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Chester: 'Papercut' is the identity of Linkin Park


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Recently, Scala Events (the promoter of the Manila show on August 13) posted an interview Chester did with RX93.1 in Manila.

 

Here is a recap of what Chester talked about in the 25 minute interview:

 

- In his first visit to Manila in 2004, he felt like the city was "very familiar" and felt like he was "at home". He talked about the hardcore fans that were crying and screaming when Linkin Park was there.

- Linkin Park will continue to donate ticket proceeds to Music For Relief at their August shows.

- He said his favorite Stone Temple Pilots songs are 'Meatplow', 'Pretty Penny', 'Dumb Love', 'Wonderful', 'Piece Of Pie', 'Crackerman', and many more.

- Stone Temple Pilots asked him what songs he knew by the band, and Chester responded with "I kind of know all of them" and it surprised the band.

- Chris Cornell asked Chester if he would come out on Projekt Revolution 2008 and sing 'Hunger Strike' with him. Chester is a big fan of both Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell. He was nervous about performing it initially.

- His favorite Linkin Park song since the beginning is 'Papercut' and says that it is the "identity of the band." About 'Papercut', he said: "It's got everything. It's heavy, it's musical, it's melodic, it's got cool changes, it's got lots of different styles in it. That song continuously has been my favorite."

- He also loves 'Breaking The Habit' a lot.

- Chester said initially with Linkin Park, he felt like the band was really really good at doing "the hip hop thing and writing rock music", but there wasn't a lot of melody in the music (and what was there melodically wasn't that good), so his goal was to bring the melodic element to the band. Going on about 'Papercut', he said "When we got to that song, the chorus was so dope and the words behind it were so cool, that I kind of didn't need to do much melodically until we flipped it up at the end. That was a lot of fun; I felt like that song really captured what the vibe of the band about."

- He said the place he was as a person 2004 when he first visited the Philippines is so far from the person he is today. All of the things in his life are equally awesome, whereas in 2004 the only awesome thing in his life was Linkin Park. He mentioned his wife, his children, his friends and how good his relationship is with the other members of Linkin Park. "Every great thing that I have now is because of the band."

- Since 2004, Linkin Park has changed by becoming much better at writing songs. The band has figured out the best way for them to be in the studio writing songs - the band knows what they expect out of their songs. He thinks each record he makes is better than the last one. Chester talked about the fans that say "Hybrid Theory is my life!" and only like that record. He says that's ok, they still play those songs live, and he has a deep respect for the style of music that Linkin Park started with, but if they continued making music that way that the band would have become bored and would have sucked. He said today they have accomplished all of the goals they set when they were a small band and they have lived up to what they told people when they first started, that they weren't going to be a "one trick pony" and you couldn't put them in just one genre. Linkin Park can write any type of song, write it well and get on stage with anyone, so he is proud of that.

- He doesn't know what the setlist for the August shows will be yet. The band has been in the studio writing and has been writing good songs in his opinion. Within a few weeks the band will start rehearsing for the upcoming tour.

- The band still wants to put out an album every 18 months. He talked about the "4 year gap" between albums that the band used to have and explained that it was due to the albums taking about 18 months to make and then the band toured for two years, so it took a while to make a new album.

- Transformers has done "huge things" for Linkin Park. They have never asked to be in any movie - the directors and film companies have always come to the band. If Transformers came to Linkin Park again to be in the next movie, he thinks the band will say yes. He talked about his favorite Transformers toys as a kid.

- He talked about how Linkin Park came together. He mentioned Xero and said they were very close to getting signed, but that Mark was better at "managing bands" (like Deftones and Alice In Chains) than he was at singing. Chester had been singing since he was 14, he had been singing in Grey Daze in Arizona and had made a name for himself. When Mark left, Chester was introduced to the remaining members of Xero, they wrote all new music and changed the vibe a little bit due to the vocal style of Chester being different. He said they were turned down by almost every label initially but they were signed within about a year of him joining the band to a record deal.

- The band has played in around 40 countries (according to Chester's passports).

- When asked if he was ready for the Asian Tour, he said he is ready for more shows - that's part of the reason why he said yes to Stone Temple Pilots, why he did Dead By Sunrise, and why he sang with Camp Freddy, etc - he loves performing live.

 

Listen to the full interview on Soundcloud here.

 

Thoughts?

I thought OSC is his favorite song.

He hates OSC lol. Also ITE.

 

Cool interview, I heard it a few days back. Didn't know he loved Papercut so much, I wonder why its not as frequently played as other songs (i.e. dropping it in 2009 and other occasions)

And he hates Runaway. I think he's the main reason it was dropped after Europe in 2012.

 

He loves Papercut, BTH, FTI, APFMH. Not sure what else. Probably NMS. I think he said at one time he thinks Don't Stay is good. An interview around the time of the Milton Keynes 2008 show is where I believe I saw that.

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