Radio 1 'From Zero' Deep Dive with Mike Shinoda

[LPLStaff]

BBC Radio 1 has dropped an hour sit down with Daniel Carter and Mike Shinoda discussing the band's new album.

 

This is quite a lengthy listen - check it out here. It begins about an hour in.

 

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Some quotes with new info from the interview:

 

Daniel: "You know, without being that guy, how much a fan I am of your band. And there was a little bit of trepidation on my part -- I'd rather be totally honest with you straight away -- and I think within, 4 bars, I was like... 'Oh, yeah, perfect!' and it makes perfect sense... It was just stunning."

Mike: "I'm so glad that's the experience that you had and that I think a lot of folks have had. I think for me, I went through some of that a long time ago. In meeting Emily and Colin, and working with them over time and getting to know them over time, for all of us... the recreation of Linkin Park is not something we would ever take lightly. We tried a lot of things. We met a lot of people. Over time we were working on some things, in the beginning it was more about just spending time with each other and then we were inviting people in and playing around with different things with different people and different configurations of people in the room, and we ended up really enjoying our time with Emily and Colin, and we really enjoyed what they brought to the songs. It's a different kind of difficult for fans who have a certain relationship with the band... if you've got a tattoo of Linkin Park on you, you've got a certain relationship with the band and to try and re-invite those people in and ask for their understanding is not a small deal. And to make something that excites and impresses them - that's the other part that was such a delicate balance and dance."

 

Mike: "When I wrote ['The Emptiness Machine'], it was a very very early part of the process. I had done a song for the last Scream movie called 'In My Head' - I think 'Emptiness Machine' was done, I had written it before that. I had a demo version of it, it felt SO Linkin Park. It was one of the things I had written where I was like, it can't be anything else. It's the only thing it CAN be. So I was gonna hold onto it. As I played it for the guys and they felt the same way, we started getting familiar with Emily and Colin. Once the album started really coming together, we made the decision to structure it that way... to me it was like if you're going to introduce me to somebody else, then the first thing I want to do is shake their hand and say 'Hey, it's good to see you,' and then I introduce you, and then we talk."

 

Mike: "One thing you'll notice on this album is that there isn't any wasted space. All of the transitions from one to another are very snappy and short, and they really, for the most part, just fly right into the next thing with chaotic little... all of the transitional pieces that are not actually in the song are chopped up into bits and gritted out into the song in a way where they almost trip and fall into the next song. The exceptions are going into 'Overflow,' which is in the middle of the record, and going into 'Good Things Go,' which is at the end of the record. Those are the two because you need at those moments, something to almost like hit the ground and stop the pace. 'Casualty' being  the highest intensity of the record to land into something that's very quiet and a little disorienting, I loved. I kinda found that little transition, created it, and really enjoyed it. In the beginning of the record, we wanted you to get a lot of stuff that felt signature Linkin Park, very core to our DNA. And once we established a bunch of that in the first three songs or so, then start giving you curveballs. And by the time you hit the middle of the record you get the most dramatic switch up. I just wanted to remind people that we're very much not a one-trick pony. We really enjoy to do so many different types of things. I love 'Casualty' and I love 'Overflow.'"

 

Mike: "'Two Faced' was intended to be... the idea was to write something that would be pre-Linkin Park. Everybody thinks of Linkin Park like, we're here in 2024, what's this change, what's happening today? I wanted to remind them that there was a time in the band before we had ever met Chester, when me and my friend Mark were doing vocals. I wanted to do something kind of in that style, and that's how 'Two Faced' started."

 

Mike: "Somebody asked me in a chat, 'Is 'Good Things Go' about something we'd expect, like Chester?' It's actually not - I love that phrase and I've tried it out a few different times in different demos for years, I had that phrase and I knew it was going to be a good song, but I didn't know if its going to be the chorus, a line in the chorus, or what. It found its home in this one... It was the band and Jake Torrey when we were -- Jake Torrey has been in and out of the studio with the band for a few years, I met him when I met Colin -- I told him and the band the line and they were like, 'that's the song.' The way we all kind of riffed how it crescendos up with Emily's voice, it felt so emotional. It's not about one thing... because there was a group of people in the room, everybody was pulling from different personal memories, so the song concept got kind of spread out between all of these different stories. Everybody kind of related to it in a different way and was suggesting different lyrics and things, and I kind of just synthesized all of that into words. The bridge of the song has a long triplet rap part, I think I did that maybe in 2019, I had wrote that? I pulled it up from my phone and tried it out over the bridge and it worked so well. That song went on quite a journey to get where it ended up."

 

Daniel: "As it finishes, you have that orchestral part that links back to the intro... It's like an ouroboros, the whole thing goes 'round again. And the songs you've listened to already become recontextualized because you've now had a different framework since you've heard what's come after it."

Mike: "When I wrote that outro, that very last swell you hear, it goes back into the choral... tons and tons of me and Emily singing this choir thing... the end of the record swells up, and if you play the album in loop, then it goes right back to the first sound you hear on the record. So it just loops on itself, which is a circle, which is a zero. The whole idea being that, not just the album can do that, but like, that's life. These cycles happen, and the experiences within the cycle might be the same they, they might be different. There's something to us, we feel like we're at the beginning of a new loop around."

[juancpin]

Wow, the show has A lot of 'From Zero' instrumentals. Nice interview.

[Sabi]

I loved that! The interview was great; the way the interviewer discussed the songs encouraged Mike to share some interesting backgrounds about them. I also loved how they mixed the songs, the instrumentals, and all those transitions. I need the From Zero instrumental album now!

[bruh009]

On 11/26/2024 at 7:03 AM, juancpin said:

Wow, the show has A lot of 'From Zero' instrumentals. Nice interview.

i hope we have a official instrumental album release