Mike Shinoda Interview with Vulture

[LPLStaff]

Vulture has posted a new interview with Mike ahead of the Meteora|20 release this week.

 

Some highlights:

"Joe Hahn and I used to go to a record store called Fat Beats and buy vinyl. DJs would press unauthorized scratch records with other people’s sounds on it and shit. So when there were DJ battles, you could be scratching something that other people didn’t have, and we would buy those records and use them. So it wasn’t a leap to say, “Oh, at some point I’d love to make a record that I can scratch onstage.” Me and Joe made a single pressing of original sounds and whatever else. There were a couple things on that record that were actually lifted off of other people’s records. We never sold it. It was just for Joe to scratch and give out to friends. I still have a couple copies."
 

 

"We had met with every label and most of the indies and got turned down by everybody. Then we got Chester, and we were like, “Now we’re going to get signed.” We went and met with everybody again, showcased for everybody, and they all turned us down again. We were doing okay, playing shows for a hundred people in town, but nobody wanted to sign us. We eventually signed a publishing deal with this guy who had signed Limp Bizkit and some other people and he ended up taking a job at Warner, and we went with him as a function of him taking the job. We basically had a development deal, where if it worked out, they put out our record, but if it didn’t work out, they’d just cut us loose. And it worked out."

 

"The unspoken, sometimes spoken agreement between me and Don Gilmore was that he was in charge of the rock aesthetic. I gave him feedback on it, but he would not give me feedback on the hip-hop that was going on the record. He was like, “Just so we are clear, Mike, you are in charge of making sure the hip-hop is pitch perfect on this thing. I won’t know.” So if I made a beat or Joe made a beat and somebody had criticism and wanted to remove a weird sample or something, we had to have a discussion without Don. At the time we were using really obnoxious samples. If you listened to some of the records we just named, some of the sounds on them are abrasive, and we loved that."

“Massive” and “Healing Foot” also should’ve come out in 2003. There are hits on that demo disc.

"One of those two I think I tried to resurrect during Minutes to Midnight, and again, it was like, “No man, we don’t want to look backward at all.” So this is all about that 2003 moment. There’s a certain level of quality control going on. We want to make sure that when we put something together, it’s thoughtful and we’ve done our best. Is it going to be perfect? No. Is it going to appeal to everybody? Of course not. It never will be."

[bloodbath]

"we don't want to look backward at all". Surprising that they didn't revisit those at late 2011/early 2012

[unksoldier2000]

29 minutes ago, LPLStaff said:

Vulture has posted a new interview with Mike ahead of the Meteora|20 release this week.

 

Some highlights:

"Joe Hahn and I used to go to a record store called Fat Beats and buy vinyl. DJs would press unauthorized scratch records with other people’s sounds on it and shit. So when there were DJ battles, you could be scratching something that other people didn’t have, and we would buy those records and use them. So it wasn’t a leap to say, “Oh, at some point I’d love to make a record that I can scratch onstage.” Me and Joe made a single pressing of original sounds and whatever else. There were a couple things on that record that were actually lifted off of other people’s records. We never sold it. It was just for Joe to scratch and give out to friends. I still have a couple copies."
 

 

"We had met with every label and most of the indies and got turned down by everybody. Then we got Chester, and we were like, “Now we’re going to get signed.” We went and met with everybody again, showcased for everybody, and they all turned us down again. We were doing okay, playing shows for a hundred people in town, but nobody wanted to sign us. We eventually signed a publishing deal with this guy who had signed Limp Bizkit and some other people and he ended up taking a job at Warner, and we went with him as a function of him taking the job. We basically had a development deal, where if it worked out, they put out our record, but if it didn’t work out, they’d just cut us loose. And it worked out."

 

"The unspoken, sometimes spoken agreement between me and Don Gilmore was that he was in charge of the rock aesthetic. I gave him feedback on it, but he would not give me feedback on the hip-hop that was going on the record. He was like, “Just so we are clear, Mike, you are in charge of making sure the hip-hop is pitch perfect on this thing. I won’t know.” So if I made a beat or Joe made a beat and somebody had criticism and wanted to remove a weird sample or something, we had to have a discussion without Don. At the time we were using really obnoxious samples. If you listened to some of the records we just named, some of the sounds on them are abrasive, and we loved that."

“Massive” and “Healing Foot” also should’ve come out in 2003. There are hits on that demo disc.

"One of those two I think I tried to resurrect during Minutes to Midnight, and again, it was like, “No man, we don’t want to look backward at all.” So this is all about that 2003 moment. There’s a certain level of quality control going on. We want to make sure that when we put something together, it’s thoughtful and we’ve done our best. Is it going to be perfect? No. Is it going to appeal to everybody? Of course not. It never will be."

we didn't heard Massive yet.. but i think it was Healing Foot, so much potential on that track.

[Kobzone]

6 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

We eventually signed a publishing deal with this guy who had signed Limp Bizkit

it's a bit disrespectful to call Jeff that…

[xeroboi]

18 minutes ago, Kobzone said:

it's a bit disrespectful to call Jeff that…

Mike does hate him after all

[LPLStaff]

There appears to be some bad blood between LP and Jeff, for their own personal reasons. The band doesn't reflect on the HT sessions as being super friendly/fun... in fact they say it was very stressful etc so that definitely has a lot to do with it. Even by Jeff's own admission they wanted Jeff to stand up for them more to the label and blah blah, in his book he gets into the small details about how the band saw things versus how he saw things.

[bloodbath]

7 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

There appears to be some bad blood between LP and Jeff, for their own personal reasons. The band doesn't reflect on the HT sessions as being super friendly/fun... in fact they say it was very stressful etc so that definitely has a lot to do with it. Even by Jeff's own admission they wanted Jeff to stand up for them more to the label and blah blah, in his book he gets into the small details about how the band saw things versus how he saw things.

Jeff was one of those who wanted to kick Mike out, or he didn't simply defend him when others attacked him? PS: Has any of the members ever say something about the Jeff book?

Edited April 5, 2023 by bloodbath