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Mark Morton recently spoke to Midwest Breakdown about the reception from Linkin Park fans to "Cross Off" with Chester: "I was really apprehensive and anxious about — not the creative side, because I really believed in the music that we had put together, but just how it would be perceived and how people would be willing to accept a release from me under my name," Mark admitted. "So we put out [the first single] 'The Truth Is Dead', and it really got received very well, and then knowing that we had this monster song with Chester that we were waiting to reveal. When 'Cross Off' came out, the response was absolutely mind-blowing, man. I mean, I knew it was a special song in and of itself, compounded with the fact, too, that Chester was no longer with us, and it had been a while since people had heard his voice that way. And the impact it had in that moment, it was so heavy to hear from all the LINKIN PARK world… I got so many messages and so much feedback from LINKIN PARK fans, thanking me for doing the song and telling me how much it meant to them and what a gift it was to hear his voice again." He continued: "[Chester had] such an iconic voice — really, a voice of a generation in a lot of ways, 'cause he was so unique and so prolific and just such an amazing talent. I could go on and on. Chester was just a really genuine, loving, compassionate, creative, brilliant dude, and I'm just really fortunate to have had the opportunity to write and record a song with him. So when it came out, it was just mind-blowing, man. It was a hit at radio stations, and more important than that, it impacted a lot of people and they let me know it. So I was super proud of it and super grateful to have had that chance." Listen to the interview here.

Mike's first Q&A of the week. Not much, but here's the highlights. He's going to make a low budget jam with only Garage Band and free sounds. "Is there a chance you can play Believe Me at future shows?" -> "I could, yeah. The thing I felt about that one, was the verses on Believe Me were all tied together conceptually. I want to do solo-solo shows, not all alone, but I want to do them like... it's my vision and my show. I didn't want to bring out Styles of Beyond or anybody else. I didn't want anybody else doing their vocals if I didn't have to. It's mostly about that. I can't just do my verses and then do the choruses, that's weird. I didn't know how to do that very well and have it presentable. I could rap their parts, but I thought that was... I don't know." - "Is it true when Chester was auditioning for the band, there was a guy who heard him and said, "If you guys don't pick him, they're idiots" and left? -> "Kind of that. That's kind of how it happened. I think Chester finished and he walked out and there was another guy who was leaving, who decided to just leave. And I think he talked to the guy. And the guy was like "Ah no, I'm not trying out for this, that's just stupid. If they don't pick you, they're idiots." I think that would be anybody's reaction. That's how I think that happened because obviously he didn't come in the room and say it to me."

Still checking about what they aired Sunday. Here's the interview they aired Saturday.

Moving right along to June 19th with Mike, here are the highlights! Mike said check out the Kerrang piece he did talking about White Pony by the Deftones. - "We both are celebrating 20 year anniversaries you guys. White Pony 20, Hybrid Theory 20, so cool. It's a monumental occasion, my boy Mark manages the band, which is awesome. Mark and I have known each other since we were 13 I think. Deftones was one of his favorite bands when we were in high school. Mark and I started my band, our band together. Eventually, like, he wasn't a singer, he would get like crazy ulcers and stuff from the stress of doing band stuff. Having to get on stage made him physically nauseous. Then he went into management, he's really good at a lot of stuff that has to do with music, and so he ends up managing, like basically number 2 at the management company at the company Velvet Hammer who manages System of a Down, who he loves, Alice in Chains, who he has always loved, Deftones, like talk about a dream job. Just working with bands that you love. It's stressful, managing bands is not for the faint of heart because bands will call up at three in the morning from another country and yell at you. Like, "This is falling apart, I don't know what I'm doing, I'm a sensitive artist! I'm masking it in anger and resentment" and the manager is supposed to be like, "ok I understand, it's going to be fine."" - "You've been performing live over 20 years, do you still get nervous?" -> "I've said this before, if I do get nervous, it'll be for a TV thing or something that's live on broadcast, just because the stakes are high. Like screwing up on Saturday Night Live would suck, so that's a place where I do get a little nervous, or like on a live broadcast awards show or something like that." - "Do you have anything to say about the live version of the song Cigarettes? Would you ever consider releasing this version? With it's outro, this song is so dope and I am sad it is rarely performed at the shows." -> "Thanks. I try to make it something special. I just feel like some things are special for those occasions, I feel like it's nice to keep some things... *interrupted by Booty Down* - "As I get ready to release this stuff, as I get ready to put stuff out, if you or anybody that you're friends with or whatever are dancers, even like, I have always for a few years now I have been wanting people to dance like legit dance to my shit. Because I don't dance, I can't dance. There were a couple of points where I was trying to make a video or two with hiring a dancer who is legit, like interpret the thing and dance. If you're good enough to do a short choreographed TikTok dance to any of this, that's a gold mine for my brain. Something like that that I can't do that you can do, I love it so much. Please, give me good dance videos. My TikTok is for you. You give me the videos, I will post them on my TikTok, my TikTok will be nothing but you dancing to this music. That's the magic. I don't care if it's ballet, in fact I want it to be like, hip hop and ballet." - "In the song Fine the lyrics seem hopeful and positive towards change, why did you decide to make it a villain in the video?" -> "I felt that the lyrics in the song Fine were not intended to be literal, they were intended to be either open to interpretation or ominous. So, if you just take them literally, you think, yeah, this song is about reassurance. But if you listen to it and think, "this is being sung by a bad person", then you get a different experience. Go back and listen to Fine." - "Hey Mike since you are a theater guy, would you ever consider making ATS: The Musical? I think ATS would be perfect." -> "I don't know. Yes.... I don't know if I would be like a good partner on something like that because I'd be so picky. That's a very precious piece of work and I feel like the guys and I would have to feel like the story or whatnot was really exceptional. Yeah, if it was a story that was exceptional. But of course somebody who is funding something like that, "well, why are you picking that record? You've got to do Hybrid Theory, the musical" and I'm like, "that would make a very weird musical." I don't know." And he leaves us with - "we've got some fun stuff coming up in the next week or two!"

