LPLStaff

9 minutes ago, deanowardust said:

I was in this chat and have the video saved. But I dont think I should share it as it belongs to mike and kerrang

It seems like Jeff Blue, the band's original A&R guy in the Hybrid Theory era, is getting in on the Hybrid Theory 20 celebration with a new book titled "One Step Closer: From Xero to #1: Becoming Linkin Park".

From Amazon:

"The dramatic story of the unlikely partnership that led to “Hybrid Theory,” the biggest-selling debut album of the 21st Century.
 

From the unique perspective of the executive who discovered them, One Step Closer reveals how Brad Delson’s college internship was a catalyst for a group of young musical visionaries, led by Mike Shinoda, which gave rise to a band that survived countless rejections, exceeded everyone’s expectations but their own, and became the voice of a generation.
 

This against-all-odds story chronicles the early days of Linkin Park, from their first demo and Whisky a Go Go performance as Xero, through their tireless efforts to perfect their iconic sound and the discovery of Chester Bennington. Jeff Blue was there when no one else believed—first as their publisher, then as their A&R guy. This is his memoir of that incredible journey.
 

Riveting and inspiring, One Step Closer is a testament to perseverance, as well as a detailed behind-the-scenes account of the building of a dream and what it takes to make it. "

The book will be released on December 8, 2020.

Here are the highlights from July 29th when Mike answered some questions on the stream.

Mike talked about some of his favorite film scores, mentioning Hans Zimmer, John Williams, and more.

- "If you could collaborate with any band from the 1990s who would it be?" -> "90s? Smashing Pumpkins comes to mind. Oh, Rage, they did come out in the 90s didn't they? Massive Attack, I did a Massive Attack remix at one point."

He explained that because of the way routing and expenses are set up, he can't visit everywhere on tour, giving Ukraine as an example on the Post Traumatic Tour.

He doesn't know if "The Waltz" will be on Dropped Frames 3.

- "Was the "High Voltage" remix (MS remix) done while writing Hybrid Theory or at a later time? Thought it was interesting the remix featured strings from "Cure for the Itch."" -> "So I had this rack mounted keyboard unit and I forget what it was, it was a Roland keyboard unit with these certain string sounds and I used those on a few songs at the time. I forget which ones I used it on. I used it on those two, I think I used them on "By Myself." I used them a couple of times, so that's why that sound popped up, because I liked that sound and I used it on a few things."

- ""The Last Line (Ammosick)" was worked on during Minutes To Midnight and A Thousand Suns, then was released on The Mall soundtrack. What made you keep coming back to this one? It's a good quieter song by the way." -> "I felt like, I liked it and thought that it belong... it should have gone out during the Minutes to Midnight era. And then it just didn't seem to fit the thematic stuff on A Thousand Suns. So that's why. And then we were like putting The Mall thing together and we were like, "Oh we have that song, that song is so good, that will fit here." It just felt like it would fit."

- "How did your high school or college classmates react to you becoming famous? Did they contact you after Linkin Park huge?" -> "Now of course, most of them did not reach out. I wasn't in touch with most people from high school. When I went to college, I was in touch a couple dozen people, maybe at most 30-ish. But there were certainly some people from back then that were like... there were some who were like, "Oh man, congratulations, that is so cool." And it was like, "Oh, that's really nice." But you've got to have boundaries. In terms of being in that situation, I've always had limited space for new friends. I love to meet new people and I love to get to know people, for sure, but I'm not the person to meet somebody at a bar and is then like, hanging out with them. I've joked about this with other friends before, like when I meet new people, I'm very social and I love hanging out with people. An introvert gets exhausted from being around people - I am entertained by hanging out with people, but there's a point where I get tired. I'm in the middle, more leaning extrovert. When I meet people and someone presents me with an idea of like, "Here's an idea of something you can do, or work with me on" then I do not warm up to those ideas quickly. It takes me a while."

