Mike Shinoda & Brad Delson - The New York Times Interview (February 10, 2023)

[PeppePark]

The New York Times published an article about Meteora's 20th anniversary and "Lost," featuring Mike and Brad.
Here are some highlights!

• Mike about Chester

"He could take that thing he was singing, and just sledgehammer it through somebody's heart."
"I've grown to appreciate what we had even more, because it's hard to get that. I work with people where I go, 'Oh, can you sing it this way?' And they just can't."

• Brad called "Lost" a "surprise gift" from Chester:
"The performance is so beautiful, delicate and clear."
"I've heard a lot of great Chester vocals, and this is among the best."

• "Fighting Myself" and "More The Victim"
Mike finished mixing "Fighting Myself" last year, with a light touch to preserve its period authenticity:
"I really wanted to keep it true to the initial intention, because I didn't want to taint this time warp."
"What I love about the three new songs is that all of them represent a different facet of the band, as it was in 2003."

He called it "a definitive Linkin Park track."

"More The Victim" will be released in a version that's "basically the furthest we got with it, in terms of a demo."

Read the full article here.

[Cesar656]

This is blowing up way more than HT20

[bloodbath]

The most interesting part is this: "Shinoda said that assembling the “Meteora” set inspired different feelings than the “Hybrid Theory” anniversary, which the band marked in 2020 with a similar boxed set. “We were still processing Chester’s passing at the time we were putting that stuff together,” he said. “Now, the tone for me was much more celebratory.” When She Couldn't came out it went out of radar, I had the feeling from them like "ok, here's the song, I don't to talk about it, I'm gonna do another stuff, bye". I think still was uncomfortable for them at that time. 

[LPLStaff]

It was definitely uncomfortable at times, but they did talk at length about She Couldn't. Maybe just not as much press. But the quotes from Mike about that song are really great.

[Soeffingnaive92]

The tone this time feels different, I personally am super excited they are treating this like a new album basically, press, first single that’s totally new, Mike hyping up the “new” songs, it’s a lot less “dark” and sad. I remember them watching the unreleased show from HT20 and reacting to it and Mike said that Chester sounded great and after that he stared into the void for a few seconds and looked sad as fuck. This time around is all more celebratory as he said and more fun and pumps the fans up.

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

On 2/12/2023 at 10:26 AM, LPLStaff said:

It was definitely uncomfortable at times, but they did talk at length about She Couldn't. Maybe just not as much press. But the quotes from Mike about that song are really great.

 

Let's accept it.. She Couldn't its a bad song it sounds like LP trying to sound like R Kelly, it didnt represent Hybrid Theory at all thats why nothing happened with the song.

the only acceptable tracks that they had to take the flag to promote HT20 were Pictureboard, Stick N Move or Could Have Been.

 

Any of those songs would have helped to promote the release better than She.

 

20 hours ago, JZ-GreyDaze said:

 

Let's accept it.. She Couldn't its a bad song it sounds like LP trying to sound like R Kelly, it didnt represent Hybrid Theory at all thats why nothing happened with the song.

the only acceptable tracks that they had to take the flag to promote HT20 were Pictureboard, Stick N Move or Could Have Been.

 

Any of those songs would have helped to promote the release better than She.

 

quote from MIke about SC : Here's a thing about that song. And I didn't pick that, I don't know who picked that for the first track. It's not a single, we're not doing singles.

[DavideLP]

1 hour ago, JZ-GreyDaze said:

 

Let's accept it.. She Couldn't its a bad song it sounds like LP trying to sound like R Kelly, it didnt represent Hybrid Theory at all thats why nothing happened with the song.

the only acceptable tracks that they had to take the flag to promote HT20 were Pictureboard, Stick N Move or Could Have Been.

 

Any of those songs would have helped to promote the release better than She.

I respect your opinion but I really love she couldn't and I bet a lot of other people too. One of my favourites lp songs

[YRQRM0]

7 hours ago, JZ-GreyDaze said:

 

quote from MIke about SC : Here's a thing about that song. And I didn't pick that, I don't know who picked that for the first track. It's not a single, we're not doing singles.

 

I'm pretty sure he went on to say that he liked the song as a choice because it showed that even back then, the band was exploring beyond the HT sound. Also, it's not a bad song. But it absolutely is not the sound the general public thinks about when they think of LP, and for that reason, I completely agree that it would get less attention naturally. I think they could have promoted something like Part of Me to more success tbh. 