Getting caught back up with Q&A recaps, here's Mike from June 18th! BIG answers to a few of these! And don't miss his piano tutorial for The Catalyst, Burn It Down, and What I've Done near the end. - "Did anything ever happen with the track "Fuse" after the Xero days?" -> "Yes, I'll tell you what happened to it... it stayed in a hard drive. It leaked, I think it leaked, Fuse leaked right? You guys found Fuse, right? It was on like old demos and stuff. No, it didn't? Yes, it did? Ok it's a very unknown and unusual track. But yeah it was one of my favorites back in the day, a little rappy-style thing." - "Hey Mike, you guys acted like little jerks in the 2000s, like throwing chicken at skylights, wet tissue at pedestrians, hiding broken glass tables. Do you guys regret recording these moments?" -> "Let me tell you something, it could have been a lot fucking worse. We could have been taking advantage of little girls - and we weren't. We could have been breaking all of our instruments - and we didn't. We could have been, I don't know, horrible racists - but we weren't. I don't know, pick your thing. Here's the thing, we were kids having insane experiences. Here's an idea of the sense of the transition of like coming from where we were to where we ended up being on Hybrid Theory. Before Hybrid Theory, when we even had the record deal and we were recording Hybrid Theory, I was living in apartment in Glendale. My rent was roughly $850 a month shared with two other people. That's what I could afford. If you know Glendale, CA in LA, my car that was I driving cost me $7,000ish, let's say between $7,000 and $10,000. Any of my extra money I would either spend on extra music gear or a movie. And I switched off between eating an actual meal of fish and rice, and the two meals after that would be fast food and ramen noodles. So I had a nice balanced diet of garbage and sustenance. When we mixed our album, we decided to mix it with Andy Wallace. Andy works in New York and the label flew us out to New York. I had never been to New York before. I was like, freaking out. Brad and I were freaking out - he had been to New York, but we flew to New York to go mix with Andy. When we got out off of the train and into Manhattan, he was like, "dude stop looking up at the buildings. You're obviously a tourist, you've never been here. I hear that people get mugged.. you're more likely to get mugged if you're in touristy spots and looking up at the buildings. Stop doing that, we're going to get fucking mugged." So I had never been to New York, but like all the music I liked was from New York. Well, more than half. Yeah and then all of a sudden we were getting flown around to do press and do shows. By the way, on our own budget at the end of the day. What happens is they will give you a budget to do press and whatever, and then they actually charge you back. Like, "Oh we're going to put a food budget in your studio budget", and we're like, "oh that's cool", but they take those receipts and when your album starts selling copies, they take the money from the food receipts and they take that out of the money out of your album sales. And they don't pay you until that is paid. Even if your A&R guy flies out to meet with you or you fly to do an interview because they want you to do an interview... all of that, you pay for. That is how it works. Because, by the way, if you decide to do that independently without a label, you're going to pay for it too. So either way you pay for it. It's not bullshit, it's bullshit in the sense that yeah it would be nice for them to pay for all of that, but also, I think most people don't realize when you're a musician, you're automatically a small business. Automatically that's what it is. You don't get it all for free. I'm not mad, actually, about any of that. There was a time when I thought that was very unfair, but, there are parts of it that are unfair, but we can talk about that another time." - "Do you remember playing with Linkin Park in Portimao, south of Portugal, in August 2009? You made a lot of people happy." -> "Man, there's a reason Brazilians, a lot of people in South America have been really big fans of the band over the years and Portugal and Argentina, you guys are very... affectionate, just loud and affectionate. And I appreciate it. There's a reason why it has become a little bit of a meme in the Linkin Park community, because it's true, and you're cool, and that's good. I know Portugal is in Europe, I was grouping the Portuguese." - "Can you show us how to play the bridge of The Catalyst, the organ during Joe's solo?" -> "Hmm, what is the best way to do this demo? How can I do this? Did you mean the "lift me up, let me go" part, is that what we are asking? Alright here's the thing, I'll do it quick here." And Mike did the demo. (2h38m in), "By the way, those shapes, those are the ones I use to write with" (he plays Burn It Down and What I've Done). This is a good insight into Mike playing piano, definitely check this moment out. - "Mike, you said you guys did a lot of demos for Bleed It Out. Can you guess how many demos you did with all of the songs in total?" -> "Dude. I mean there are certain songs that are almost, like, notorious in our catalogue for having so many versions. Somewhere I Belong, Bleed It Out, actually Nobody Can Save Me was one. The song itself, like the words, melody, and chords came very easily. But the track, it took so much to get it right." - "Because I have been doing the streams, I have been getting a couple of offers from some of the companies whose stuff I use to do some contests, so that's exciting... so free stuff for you guys, maybe? We'll see!" - "Hi Mike, when LP would get a record mixed, would there be a lot of opinions in the band - any stories?" -> "I haven't really shown you guys, mixing can be a little tedious. I do it as I go, obviously. I did a demo of a song, it's right here, this is what we made. From here, I might work on it and tighten it up and fix some things in order to present it to the band. So I'd present it to the band and say, "here's the track", maybe I present it with no vocals, chances are I probably would present it with some vocals. There have been many different phases in the band for presentation of songs. Phase one was - "here's a demo with no words on it, what do you think?" Phase two was, "I'm going to put vocals on it, what do you think?" and then I realized the guys in the band, my band in particular, would get... if you put vocals on a song, those vocals were married to the song. So if I sang ANYTHING that they didn't like, they would think of the song as... if I sang "stinky teapot" in this song, in their minds, this would be the stinky teapot song forever. Forever. And even when I change those lyrics to something good, they would be like, "oh I don't like stinky teapot." So I stopped singing those things on it because psychologically they got married to the bad things and had trouble... I literally with Joe in particular, I had to remind him so many times. He's like, "oh I don't like that song, blah blah blah" and I had to keep reminding him... like I'd play it for him and he'd listen to the new version, and he'd like, "oh that's right, I forgot you rewrote the lyrics" or "you changed the thing, I do like this better" and the next time we talked, he'd be back to stinky teapot. *slams desk* So I started singing "la la la" or "da na na" with no words because people got married these old things. And then eventually I just stopped doing that altogether. This is where I'm at now, I would present either instrumental or I would present almost finished. Nothing in between because just in between, it was too problematic in our band. So mixing, it was always me and Brad with any mixer, we were always hands on, we were almost always in the room unless it was just physically impossible. And yeah, the reason we were in the room is because we had the most knowledge about it and sense about it. And that can be a subjective statement, sure, but there are some things that indicate whether that's a subjective statement. So for example, if I play a ten year old... if I take a track with three different types of EQ on it and I play it for a ten year old and say "are these different?", that child is probably going to say no. They're probably going to listen to it and say "no, what is different? they are all the same." Somebody more in tune with those things will say, "yeah I can tell they are different" and if I say "here's 1, 2, and 3, and play them" and I play them in a different order, and say "now tell me what order they are in", if you can't pick it up and tell me which, then your ear is not attuned to it yet. Make sense? So it's not totally subjective. My ear, I can probably pick out what order, like which one is which and what you've done, and you develop that over time." Mike is working out the subscriber feature with Twitch and says that it is coming soon. Mike would like to meet Dave Greco from Twitch in person one day but wants to do an art collaboration with him soon. - "LPLive says, do you remember how or when your remix of Butterfly Caught by Massive Attack came about? Why did you pick that song?" -> "I don't know how that came about. I was so thrilled to do a remix for Massive Attack, I love their music. And I definitely chose that song, I may not have chosen it from the album, but they definitely gave me some options and I chose that one because I really liked it."