- "What inspired Linkin Park to give each album a different theme/sound?" -> "I have a theory that artists lean towards being either being the kind of artists that feel good about making the same type of thing each time and really establishing that sonic brand and doing it over and over. And that's how necessarily a bad thing, like, look at Japanese sushi chefs. They perfect its craftsmanship, they perfect this very specific and repetitive task. So a band like Metallica when they go outside of that, people like, "What are you doing?" Even when it's not them, it's like the engineering and recording of the thing. They make a similar thing when they make a record. And of course there's tons of variety in that thing. They're for example, not putting keyboard on the next album probably. They're not doing sampled beats. They don't give a shit that trap hi-hats are cool or whatever, that's not happening. And then there's like, us, on the other side of the spectrum. I sometimes wonder if some artists just can't think outside of... their brain like naturally makes a certain thing and they can't even create outside of that thing. I don't know."

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/694360103

It sounds like we are getting close!

From Kerrang!:
 

Mike Shinoda has told an audience of Kerrang! readers that he and his Linkin Park bandmates have been putting the work in to create something special for the twentieth anniversary of Hybrid Theory in October.

Speaking as part of a Kerrang! Face-To-Face video, Mike revealed that they’ve been working closely with key people from throughout Linkin Park’s history to celebrate the 20 years since they arrived back in October 2000.

“We’ve done our best to go to a lot of people who are family, in a sense, and say, ‘What do you think we should do? What would be a good celebration of Hybrid Theory?’ and try our best to do a bunch of those ideas,” he says.

“I would urge the fanbase to just let it happen,” he continues. “The Linkin Park fanbase is always one of the most creative and active fanbases out there. So always, the problem for me is that if I’m not allowed to divulge information because I want it to be a surprise, then the creative fanbase starts jumping out and imagining things. They come up with their own great ideas – and then once in a while those great ideas are better than our ideas!”

Happy Album Release Day!

Mike Shinoda's second album from the "Dropped Frames" series is out now worldwide! "Dropped Frames, Vol. 2" comes one month after the first edition and will be followed up by at least one more rendition of music. As of today, Mike has at least 70 instrumental songs that he has composed on Twitch and Instagram Live since March... that is a LOT!

Tracklisting:
01. Transitions 2:59
02. Crystalina 3:30
03. Julio's Revenge 1:49
04. Isolation Bird (feat. Money Mark) 3:03
05. Side Scrolling 3:24
06. Dungeon Crawler 1:33
07. Dog Whistles 2:14
08. Astral (feat. Elise Trouw) 2:24
09. Sunset Drive  2:39
10. Channeling, Pt. 2 (feat. Dan Mayo)  2:30
11. King Paprika  2:22
12. Party Meow 1:44

What do you think of volume 2? Do you like it more than volume 1?
 

For more information on the album, check out the Linkinpedia page!

We'll get around to transcribing the good stuff about this.

He said this about Faint:

"I always struggle with titles. In my process, usually a song ends up having a title because of the lyrics. The session, the file on my computer usually has a different name. On our second record Meteora, the song "Faint", the reason it was "Faint" was we liked the word "Faint", the session title, more than the actual idea of "I Won't Be Ignored" or whatever. Like those titles felt so overwrought, so the idea of using the session title was cooler to us."

Kerrang! has released a new video interview with Mike, where fans were able to submit questions via video.

"Mike Shinoda joined Kerrang!’s Digital Editor, Luke Morton, to tell us about his new album, Dropped Frames, and answer a load of your questions. 
Check out Dropped Frames now!"

Check out the full 40 minute interview video here.

In a new interview with Finland's Kaaos TV, Sean Dowdell of Grey Daze describes Chester's reaction to criticism of Linkin Park's "One More Light" album.

Sean said, "I'm gonna say a few things here. It may not be very popular, but it's the truth. And not that I wanna bring the Linkin Park guys into the conversation, but I think they would agree with this. When they did the 'One More Light' album [which came out in May 2017, just two months before Chester's death], it wasn't received the way they thought it was gonna be received, or at least the way Chester thought it was gonna be received, and he got a lot of negativity from fans, and it really bothered him. And we talked about that a lot. He would just be so bummed out and he would blast people on Twitter, and he would get upset. And I would tell him: 'Dude, don't let these people bring you down. It's not worth it. The music is good, man. Don't worry about this kind of crap.'