[yagamilight207]

21 hours ago, PeppePark said:

The New York Times published an article about Meteora's 20th anniversary and "Lost," featuring Mike and Brad.
Here are some highlights!

• Mike about Chester

"He could take that thing he was singing, and just sledgehammer it through somebody's heart."
"I've grown to appreciate what we had even more, because it's hard to get that. I work with people where I go, 'Oh, can you sing it this way?' And they just can't."

• Brad called "Lost" a "surprise gift" from Chester:
"The performance is so beautiful, delicate and clear."
"I've heard a lot of great Chester vocals, and this is among the best."

• "Fighting Myself" and "More The Victim"
Mike finished mixing "Fighting Myself" last year, with a light touch to preserve its period authenticity:
"I really wanted to keep it true to the initial intention, because I didn't want to taint this time warp."
"What I love about the three new songs is that all of them represent a different facet of the band, as it was in 2003."

He called it "a definitive Linkin Park track."

"More The Victim" will be released in a version that's "basically the furthest we got with it, in terms of a demo."

Read the full article here.

any way to read without subscription?

[JZLP-Benningstrong]

 

 

Linkin Park’s ‘Meteora’ Surprise: Unheard Chester Bennington Songs

A 20th anniversary edition of the band’s blockbuster second album will include a handful of previously unreleased demos and the completed track “Lost.”

By Jeremy Gordon

Feb. 10, 2023

Enough time has passed since his band’s first record that the Linkin Park singer Mike Shinoda has reached the stage of his career where his children’s friends are shocked to learn he was in one of the biggest bands of the 2000s. “The reactions are hysterical,” the musician, 45, said in a video interview from his home studio in Los Angeles.

He offered a knowing smile about what it meant that it had taken so long. “I think we gradually got comfortable with being elder statesmen,” he said about being discovered by the next generation. “But I’m really grateful for the respect that the band is enjoying from younger people, whether it’s fans or people who are making music.”

Linkin Park has not released a new album since May 2017, two months before its other frontman, Chester Bennington, died by suicide at 41. But while assembling material for a 20th anniversary reissue of the band’s second album, “Meteora,” Shinoda came upon something fans haven’t heard before: a handful of unreleased, close-to-complete songs that have sat in the band’s archives for two decades.

 

The first of those tracks, “Lost” — built around Bennington’s passionate vocals, and out on Friday — was pulled from one of Shinoda’s dormant hard drives. “Everything came back,” he said, about rediscovering the track. “That was that day. That was that thing. I remembered us having this conversation about which songs should make the cut.”

 

The song, which was fully recorded and mixed in 2003, was ultimately left off “Meteora” because it was similar to “Numb,” an album single that reached No. 11 on the Billboard chart and has 1.9 billion YouTube views. Today, it serves as an example of Bennington’s potent talents during the band’s commercial peak. (“Meteora” went seven-times platinum; the band’s 2000 debut, “Hybrid Theory,” has an RIAA diamond certification for sales over 10 million.)

“He could take that thing he was singing, and just sledgehammer it through somebody’s heart,” Shinoda said with reverence. “I’ve grown to appreciate what we had even more, because it’s hard to get that. I work with people where I go, ‘Oh, can you sing it this way?’ And they just can’t.”

Brad Delson, the band’s guitarist, called “Lost” a “surprise gift” from Bennington. “The performance is so beautiful, delicate and clear,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot of great Chester vocals, and this is among the best.”

The band also revived two nearly completed songs: “Fighting Myself,” which Shinoda finished mixing last year and called “a definitive Linkin Park track,” and “More the Victim,” released in a version that’s “basically the furthest we got with it, in terms of a demo.” Shinoda said “Fighting Myself” received a light touch during the mixing process to preserve its period authenticity.

 

“I really wanted to keep it true to the initial intention, because I didn’t want to taint this time warp,” he said. “What I love about the three new songs is that all of them represent a different facet of the band, as it was in 2003.”

 

Image

 

“He could take that thing he was singing, and just sledgehammer it through somebody’s heart,” Mike Shinoda said.Credit...Kevin Mazur/WireImage, via Getty Images

 

 

“Meteora” was made at a critical moment in Linkin Park’s career. “Hybrid Theory” was the best-selling album of 2001, outpacing LPs from established superstars like ’N Sync, Jay-Z and Destiny’s Child. This seemingly instant success placed more attention and pressure on the band, which began writing the songs that would make up “Meteora” while on tour.