Wanted to add something from May 11th, the day before this: - "What's your favorite song from The Hunting Party? What do you remember the most about that process?" -> "I was really into some specific heavier bands, hardcore bands. They weren't all part of one genre, it'd be like Helmet, Bobby Hundreds got me on to Gorilla Biscuits, Inside Out, there's a band called Gallows... the record where Andy Wallace mixed it, ah, that opening song that Riverbank song... the way they mixed it, brutal, in the best way. I was listening to Gojira a little bit. I listened to "Mark The Graves" the other day because a bunch of Peruvian Linkin Park fans did a playoff bracket of Linkin Park songs and a couple of people were like, man, "Mark The Graves" wasn't on there! "Keys To The Kingdom" was, "Guilty All The Same" was, and those are two of my favorite tracks off the record for sure. But "Mark The Graves" wasn't and I went back and listened to it, and I was like, 'Ah that was one of my favorite songs on the record. That was a really fun one, that was a cool one.' But that whole record, like "A Line In The Sand", those are some of my favorite ones I think."

"To commemorate White Pony’s 20th anniversary, SPIN reached out to several well-known Deftones devotees and friends of the band for their insight and perspective on how pivotal White Pony has been to the heavy music that would follow." Mike Shinoda was the first feature by SPIN and had this to say: "I heard the first album, Adrenaline, from a friend when I was in high school; he bought the CD. I liked that album, but I liked Around the Fur even more. I think everyone who was following what the band was doing was really excited to see what would come next. Deftones just has such a unique sound and aesthetic, and White Pony was the album that took such a big step up in terms of communicating who the band was. Chino’s sense of eerie and unconventional melody, the band’s technical chops, and the engineering and production all felt really innovative and fresh when it came together. Nobody was making anything that sounded like that, and when people did, you could tell they were inspired by Deftones. We wouldn’t have written a song like “A Place for My Head” if not for them. There was a bounce to their music that reminded me of my favorite hip-hop songs. And even though the guitars were super heavy, oftentimes they felt smooth like a keyboard, as if the distortion had flattened it so much it was just a wash of chords. White Pony was one of the few albums I was into where I barely knew any of the words. They felt like estimations of lyrics, to me — really abstract and intuitive. I probably still think some of the lyrics say things they don’t say. But isn’t that the beauty of music? A listener’s experience with it can be such an integral part of the song, that it takes over the song’s actual intention or meaning."

Good news, Linkin Park fans. Continuing the trend of festivals streaming Linkin Park material, Summer Sonic has announced a stream this weekend and Linkin Park is included. It says that selections from the 2013 set by LP will be aired. A few songs were broadcasted from this show, but you never know - something we don't have might be included. It's always great to see LP, too. Check the YouTube video below for the full schedule. There will also be a 40 minute WOWOW TV broadcast from Summer Sonic 2013 later this month of Linkin Park too. EDIT: Tracklist: Given Up Lost In The Echo Numb Burn It Down In The End Don't remember this show? The band was on fire in Japan... just take a look at this epic "Lost In The Echo" performance.