For those guys, they worked so hard on putting those records together, and they're so used to having these accolades and this adulation from their fanbase. And then when they put out an album like 'One More Light', and still 95 percent of the people like the music. But it's that five percent of people that just [complain], and they spend so much time — these losers in their basement, I like to call 'em — where all they have is just time to sit there and write on a keyboard about what a loser you are. It's, like, what have you done with your life?

I don't understand what makes somebody be a fan of Chester's, and you love everything he did, or most everything he did, and then he does a song that you don't like, that you feel like you have to badmouth him or tell him he sucks and all this kind of crap. And that stuff really weighed on him. So I think that really contributed to part of his head spot. He had some sexual abuse as a child, and that always weighed on him, and that kind of culminated into this thought process where Chester never felt good enough or never felt appreciated or never felt like he was worth it. He had this emptiness inside that I don't think he could really explain to a lot of people.

I got to know this side of him quite well. He could have a thousand people, after a show, wanting to meet him and tell him how great he is and how much he touched their life in a profoundly emotionally positive way, gave them an outlet for their own pain and their own distress, and internally, Chester would not hear that. He would say, 'Thank you,' and he would still feel like he wasn't enough. We'd have this conversation, and he'd be, like, 'I just don't feel like I'm smart enough. I don't feel like I'm good enough.' And I'd go, 'Chester, you are such a good person. Forget the singing. I don't care about you as a singer; I care about you as a human being. I don't care that you are a great singer. I care that you are such a good person.' He was one of the best friends you could ever have."

Check out the full interview here.

Mike Shinoda has announced that "Dropped Frames, Vol. 2" will be released this week!

He announced the release on his computer desktop with a series of three folder names, likely a nod to fans always peeking at his folder and file names:

"DROPPED FRAMES

VOLUME 2

COMING THIS WEEK"

The album is likely coming on Friday. Stay tuned for more news.

39 minutes ago, JZLP-AmendsUltimateFan said:

 

Give me 20 versions of it, ill buy every single one of them. 

LOL same

"We wrote it together and I helped oversee the production and I did a little tweaking on the mix."

Says it has a big bridge. All grandson's vocals. He talked about it on the stream today, no Mike vocals.

Could honestly listen to Mike talk about Chester every day.

ArtCenter College of Design has a new video they've posted, about 7 minutes long, featuring Mike talking about criticism and how he deals with it.

"Field Notes - Introducing Field Notes, a new video series with insights, musings and wisdom from prominent members of ArtCenter's community. Our first (musical) note is from Mike Shinoda of @LinkinPark. #ArtCenterAlumni @m_shinoda"

Check it out here.

From ABC News:

Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda is pumped for the upcoming 20th anniversary of Hybrid Theory.

"With the 20th anniversary celebration, I expect it to be pretty big."
 

"Not big in terms of numbers or sales or whatever. I just expect it...to feel good and be important to those of us who care about the record."
 

Hybrid Theory, of course, isn't just a record. Released on October 24, 2000, Linkin Park's massive debut effort has been certified Diamond by the RIAA for over 10 million copies sold. It spawned the hit singles "In the End," "Crawling," "One Step Closer" and "Papercut," and proved to be hugely influential on the albums that came after it.
 

"It is the equivalent of having a big birthday," Shinoda says of the 20-year milestone. "I wanna have a big party for it."  As for what exactly that party will entail, you'll have to wait until October.

Music Radar has a new interview with Mike, where he talks about Chester a good bit in it before getting into Dropped Frames, Vol. 1.

"He was so remarkable in that way," said Shinoda, reflecting on Bennington's vocal range. "We didn't even know. I feel like we didn't even know the extent, meaning he and I, when we met and started writing together and experimenting with how he would fit into the band. 

Basically he would come in my house and it would either be just me and Chester or me, Chester and Brad. We would work on new material. It was '99 maybe, or '98 and we'd work on new material and see what directions we could push his voice. At the time he was still developing his own identity as a singer. And I say that because when he would sing a new thing, he was very good at imitating somebody else's style and he would often fall into his favourite singer's style, even to the extent that he would accidentally form words with an accent. 

