damn balloon, than for that awfull opening act.

 

good times, good times..

[martinez]

Quote

There's a one to two, maybe three week lead time on the digital streaming platforms between when you deliver and when it shows up.

 

Don't know how this works, but for example all streaming platforms received all songs and then the PT album one week before the planned release date with all the info, credits etc. All platforms already have all songs of Amends. Maybe there are the differeces between, when you make the album for pre-order.

 

All the jams will have also the ISRC codes, but if it's about the UPC/ISRC codes, that is always the label's work. So this is the plus of having the label. Imagine if Mike will have to do it by his own. You know like associate the release with upc, register each of the track under the isrc code, that's totally unpleasant part. It's take an additional time, it's so boring and it's not interesting for anyone. If you would release any music every few months it would piss you off that you must spent a lot of time to all of that shit.

[Somebodyangry]

Love Robot Boy, it feels like a Chester song lirically ❤️

[NimaLP]

15 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

- Which LP song would you choose to re record or remake with your current knowledge about songs and music? -> "I don't know if I'd do specific songs, but the era where we were really figuring out stuff was Meteora into Minutes To Midnight. We were still figuring out how to bridge the gap between Hybrid Theory and other things. So I feel like we could have figured out how to make some of those songs even more unique. Not that we don't love the songs, they're great as they are and they are snapshots of where we were at the time."

 

HE ANSWERED MY QUESTION! God, I'm so happy now!

[Justin]

1 hour ago, NimaLP said:

 

HE ANSWERED MY QUESTION! God, I'm so happy now!

 

It was a good question and an interesting answer! The questions like those, that actually make him think, are his favorite ones.

[Somebodyangry]

1 hour ago, Justin said:

 

It was a good question and an interesting answer! The questions like those, that actually make him think, are his favorite ones.

Yeah, I’ll never understand people who ask him questions about his fav food/movie/places/family things or just ask him “say hello/it’s my birthday...” I mean there are a lot more interesting questions about music making, LP albums ... his solo stuff ... 

[RogueSoul]

11 hours ago, martinez said:

 

Don't know how this works, but for example all streaming platforms received all songs and then the PT album one week before the planned release date with all the info, credits etc. All platforms already have all songs of Amends. Maybe there are the differeces between, when you make the album for pre-order.

 

From personal experience, I think there's an extra delay from delivering the tracks to stores and them going up due to the coronavirus. Of course I'm nowhere near as important or have the resources Mike has so I'm sure his process is different, but I sent an EP to stores on April 20 and it took over a week to go up everywhere, as opposed to a few days. With the added task of preparing these songs, I'm sure there will be delays on that too (getting the copyright, etc. as you said) so it will take a few weeks. But if he's working on it now then that means it will be sooner rather than later!

[GlassCastles]

The other factor is not all services process tracks at the same speed. Spotify and Apple Music are usually pretty fast (within a week at most), but it's typically expected to give a few weeks of lead time so all the big services get the tracks and can post them at the same time.