The Wednesday Q&A recap from Mike is ready to go! - "What was the first song you learned to play on the guitar all the way through?" -> "My first song on the guitar, I think it was a Zeppelin song. Oh no, you know it was like Nirvana, it was Smells Like Teen Spirit or something like that. Something that was easy as the first song. And then my friend showed me... at one point I learned Zeppelin but not all the way through, it would get to the middle of them and they were too hard. I'd say Smells Like Teen Spirit is the first song I ever learned to play on the guitar." - "Did you pick the openers you had on tour? And who were some of your favorites?" -> "Yes we did. I always talk about My Chemical Romance being one of our favorite openers we had. They were so good, they were on fire when we played together. there were others. Since we don't usually talk about it, some of my other favorite openers we've had... we got a chance to bring out The Prodigy in the US. That was so dope because they're such a legendary group but like, we couldn't have headlined over them at certain places in Europe because they'd be the same size as Linkin Park in terms of the headline slot at a festival or whatever. If it was like an electronic festival or something that leaned that way, obviously, right? Who else? I'd say Snoop Dogg, Snoop opened for us at one point. That was so great. Cypress Hill. Incubus, we did like a coheadliner but yeah, we've played with a lot of great bands. What would be a smaller band that we played with? Ghostface from Wu-Tang opened for me one time with Fort Minor, that was really great. Of Mice & Men. Oh, Coheed! Coheed always brought it. Coheed & Cambria are really great musicians. Yeah, they crushed it every night." - "Were there songs that were cut from the album last minute?" - "There was a song, a One More Light song, that we mixed. We mixed more than the finished album and we mixed a couple other songs just to see if one of them would make the cut or if we would use it for a b-side. And it was Friendly Fire. It was a Jon Green co-write. I wrote that with Jon, I think it was me, Jon, and Brad mostly. But like, I still love that song. By the way is that out somewhere? Did we put Friendly Fire out at some point? We didn't, did we? "Drop It" Yeah ok, we're gonna put a brand new fucking Linkin Park song with Chester's voice on it out. I don't think so! You literally are going to have to wait years to hear that song, so just FYI. And god forbid somebody leak it because that I would actually be really bummed out about, if somebody leaked that song. You will get it eventually. Not this year though, it's not happening." - "Is there a Linkin Park demo you're upset about being voted out?" -> "That's a good question. I don't think so. For me, the ones that I thought were good songs... there were no songs that I loved that the band hated. There were a couple of things that turned into Post Traumatic songs that it was like, "the band never really developed this, the guys didn't really gravitate towards the track", so I just finished it myself. So usually they did become songs. If I liked it, it usually did become a song partially because I was the one putting in the most work so I'd develop them until they were good if I liked them. Make sense? If I like a song, I'm going to work on it more. If it's not working and the guys are like, "I don't know", I will continue to work on it until it's good. And then if they don't like it, those are usually the ones that I don't like that much either, I'm kind of on the fence about, "oh I like it / I don't like it." - "Can you sing the Hold It Together chorus in reverse?" -> "Not anymore, unfortunately. I wish I could. I don't even remember how it starts, it's a good question though." Someone asked the origin of the name Xero but Mike told a made up story about Greek mythology. "Is there a reason there is no In My Remains remix on Recharged while some songs got two remixes?" - "You know, we let the DJs and producers choose songs to remix and that song just didn't get any takers. Maybe somebody sent in one that didn't really work out or something. As I recall, we just let the DJs choose and they didn't choose it."

Tuesday, June 16th! We're at it again with another Mike Q&A as Mike raised question redemptions to 750 Shinodabucks. - "I imagine you being disappointed about What Are You Worth leaking, but would you consider reworking it in the future sets?" -> "What Are You Worth was a song that we worked on for One More Light and I wasn't... I only get bummed out when people leak songs because when it's an unfinished and it's like somebody else just doing it for, I don't know. I feel like if I make a song with somebody and it doesn't work out, like they're welcome to do what they want with their part of it but don't do what you want with my part of it. I think that's rude, I think that's really not awesome. That part of it sucks. If you're a music maker and that situation goes on where you make a song with somebody and they don't want to put it out, I'd say be respectful of their contribution on the song. Otherwise, you shut the door on working with them again. Right? But I guess that makes sense, it's not a big deal... it's a small deal. No, I didn't really love the song personally, I thought it was ok so I wouldn't really want to rework it or anything." - "Would you collab with Holly Brook/Skylar Grey?" -> "Yeah we don't really talk to Skylar Grey anymore so that would seem weird." Someone asked for the second stream in a row about the Given Up bridge and Chester's scream. "It wasn't planned, he was just trying to scream that part over the right amount of time and he just felt like doing one that was so aggro and he just kept going way too long. He just screamed over the top of the chorus going back in and that's what it was." - "What was the concept of the Post Traumatic video that got lost?" -> "That's the Hold It Together video. Some of you were coming to the shows and some of you saw us filming the video and we got so much of it done. We had this whole scene... it was this whole idea partially inspired by the Missy Elliot videos from the early 2000s, it was Hype Williams, he did all of these weird, jittery things. I was doing it in reverse, some of them we were doing takes in fast forward. I had memorized the chorus in reverse and I did this whole thing where set up this shot, we had multiple cameras shot, handheld, it was on stage and I did this whole thing where I came to the stage. So at the end of the show, the show's over, crowd's there. Then I leave the stage and then from off stage they all get in position and we did this whole choreographed thing with like streamers and lights and I don't remember what else, and me walking backwards to the stage. Played in reverse it was SO cool because I was talking to the camera and then I was doing the words and I finished on the stage. Then the streamers went back into the things, like the poppers went in. It was great, we couldn't believe it, we had one take to get it right and we got it. And then at the end of the tour the hard drive was accidentally confiscated by the airport police. We believe. We believe that what happened is that it was in Chady's bag and then all of a sudden it wasn't, and it was his mistake to not back it up. So.... it sucks. And that was just one of the scenes, we had done a bunch of scenes with the crew. And you can't recreate those moments. It's not possible. So, that's a bummer." - "Do you remember when someone threw a bra and it landed on your microphone?" -> "Yes I do remember that, because I saw the video later. That was a really long time ago, huh? Oh my god that was so awkward. We were on like all of these metal shows, and everyone was so tough and cool and shit. And we were so locked into our music. Somebody, PeppePark... Sweden 2007, June 26th at 7:38pm is when it happened."