So one minute he's Dave Gahan from Depeche Mode and the next minute he's Layne Staley and I'm like, "You just saying an 'r' and then you sang an 'arrr" and you're not that you're not even from the same country right now. We'd laugh and we'd joke about it. 

There's one part of it that's like just your natural instrument you've been given – he just had a had a wonderful instrument and he spent so much time learning it and getting in tune with it and unlocking it. There's a lot of great singers who hear a song like [Linkin Park's Crawling] and sing along in their car or their shower and it sounds so great.

"And then they sing it without the recording and they sing it by themselves and they go, 'Oh my God, that doesn't sound anything like it did in my head', and I've seen that I've seen that happen in it's very… I mean Chester's voice was insane. There was nothing else like it."

Check out the full interview here.

You're forgetting the videos they had done by Bono from U2, Paul McCartney, and Metallica. That's absolutely massive, and 3 of the largest acts on the entire planet and in music history. Huge.

Shame about Corey Taylor. He was in Mexico at Knotfest or whatever I think, or a festival... Jonathan Davis was there too but made it to the Bowl and flew back ASAP, I think he even left DURING the show right after OSC to go back. Would have loved to have seen Corey and Jared Leto but that's just how it is, not everyone could make it.

Papa Roach was on tour in Europe. They told their management they were going to cancel several shows to fly to LA and see the show and then go back to Europe to continue the tour. Their management would not let them cancel the shows in Europe. So stuff like that happens too.

What's more important is the many musical tributes. LP did the best they could with guests. Jay-Z played Numb/Encore talking about Chester his ENTIRE tour after that. Corey has given several press interviews about Chester and Chris Cornell, etc.

Derek's AltWire is back with another interview from Mike, this time about Dropped Frames, Vol. 1!

AW: ‘Super Galaxtica’ sounds like something scooped up from a classic arcade title. From having previously worked on film soundtracks and 8-Bit Rebellion and LP Recharge, have there been a few potential video game soundtrack ideas/offers in the past that intrigued you? Are there any series you wish you could do the score for? 

MS: I haven’t been offered anything interesting, but I’m open to the idea. I play Overwatch, Fortnite, and a little bit of Minecraft; I’m also a big fan of Zelda, Halo, Metroid, and Mario. Most of those haven’t historically gone to mainstream musicians for music or done collaborations. But anything is possible. 

AW: With so much of the album rooted in experimentation and pushing you out of your comfort zones, have you discovered any new favorite instruments/synthesisers that you could potentially see fitting in with future material?  

MS: I’m getting my Teenage Engineering OP-Z fixed, so I’m excited about getting that back. And while I don’t use my MPC60 on the stream, because it’s too slow, I love that machine. 

AW: Whilst reviewing previous career material during a stream, when selecting your preferred tracks the term ‘no-brainer’ comes up a lot – are there a couple of ‘no-brainer’ favorites from ‘Dropped Frames, Vol. 1’ that immediately come to mind, and if so, why?  

MS: Super Galaxtica, Duckbot, Osiris, and El Rey Demonio are probably my favorites. Lots of little sonic gems and happy accidents in there. 

Check out the full interview here.

No idea, haven't heard the song haha

grandson has just confirmed that his new song "Riptide" is a collaboration with Mike Shinoda, according to @grandsonnews on Twitter. Last year, Mike teased a collaboration with grandson and boonn.

In March 2019, grandson tweeted, "Mike and I got back in the studio before tour and he helped produce one of my favorite new unreleased songs." In a recent tweet, grandson also hinted at Mike Shinoda, putting out the characters "19 8 9 14 15 4 1" which is "SHINODA."

The account says the song is coming on July 31, which is this Friday.

You're right that it isn't lossless, but it's the same mix you'd get. I understand what you are saying though about lossless audio in HQ. This is the best we are going to get. The band obviously doesn't want to release that show.

5 hours ago, leftshoe18 said:

 

Outside of YouTube?

