Mike Q&A Summary 1/11/2021

[LPLStaff]

It's been quite a while since Mike took questions on Twitch, but he did answer some on January 11th for the first time in 2021!

 

- "Imagine you're going to do a Dropped Frames Tour, what would you play at the beginning and the end of the concert? What would be the biggest hit?" -> "Good question. That'd be crazy, right? How would I even do that? I wouldn't just make beats on stage, I wouldn't just play instrumentals. Right? Would I? Would I DJ? I don't think I'd ever DJ... I've been asked to DJ, like, "We'll give you this much money, come DJ this event." But I don't really DJ. Everybody in the chat says "Please DJ, DJ Spooky." "Booty Down" would be the hit, you're right. "Party Meow" would be a big one, "The Waltz" would go well, "Quarantine Tequila." We've got hits for a very specific audience, it's like if the whole audience got together it'd be like 1,500 people. If I went on tour with it, it'd be like one person in each city. That'd be amazing. "Neon Crickets", man "Party Meow" live? Come see all of the hits. I'd play the "Sleepy Track" from beginning to end in the middle of the show. That's why this thing we're doing here is so specific, you guys are all over the world and all over the place, and this is not something that's conducive to live shows or mainstream. I go down holes and do too much nerdy shit."

 

- "The Hundreds 15th anniversary Hybrid Theory jacket had a wingless soldier for the first time, was there any reason for it?" -> "Once in a while you'd see a wingless Linkin Park soldier. Originally it was because it was a mistake. I generated a couple of soldier designs and then Frank liked them and wanted to stencil them. So he cut them out and sprayed them, and took a picture of that. And then as a second layer, he did the wings separately and then superimposed them in the computer. So they weren't done together. They weren't actually done actually on the same cardboard or piece of paper or whatever. So, at some point he probably just used the soldier without the wings. Specifically, the one to the side, the one looking to the side. It got used without the wings. And then we didn't catch it, but we did catch it later and said, "Oh, I think we should always use the wings", and he's like, "Oh ok." So the idea of just using the soldier was just kind of a nod to that story, I guess. Good question. See what happens when you pay attention?"

 

- "Can you tell us more about the vegetable version of "Remember the Name" that you did for a film?" -> "Vegetable version? I did a vegetable version? I don't even know that I did a vegetable version. I don't remember this. Oh I see what you're saying, the Peter Rabbit version! We've gotta get clear on the actual video, on the actual clip in question here. Can you imagine you're watching Peter Rabbit and right in the middle of it, out of nowhere, absolutely out of nowhere in this CGI children's film? Dude come on. Just hold on, let me point out one part of the lyrics. 'It's not about the salary, it's all about the celery, and maybe some radishes, maybe some cabbages?!' That happened, that is a thing that happened, Peter Rabbit. They called me and they said, 'We want to use your song in our movie' and I'm like, 'How?' As usual, every time anybody's like, 'We want to use your music in a movie', I'm like, 'Maybe...? How?"'And they originally were like, 'Oh, we're going to have this fight scene where we're going to use it.' And I was like, 'That doesn't sound like something I want to do. It sounds like a very cute movie, but I don't know if that sounds like my thing.' And then I started talking with the director and they were like, 'We want to change the words though. Here's the scene.' And I was like, 'Oh, it's funny, it's a funny scene, got it.' So they rewrote the song for the movie, they rewrote that verse, rather, and sent it to me... and it wasn't awesome. The performance was really weird. Then I was like, 'Tell you what, I'll coach you on this, I'll tell you how to make it better, fix it.' Make it just a little more authentic to the song. Like, the pattern was all off, they had a person who doesn't rap do the thing and he missed the pattern of the thing. And then I was like, 'You know, you really have to have someone who can rap, who is also funny, do it.' And I suggested my friend Jensen who is the best, he's super super funny and he's a hardcore student of hip hop. So that's how that all came together, and then me and Jensen. It was a very easy thing to do, but every time I see it, it's the funniest thing ever. It's dumb but the birds are the ones rapping and the rabbits shoot the birds at the end. The thing is, I didn't initiate that and it wasn't like a hard thing to do. By the way for the record, they asked 'Would you do the voice?' and I was like 'No way! I would love to do a voice for a character but I don't want to just show up and rap a scene.' I couldn't imagine doing the 'cabbages, radishes' myself, it needed someone funnier, a funnier voice. If you actually ask me to do the voice of one of the rabbits, I would do it. But nobody is asking. Nobody asked! I don't know what's up!"

 

- "Is there any connection between your artwork for Hybrid Theory 20 and your Meteora cover photo?" -> "I mean, like a loose connection, not like an intentional connection. The original vibes are all stencils and street art like that. Early 2000s street art."

 

- "The "Final Masquerade" video depicts an apocalyptic scenario even though the song came out in 2014. I feel the lyrics can relate to the health emergency in the world. What do you think?" -> "Yeah, that was kind of the point of the video. Kind of... things are a bit of a mess."

 

- "Hey Mike, on the back of the "My December" t-shirt it has the lyrics "These are my snow covered dreams", I thought it was always "These are my snow covered trees."" -> "Um, that's wrong, right? And then I think there are a few lyric screwups around the Hybrid Theory thing because they were moving very quick on the production of those items and we missed some stuff. But it's kind of fun, like those are good collectors items. What was the one that was all fucked up? Was it Crawling? Isn't it trees...? I don't remember what it was, I have to listen to it. How many minutes in is it, I don't remember. I've gotta look it up. The lyrics aren't coming up on Apple. Snow covered bees? 1:40, thank you. Trees, 100% trees, you couldn't tell? Yeah, trees. I think dreams would be too psuedo poetic. We're talking about home, right? Dreams would be a little less... it's painting the picture guys. There you go - trees."

 

- "Do you still trust Brad or Dave throwing a Coke or whatever since Brad threw a Coke and Phoenix almost killed you with his bass?" -> "I know you guys, being on the road is dangerous business."

 

- "My teacher played Kenji in class to teach about World War II. How do you feel when your songs are used to teach in the academic field?" -> "I love that. Please, as much as possible, wherever applicable. All good."

 

- Mike in a longer answer about other collaborating with Slipknot on the "Produce Me" thing (saying it wasn't the point of it to work with bigger bands) talked about Metallica: "We toured with Metallica a bunch. Playing for them... winning over Metallica fans at a concert is one of the hardest things to do. Sounding like Linkin Park sounds and then playing before Metallica was a miracle and a lot of hard work to go into those shows and have Metallica fans leaving and going like, "I like that band, they were cool." It was no small feat. And it didn't work 100% of the time, we had a couple of shows where too many of the fans were like... not having it. Notably, Ireland. We played some show in Ireland opening up for them and we hadn't set up enough introduction to those fans. Those fans didn't really know us too well and we opened for Metallica, they were literally flipping us off, turning their backs against us and throwing stuff at us."