Ryan went to rehab I think the day before this so it was probably recorded the week before sometime.

A new upload on YouTube has appeared with 46 minutes of footage from Linkin Park's show in Vienna, Austria in November 2014. The uploader says, "To celebrate Chester's life, I'd like to share my full recording of this show. I've recorded the half part of the concert so this is not a full show!" The recording begins on 'Castle Of Glass' (Experience Version) but is shot from a unique perspective next to the stage. On our show page, this is listed as Source 3. Check it out!

Monday Mike... here's a Q&A recap of his stream. Thanks to Nick for the help! Mike did a poll to release sample packs to Twitch subscribers and loves the idea. - "One of my favorite LP songs is Bleed It Out. What was your favorite part of writing that song and how long did it take to create it?" - "God that song took a long time. It felt like a long time because I kept rewriting the verse. The music came pretty easily. The reason I started the verse with "Here we go for the hundredth time" is that I was rewriting the verse like 100 times. I just kept writing stuff I didn't like and I ended up with that verse which I loved." - Speaking about Minutes To Midnight: "It should be said, that album took a really long time. That album took like eighteen months and we estimate over one hundred and fifty demos. Some of them less developed than what I make here everyday, other ones with vocals. And at a certain point... because we were trying to reinvent what the band was and what it meant to be Linkin Park, so we put a lot of work in. Finally I almost went crazy and I was like "Rick we need to put a fucking finish line on this or else it's never gonna come out."" - "How did the concept for LP Recharge the game develop?" - "I think the game company reached out to us first, and they wanted to develop something and they started on it and it looked good. Then we kind of added the element, like we went really deep into the idea of it being more environmentally conscious and benefiting Music For Relief and real life environmental efforts. Nobody had really done a game where you play a game and it benefits the environment. And it went well. It wasn't a big hit or anything but I thought the game came out cool." - "Why didn't you put Across The Line on Minutes To Midnight?" - "Those songs just didn't quite make the cut. I think it was between Across The Line and No More Sorrow... they were filling the same spot. And we didn't like to put more than twelve songs on an album. Besides, you kind of need to have a couple songs in your bag to put on b-sides and other stuff. No Roads Left, Across The Line, there's another song called Blackbirds that we released with that video game. Those things get made along the way and then eventually it's, like, "let's just not put this on the record." If you think about it, part of it's perspective too. Think about it this way. Those of you, a lot of people are mentioning No Roads Left in the chat. You guys know about No Roads Left. You are aware of the song. I feel like it is a good song. We wouldn't have put it out into the world if we didn't think it was a good song. And you guys know a song that other people don't know. You get a song that's a little bit underground and some people don't even know it exists. There's something cool about that. That's the purpose of keeping songs off of a record and putting it out that way." - "Hey Mike you made a remix of Depeche Mode's Enjoy the Silence, any chance you can make a remix of another top hit?" -> "Yeah, I mean that was a special scenario though because they were doing a big remix album / re release of old stuff and they wanted to modernize and get some modern remixes. I would do it, but you know, the scenario would have to work out." - "I want to know if there will be a sequel of Linkin Park" -> "The thing is like, we're all open to it. It's just a matter of it being awesome and getting it right, you know."

Cool. Actually prefer it over some of the Recharged stuff. It's very glitchy which is a cool style to try on an LP song. Not bad at all. Uploaded it to YouTube.

Completely fake. Not only is the setlist fake, the audio is from a different show. Closed the thread.