Just on YouTube. Download the audio and track it. The band paid Ethan Mates to mix the entire show professionally and they reuploaded it in place of the original audio. The audio on there is as good as a live release, same guy who mixed a ton of LP's live releases.

Rob: "I've had a lot of moments in life, many breakdowns."

In high school, Rob had issues with alcohol and drugs. That was a very, very long time ago and before he even joined Xero. He could have, at that time, sworn off alcohol and drugs and not wanted to be around any of it any longer.

For Porto Alegre 2012, we heard Joe was sick, hence the delay. Similar to how Chester was injured at West Palm Beach 2014 and forced the band to have a huge delay (and shortened setlist) for the show. This happens sometimes on tour... Brad was sick at Sunrise 2011, skipped the soundcheck and M&G, but played the show.

On July 22nd, Mike did an art day on his stream and took a few questions at the end. There were just a couple of relevant answers so we put these in with the 7/23/2020 stream recap.

Someone asked if the unreleased jams in the art stream were on "Dropped Frames, Vol. 2" coming up. -> "I'm looking forward to putting out the next volume of Dropped Frames. I hope you guys are enjoying the first one still. Keep listening to it, keep passing it around. I'm going to add the new volumes in to the playlist, we have a Dropped Frames playlist on Spotify, I think we have one on Apple but I'm not sure. But put them all together because they're fun to listen to on shuffle that way. It's pretty great. It's also a good like, background music when you're just chilling."

- "Will "Looking For An Answer" be released?" -> "I don't think so. I think that the version that was recorded at the Hollywood Bowl was THE version. We tried to make, I tried to... the idea of recording it came and went. Even though the version at the Hollywood Bowl was not my best singing, it was emotionally the right tone and whatever."

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/687434405

And from July 23:

- "When you are on tour is being on stage enough to keep you in shape or do you work out too?" -> "I usually work out in addition if I've got time. On the Post Traumatic Tour, everything was smaller scale and streamlined, and there was a lot of driving on the bus. So I didn't get to work out very much, that sucked. On LP tours it was a lot more luxurious and I had tons of time to work out. I haven't been working out at all.... you can totally tell, right? I'm not working out a lot right now. For me, being on stage is generally pretty active."

- "Will you do a remix album to Dropped Frames?" -> "I probably won't make remixes of the stuff because I feel like the songs being instrumental is like... I don't know if I want to make remixes of them. Maybe we'll do something remix-y for you guys."

- Re: Dropped Frames, Vol. 2: "We are already getting prepped for Volume 2, my friends. So brace yourselves for it. Yeah, very exciting. Put them in a playlist together and put it on shuffle, it's the way to do it, trust me. It's what I do on the art streams every time, it's the best."

- "Were you involved in One OK Rock's "Eye of the Storm" album? If so, what songs did you work on?" -> "No, I was not involved. Wait, what was the name of the album with One Way Ticket? "Ambitions", so no. I wrote a little something and it wasn't really like, it wasn't the jam. We wrote some stuff but we could do better is the thing, that's the point. We could do better."

- "Do you still have the theremin from New Divide?" -> "I don't think I used it on New Divide. Oh, I used on stage on New Divide, yeah, so we have that still in the storage locker of Linkin Park stuff. But I actually tried to use it A Thousand Suns. I shouldn't say "tried", because it was pretty fun. You know it makes a single note sound and then I ran that through AutoTune, so the notes were jumping like, perfectly. It was pretty fun but it kind of sounded like something you would get on a keyboard and have more control over. So we ended up just doing that."