“Our attitude, going into the sessions, was that we had everything to prove,” Shinoda said. The fusion of sounds from “Hybrid Theory” — emotive singing alongside nimble rapping, hip-hop rhythms underneath distorted guitars — was already being mimicked across the industry, and the band was eager to prove its creative versatility. “We said, ‘We wrote this formula, so we got to rewrite it, and let people know we’re bigger than that,’” he explained. “‘Because if we don’t start to pivot, we’re going to get stuck forever.’”

The super deluxe version of the “Meteora” reissue, due April 7, features “Work in Progress,” a collection of edited tour footage shot by the band’s in-house videographer, Mark Fiore, who captured what Shinoda called “weird, fly-on-the-wall stuff.” The boxed set also includes five previously unreleased full-length concert recordings, taken from a period when the band was constantly on tour at stadiums and arenas around the world.

Shinoda said that assembling the “Meteora” set inspired different feelings than the “Hybrid Theory” anniversary, which the band marked in 2020 with a similar boxed set. “We were still processing Chester’s passing at the time we were putting that stuff together,” he said. “Now, the tone for me was much more celebratory.”

 

As Linkin Park matured and its members started families and pursued other commitments, the band inevitably began to shift. The new collection offers a portrait of a group that was still ascending, and working as a unit to achieve all its goals. “When we made ‘Meteora,’ the band was everything,” Shinoda said. “We had so much dedication to what we were building at the time, but there was also that wonderful naïveté. We were just flying by the seat of our pants.”

No version of Linkin Park has played live since a 2017 tribute concert to Bennington, where his vocals were sung by a committee of guest musicians including Jonathan Davis of Korn, Machine Gun Kelly and Alanis Morissette. Currently, there are no plans for the band to stage a similar performance, or record without Bennington. “I don’t think we can predict that,” Shinoda said. “You have to let things travel in whatever direction. If and when it’s the right time, that’ll occur to us.”

But the process of assembling the reissue has provided another means of considering how Bennington may have wanted the band to proceed without him. In particular, Shinoda said he “felt confident” that the singer would have endorsed these expanded editions. “Historically, he was always way more bullish about putting out stuff,” he said. “A typical Chester reaction would have been, ‘Why not just make the album 15 songs?’ When I thought about that, it was very reassuring.

•  

[Trumtram]

"The super deluxe version of the “Meteora” reissue, due April 7, features “Work in Progress,” a collection of edited tour footage shot by the band’s in-house videographer, Mark Fiore, who captured what Shinoda called “weird, fly-on-the-wall stuff.”

 

Hmm, sounds more like the LPTV stuff that got released after the album. Kind of bummed but let's hope for a lot of new footage.

[LPLStaff]

Mike said Work In Progress is composed of mostly tour stuff - it's LPTV footage and lots of extended clips of LPTV footage, so a good amount of stuff we haven't seen. But we have seen a good amount of it.

[Soeffingnaive92]

5 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

Mike said Work In Progress is composed of mostly tour stuff - it's LPTV footage and lots of extended clips of LPTV footage, so a good amount of stuff we haven't seen. But we have seen a good amount of it.

Yeah it’s like extension of LPTV stuff, he literally said “you’ve seen 30 seconds of something on a LPTV episode, now you’re seeing 5 minutes of that thing” 

[Justin]

On 2/12/2023 at 6:49 AM, bloodbath said:

The most interesting part is this: "Shinoda said that assembling the “Meteora” set inspired different feelings than the “Hybrid Theory” anniversary, which the band marked in 2020 with a similar boxed set. “We were still processing Chester’s passing at the time we were putting that stuff together,” he said. “Now, the tone for me was much more celebratory.” When She Couldn't came out it went out of radar, I had the feeling from them like "ok, here's the song, I don't to talk about it, I'm gonna do another stuff, bye". I think still was uncomfortable for them at that time. 

They were still processing Chester's death, and the world was reeling from the pandemic still in October of 2020. Quite a few news channels, in the US at least, literally had a death counter on the screen 24/7. That wasn't a good year for anyone.

 

In 2023, the band can now look back at their time with Chester with joy rather than sadness. Those feelings are coming through strong throughout this entire process and it's been really cool to see.