June 12th, here we go! Another recap of Mike's Q&As. - "When are you going to release the Open Door track?" -> "As soon as I can. I wanted to release it on the 19th, that is apparently not happening because Spotify is featuring only black artists on that day which is cool. So I don't want to release it on that day, that would strategically be a stupid thing to do. And so we're going to release it a different day. It's coming! It's coming soon." - "In Stereo is my favorite hip hop song of all time. Did the beat come first and inspire the lyrics?" -> "Yes, that one was definitely a beat first. Because the song is about the beat in a sense. In Stereo is a Fort Minor track. It's about having a new track that you love and listening to it in your car and getting the love of making the beats... stuff like that." - "Hey Mike, can you break down The Summoning? I hear snippets of old LP songs in it, is that the case?" -> "I don't think there are snippets of old Linkin Park things in it, we just made things that sounded very LP. You know what's fun about that song and about that album? If you really listen to it, there's elements of it that sound like... it's almost like taking like A Thousand Suns sounds and adding metal. I loved that after the fact, it was like a little dirtier with the samples and stuff. The non-guitar based drums, it was darker and dirtier. Darker meaning EQ, it wasn't as bright." - "Hey Mike can you talk about the long scream in Given Up? Who got the idea to put it in?" -> "Ah man, it was just a thing. He was just on it. He was just pissed off or had all this crazy energy. He was doing the scream for that bridge part and he didn't know the structure of the song that well yet, so he did the scream... he did a couple of takes and we were like, "oh that's too short, that doesn't fit in the spot it needs to fit in, it just needs to be longer." And he did it again, and it was still kind of short, so I said "oh it needs to be a lot longer than that." So he just did THAT - he kept going and he knew he was just doing it over the chorus, then he finished it and I was just SCREAMING myself, like "that was the most epic thing I've ever heard!" He was just laughing... sweating and laughing. That was for sure "no shirt on, freaking out in the vocal booth day." I was like, "I'm just going to work around it, I'm going to work the song around the scream." - "In the song Hands Held High, there's the quote "when the rich wage war, the poor will die." -> "It's a very good quote by Jean-Paul Sartre, I found it to be true and I found it to be appropriate to the song topic that I was thinking about, that I was writing about, so I included it in the song. I was quoting it." - "Hey Mike what happened to the mural that you painted in the music video for Welcome?" -> "It was painted on a backdrop of 12 inch record sleeves. How did you not get the memo on this guys? Fuck! Hold on, I'm looking at my own web store because I want to see. They're sold out? They're gone? Are you sure? Who was collecting information on all the positions of the squares? Like they broke down, you got this one, this is the square you got. LPCatalog. You guys bought the vinyl from the thing and then you didn't tell them where it was, poor LPCatalog, I felt so bad, they didn't get the info from you and it's your fault." Mike says there is an Indian population in LA and he loves Indian food. So when he goes to India, he wants to eat more of the food. - "One of my favorite Fort Minor songs is Spraypaint and Inkpens. Any story you want to tell about the We Major mixtape?" -> "The We Major mixtape, I made that with all the people involved after I finished the Fort Minor album. I had a couple of those tracks that I wasn't going to include on the album and then we did them for the mixtape, and then I did a bunch of other stuff. I made all the tracks except for I think Scoop DeVille did two. Yeah we just sent it to Green Lantern and he blended it, he mixed it. I put all of the songs together, we put all of the raps together like in a few weeks. It was pretty fast, I feel like that's the point of a mixtape."

Today, BBC Radio 1's Download After Party featured a new clip sent in by Mike Shinoda talking about Linkin Park's 2011 show at Download Festival. He reminisces on #AThousandSuns, Linkin Park performing at festivals and more. The radio played 'Waiting For The End' from the festival and also included 'Jornada Del Muerto' in the background of Mike's talking. Here's the full clip, which comes in at 7:43. Check it out! Download (.WAV / 78 MB)