- "What songs did you remix for U2 and Kings of Leon?"- > "I got stems for... I don't even remember, you guys. I don't remember. I got stems for one of the U2 songs off of like, it was before that album where they put their songs on everybody's iPhones. What album was that called? I don't even know. But they sent stems, I think I made a thing and I sent it, it was like ok and it didn't go anywhere. Kings of Leon, it might have been "Use Somebody", maybe, I'm not sure. Here's the thing guys, when you've made as many, I mean I'm sitting here making a track a day on Twitch, I also often times make another track in the afternoon or work on other stuff in the afternoon. I've been doing this for 20 years. Do you know how many songs I've made? Do you know how many tracks I've made? Like, I have generated so much stuff and I don't work every day. Sometimes I do the stream and I don't do more music for the rest of the day. Other times in my life I've gone maybe a couple of weeks without making something, but usually not. Usually I make something at least once a week, if not, a bunch of things. And sometimes when I'm sitting, that's not even counting when I've been on tour, driving, in the car like in the passenger seat or back seat of a car or on a plane and I will sit there on my phone or on my laptop and make multiple things while I'm traveling. I was on a flight one time where I think I made 15 to 20 things. Oh my god, one time, I don't know if I've told you this story, I was on an international flight. I think I flew from London to LAX and I was on my computer, I was playing with Maschine with my device in my laptop. I was in first class and I was like two seats back. I was on the left side, I remember exactly where I was and it was mostly dark the entire time. So I'm in the dark, I've got my headphones on, just making stuff. I stopped to eat a little bit, watched a movie, made some more stuff. I didn't sleep because I was going to get home and sleep, or I had just slept or whatever. It wasn't about like, getting work done, it was just having fun, "oh I have an idea", "oh I have another idea", "oh I have yet another idea." I got to the end of the flight, I stood up, and this guy behind me goes, "Hey man, I hope you had a productive flight" and he had his really smooth way about him talking. And I turned around and it was fucking Lionel Richie. Lionel Richie had been sitting behind me the entire time and watched me do this. And I was like, "Oh! Uh... yeah it was pretty productive, I made some things, I liked some of them." And he goes, "I know how that goes man, you didn't sleep though." And I was like, "No I didn't" and he said, "Next time you should sleep though", or something like that. He kind of joked with me and gave me a hard time, that was it. That was the extent of our conversation. I liked that he was relating to like, "I know how that is, I know how that goes." Ha."

- In terms of working with other projects: "I've been offered acting, I've been offered like, "Hey do you want to read for this film role?", "Hey do you want to collaborate with this person", or "Collaborate or make music with this thing" and I've been like, "Na, it's not a good fit for me." Even early I was kind of like, "Ehhh, I don't think so." It's good to know what you're about."

- If people had to play Linkin Park in a movie as the band, Mike would want to cast a bunch of nerdy guys.

- "Do you have crazy stuff on your rider when you're on tour? Like a golden chair, lol?"-> "We never had really crazy stuff. I never had anything super crazy on my rider, I don't know about the other guys. There have been moments when I found out that other guys in the band had things going on, and I was like, "Oh, really? I didn't realize that was a thing." And I won't embarrass them or call them out. Generally a rider is for things like towels, waters, specifics kinds of drink and food, I wouldn't ever really or almost never would put alcohol on a rider when it was Linkin Park because of Chester and Rob. Sometimes there would be food things. I think we did a phase where we were trying out different salsas, different hot sauces, different food things. It was always food. There was probably an era way back in the day where we needed certain things for our like our XBox on the bus, so we'd put like, "Please put a couple of XBox games in the dressing room" and whatever. It might be in the context of all of the things they were getting for the show, that's not super crazy. But I don't think we did that much, that wasn't a thing that stuck. We'd just go through little phases, like, "How about we put this weird thing on the rider?" Black towels, white towels, those type of things were on the rider. One time, before we went to Israel for the first time, we sent our normal rider which had things like towels and waters and basic food stuff. Like Brad and Rob had food restrictions so there'd be like food restriction stuff on there, which is important if you're in like, Spain for example where they'll have a lot of meat products and things and there's not a lot of like, vegan stuff generally unless you ask for it. So we're going to Israel for the first time and somebody printed a story that did we did want golden towel racks and all of this weird extravagant shit. They printed that we wanted, it wasn't as dumb as like, stacks of money, but it was almost like that. It was like golden chairs and whatever. So somebody says they remember the story. It was so weird! And we were just like, "This is dumb, and no, we don't ever do that." I don't know why somebody made that story up but they did. And it was really circulating too and a lot of people had picked it up as it was true, and we were so frustrated that that was happening. People are idiots, people who believed and wrote that are idiots."

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/688433030

Wow, thank you! That's awesome!