Before we get behind on Mike's Q&As, we better start recapping! Here's June 11th. Thanks to PeppePark for all of his help! "I've already delivered the first volume of these jams for distribution to put on streaming services." - "How many jams are you doing on the first volume?" -> "I think I'm doing.... how many am I doing? I'm not going to tell you which ones either. This is part of the artistic decisions that have to be made, this is what makes me happy is choosing the right ones and transitioning them and making a mix from one to the next, making a presentation out of it. You've gotta leave some of it to me. I'm not going to tell you which ones." - "Will there be a Minutes To Midnight 2 if Linkin Park returns?" -> "In the sense that Minutes To Midnight was like a reinvention, yes, we would have to reinvent things in order for that to work. In terms of the sound of that record, we're probably not trying to do the sound again." - "What's the criteria for the band to add an outro or an intro to the songs in the setlist? Do you have a story about the Waiting For The End outro?" -> "You know, the critera was just like - it felt like a good idea. Usually it'd be me making them. And the decision to do them would be me or Brad most of the time. Like different eras had different setlists, like projects. So like around Minutes To Midnight and A Thousand Suns we realized that we could really do more with the interludes and the way we transition and stuff because we had more songs. And then after that, it was like "oh we've got a lot of songs, we've got too many songs to put in the set, and so now how do we do that?" So we started mashing them up, shortening them, blending them into each other. We did that on Living Things a lot. It becomes more of the aesthetic of the record too, almost a DJ set of Linkin Park stuff but more live band. Then we backed off that a little bit because we felt like we were shortening too many songs. Or we had done it for a while and we were ready for a break on it. It was back and forth." He always thought that Jimi Hendrix played really well and he would have liked to have worked with him. "There was something so remarkable about the way he played and the way he sang. I got to hear a multitrack recording of him one time and it was so complicated and it was almost like two different people." - "Please share It's Goin' Down music video making stories." -> "You know, Joe directed it. Joe basically wanted to do a performance video in a really unique environment. It wasn't anything crazy. Brad wasn't available, I played guitar on the song. I wrote and recorded the guitar on the song, so anybody could have played guitar. And we wanted me to be rapping in the video. And Joe reached out to Wayne Static from Static-X about doing it. Part of it was just like bringing in that element of, "oh shit, look at that guy", because his look was so crazy. So that was fun, though. The X-Men were dope, they were so great. All super nice guys and obviously insanely talented with a ton of history behind them. They were like innovators in that space along with like Beat Junkiez.... like dozens of them you can name. That lead into guys like Z-Trip and so many others. But again, I could just go down the rabbit hole forever on that stuff." - "Have you ever thought about doing a stream where do you do a deep dive into the production of a Linkin Park or Post Traumatic song?" -> "I could do that. Let me think about that one." - "Have you ever had your songs in setlists censored in other countries?" -> "Yes, and I shouldn't say what and where. Probably would get me in trouble with that country because it's happened before. So yeah what generally will happen is like, before you come, the country will say "these are our rules." Many times the countries will say, "if you're going to play, you have to send us your setlist. If you don't send it, you can't play. And if you don't play that setlist, you won't come back, you might get arrested." So those are kind of the rules. I can say like, in Malaysia, for example. I can say this is them because to me it isn't a big deal - being a Muslim country and like, relatively conservative, they don't allow cursing. So they just request that like... they want to see setlists, they don't want you to curse, and they want you to self-edit. They also don't want you to spit. One time the request was - no spitting, no taking your shirt off Chester, and no showing the bottoms of your feet. So don't jump. And we were like "woah! what?! why is that?" and they were like, "oh because if your feet are dirty, if the bottoms are dirty and you're showing that, it's disgusting." And we were like, "oh we understand that but no jumping, we really feel like that's going to hold back the show. And it's a lot of rules, are you sure we should play Malaysia?" I'm glad we kind of pushed back and said this sounds weird. You want us to come play and you don't want us to be ourselves and play our show. So figure that out for me. So it turns out the reason they were pushing these rules is because there was going to be royalty in the crowd. Some of their like... royalty and political people and figures and stuff. We went "oh! where are they sitting? don't put them down there, would it help if we put them higher up so they aren't going to see the bottoms of our feet and whatever. And we won't curse and Chester won't take his shirt off.... that's no problem." It came back then as, "Oh yeah no problem, you can jump all you want." They didn't want a photo of us being taken with our feet up in the face of these people. That would be a bad look for both them and us. So you have to realize there's a cultural barrier and once you solve that, it wasn't a big deal. They came to the show and they loved the show. We didn't insult them, they didn't get mad and kick us out of the country and whatever.... it was all good." - "Do you think you'll continue with the streams after quarantine is over?" -> "I think so. We're already starting to come out of quarantine in LA." - "Can you tell us some meaning behind the song What The Words Meant?" -> "Sometimes it's hard to remember. We've made a lot of songs. That song is about - I don't know if I've said who this artist is so I won't. There was an album I liked a lot, I loved almost every song on it and then I talked to the singer. Ah I did say, It was Phantogram. So, Three, the album Three. We talked, and it was after Chester had passed. And I found out she had lost her sister. She had died by suicide and she said something about that record, how it dealt with and expressed that. I was like, "oh shit. no way, I love that record." So I went back and I listened back and I was like, "holy crap, I had no idea this record was about that." I didn't tell her that because we had already talked. But anyway, that was crazy. There's so many records that we listen to that we haven't been through the things they were going through when they were recording the album. We're just listening to it as good music or we're listening to it because we connect to it in a different way. So yeah, that was fucking crazy. Wow." Open Door coming soon -> "So I picked the vocalists for Open Door and we're wrapping up, we're doing some content to release that. So we're doing some stuff with it. More to come." Mike talked about mastering records. "Mastering is the final process in finishing a record. It's these little tweaks, the barely audible tweaks to your songs... so you take all the finished mixes and mastering is where you put them together and sequence the album and decide how they either overlap or how much space goes in between them. The volume levels, the compression and limiting and EQ. Very very subtly. When we first started making records, I could not tell the difference in what those guys were doing. All I knew is that it was louder. Back then, that's the only thing I knew - "ok, that's louder than it was and now it sounds like a record and now let's put the track markers here." Now, I can master a record myself. Bernie Grundman is the company where Brian masters. Brian maybe masters three to six records a day, I'm kind of spitballing. Imagine that many finished albums going across this man's desk, and he just does them, these EQs. It's not super tedious work. He does a pass at it and gets it sounding the way he likes it. Most people are like "cool, we're done." Some people like us say, "hey, will you tweak these things?" and he's like "uh huh", and he'll go back to it." "How did you manage being in school and having the band?" -> "So I started the band, the first songs were at the end of high school, me and Mark Wakefield. After that, we started to get a little interest and encouragement from this guy who worked at the label. So we started recording more in my house and playing some shows once a month or once every couple of months. We were practicing once or twice a week and recording once or twice a week. I didn't have time to do more than that. The further I got through school, towards the end the workload lightens up a bit. I was really good at consolidating my work. If I needed to make an album cover for us, like we had these demo cassettes that we'd hand out. CD burners were really unreliable at that point and we didn't have money to burn a whole bunch of them. But cassettes were cheap, so we'd send it over to the guy and he'd make a bunch of cassettes and they'd look professional. And everybody had cassette players. I was making the art for one of those, and one of my school projects was kind of an open ended design project. We're going to use these techniques, but whatever you make with the techniques... you can make whatever you want to make. So I'd do my project, and that would be the cover of the thing. So I was killing two birds with one stones, trying to be efficient." "Why didn't Prove You Wrong make it to Post Traumatic?" -> "I just needed to choose. I didn't want to put every song on there. So I figured I'd leave a couple off. It didn't make the cut, it sounded different enough from the record enough that I said, "I'll just release this later."" At the end, Mike talks about Brad being a bigger guy when he was a bouncer back in the day, and talks about the jobs they had.

In Mike's live streams over the past few months, fans noticed a remix that he was working on by the artist renforshort. "I Drive Me Mad" was included in Mike's Spotify playlist of recent jams, and Mike follows this artist on Instagram. According to a Napster leak, the remix seems to be coming out sometime this year. Stay tuned for more information! Thanks to PeppePark and martinez for bringing this to our attention!

On June 9th, Chester Bennington was trending on Twitter because of a question posted by a Twitter user the prior night asking, "What celebrity death, in your lifetime, hit you the hardest?" Chester was one of the top answers which lead to an outpouring of stories, memories, and more. We love seeing Chester celebrated!

Yes, it's the Rio+Social track.

Here's the recap from June 8th with the questions Mike answered! - "How do feel about Hands Held High these days?" -> "A lot of you guys have been retweeting links to that song because of the current state of affairs. It's definitely timely, definitely appropriate." - "You recently said that Promises I Can't Keep felt like my own version of a Linkin Park song. Since it wasn't performed on your solo tour, would you consider perform it with the band?" -> "That's a good question. I think it'd be up to the band. You know... usually when it comes to decisions about the set or what to do on stage... we kind of talk it out. I don't just go in... no one of us would just go in and say, 'Here's what we're doing.'" He talks about how he prepares some samples beforehand for the streams because it would be really boring for fans to watch him pick through sounds. He said he also does this when making a track normally, he will pick a bunch of sounds before starting his session. - "Who wrote the lyrics and who wrote the melodies to Roads Untraveled?" -> "I think I wrote most of that one. Maybe not the whole thing. If I'm not mistaken that was one of the ones that I even did most of the drums on that one, which was unusual. I remember that, the drums were a mix of live and... oh you asked about the lyrics and melodies. I'm pretty sure I did most of the lyrics and melodies on that one." Mike says he isn't ever wrapped up in the critical response of an album after it is released, because he is completely satisfied with it when it is out. He does read critical reviews of shows and things like that sometimes, but he doesn't pay much attention to music reviews. He added, "One of my favorite albums we've ever done, if not my favorite one, was A Thousand Suns. The critical reception was generally a little more negative than the fan reception. The fan reception was either one star or five stars. It was either everyones favorite album we made, or they hated it. I think that was the era where someone said "this album is a slap in the face for Linkin Park fans." "It's like ok, really? You take this whole thing too seriously. Second of all, this is our art and our creation, we're not trying to make pop top 20 hits." There are songs on it we thought we would do it. To get into the whole thing and make it about themselves as opposed to we are the guys who have to put on the name of the venue... hearing people talk shit about it was difficult, it's always difficult." - "How did LP decide to do show encores?" -> "It was usually just a part of the show. It's just a part of a headline show. If they don't, they are making a statement about encores which I think is fine. But maybe that is overthinking it." - "Do you guys go for vocal lessons or learn from experience?" -> "Both. Vocal lessons are good for you, not only to get better at singing but usually the techniques you do during a vocal lesson will have you warmed up before a show. And if you're doing a lot of shows, part of the focus is using your voice the right way so you don't wear it out, so you don't lose your voice. It was a big step for me going from shorter shows to longer shows, and then adding singing to the shows. And then on the Post Traumatic Tour it was going from sharing vocal duties with Chester to doing a full set where I was doing it the whole time. I was actually very nervous about that. That's potentially twice as much singing, rapping, and using my voice. I thought, "oh shit, my voice could go out all the time." And it was really worn out but I never lost it. So that's good. I recommend them. And really like one of the main things I learned with vocal lessons is do your warmups. Maybe they'll teach you cooldowns too. Think about it like working out. You would want to do a warmup and a stretch afterwards so that you don't pull a muscle... kind of like that." - "Back in the days when you were driving the tour bus, how many times did you get lost?" -> "We got lost a bit. Back then when we were driving the RV, it was not a bus but an RV, I drove more than the other guys but we all split it. Well I shouldn't say we ALL split it. Joe, Chester and I drove, Brad and Rob did not. Phoenix wasn't with us when we did those tours. I feel like I got pretty good at driving it. Have you ever gotten a new car and you feel like it's too big or you don't know the edges of it are? It felt like an extreme version of that, like getting in an RV and trying to drive it around. I remember we went into DC one time and I managed to drive the RV around a corner. There were cars on every corner and every street, and there was a huge, fat dumpster in our way to get to the venue AND there was a cop car. And I remember there were guys out of the windows on every corner of the vehicle trying to make sure that I didn't hit anything. Like I was inches from every edge. I managed to get the whole thing... we were SCREAMING when I got through the thing when I didn't hit anything."

Check this out! Ken from Humble Bros. has uploaded a seventeen minute video discussing the 1stp Klosr remix on Reanimation, how it came together, and how it was created. This is one of the most interesting uploads we've seen of a song breakdown. Additionally, he has a brand new mix of the song that he did to start the video. This is the first time that we've heard Saki Kaskas played guitar and bass on the remix. "In this session, Ken 'hiwatt' Marshall breaks down The Humble Brothers remix of '1stp Klosr' by Linkin Park, from their 2002 PLATINUM album Reanimation!"

The misunderstanding comes from the fact that, on their schedule with the 17:00: Linkin Park, they linked the Rock n Heim show. Additionally, other linked shows from that exact same list were the exact sets that were aired. It was not an unreasonable assumption. However, these things happen like you said and it's not a big deal. The broadcast was fun, we enjoyed it and the DJ had great things to say about Linkin Park on the stream. He shouted out the fans too. I don't think anyone should be upset it wasn't Rock n Heim, it was a misunderstanding, but not the biggest deal ever. We have plenty of music (+ Montebello 2015 highlights) coming this year too. The LP name was not used as any "false promotion." Agreed 100%.