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Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, and Phoenix catch up with Daniel Carter from BBC Radio 1 with the Meteora|20 release quickly approaching. Brad: "Lost is actually resonating right now and was made 20 years ago, that really is shocking to me and I am super proud of the album, super proud of the song... changing the name of the song to "Found", ha. And I am just really stoked to talk about the album and this moment we are having. I don't take it for granted, let me just say that." "I think a lot of the songs are a natural evolution of Hybrid Theory and when I look at the tracklist, I think there is a pivotal song on Meteora where I am like, "Woah, what's that? Where did that come from?" And I think it harkens, it foreshadows what's to come. And that song is Breaking the Habit. That song could not have been on Hybrid Theory. It's in a whole other lane that kind of opened up for us creatively and the other thing that stands out to me dramatically is the visual landscape because the visuals, first and foremost with the music the visuals have never been a secondary part of making music." Phoenix: "There is always a pressure in any sense on any record. We were just young enough and naïve enough to not even have grasped, in real time, be grasping how big or special or unique what Hybrid Theory was doing... was. We were still, in a way, just doing the same stuff we were doing when it was written, recorded and released. We were just doing it on larger stages. We were still getting on each others' nerves and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and grinding it and that kind of stuff. Even though Hybrid Theory had done great, the short amount of time we'd have at home, we'd get home and we'd still be doing the same silly stuff. In a good way, it just put us in the mindset of, "You know, with Hybrid Theory, we wrote the kind of music we wanted to hear, our bar was that we wanted to love it, and we had that kind of hubris. So that obviously worked, and why wouldn't we do that again?" And it just turned into that thing of, "Well, apparently we know everything, so let's keep doing what worked." Not just copy, but "it worked", so let's do that. It wasn't until the album was just about to come out when we were doing the press about it, just hearing the "pressure" stuff... then my brain went "I've not really dealt with that at all, or come to grips with that at all. Hopefully this does well or this might be our last record." It wasn't until all of you started asking questions that the pressure started to mount." "In the footage of the live shows, you can see the progression of the band going through the year and a half of playing shows. There is a smaller show, then there is a mid sized show, then there is a stadium sized show. Hopefully you can see the evolution of the setlist and playing it better and gaining our footing on how to grow in that sense of being a live band." "We didn't start investing in how to do those larger shows until we were in the Meteora era. How do we present the band visually, how does it look/feel, etc. I think there is a big growth in that sense with Meteora. That was when our touring was a huge grind and to be able to do it was a huge blessing. When I look at the schedules of what that looks like on paper, I say "Thank god we did that then, because we would not be able to do it now." It was insane schedule. But hopefully in the process of that, for anybody who is interested, you can see the progression of that through that process." Mike: "On Meteora we had 20 something songs. I was writing the first demos in the bus on domestic tours for Hybrid Theory that summer in the US. The guys would come in, usually like one at a time, and see what is going on, or "I have an idea", or "Check this thing out" or just listening to things and giving feedback. I'd change things to their request. And then once we got home, we had a really good sense, a handful of things we were building on, these ideas. Specifically, one thing that has come up these days is that Hybrid Theory was intended on being a pretty direct and compact pallet of information. We wanted it to be clear, we wanted to define to people "This is Linkin Park." We were being asked to play headline shows like, "How long can you play? 60 minutes? 90 minutes?" Our record was was like 30 something minutes long. So we could literally play it and that would almost be a headline set. So we were so excited about the idea of doubling the amount of songs we had out there. But in particular, doubling the amount of touchpoints and genre information and things that we can do. So you could take that too far and the second record could be just all new information. Like, it would be "Oh well where did the old sound go at all?" Instead we said, here are the things we can keep and build on. And here and are the things that if we change... let's experiment with making our own loops - we love sampled hip hop, we love the things people are doing in electronic music doing looping and programming. That's how the sound of the intro of "Somewhere I Belong" with Chester playing an acoustic guitar... it was reversed, and I think there is a bit crusher and compressor on there. The main sound was reversed guitar with bit reducer on it. And then "Faint" for example, it was written as a string melody. Then we hired a string group to come play it, then we sampled that. "Nobody's Listening" was a Japanese flute sample we had a guy come play. That's one example of, "We have a new color to put in the palette. And it'll make the record be more interesting. And we identified those things, Meteora began to have its own identity." Standout moments for you: "I guess the things I think about are how it was a very compressed timeline - writing, recording, mixing and mastering. The writing stage is at the beginning. Our process was much more like a rap group where we were making tracks then putting vocals on the tracks, we were still writing and changing stuff all the way into the mastering stage. The record needed to be delivered by Friday, and we were changing the vocals on "Somewhere I Belong" while it was being mastered to see if we could make it better. We knew the bar was so high and it was a good energy. It was a fun record to make, it was not negative, it was not stressful. I remember asking guys to "stretch", Joe asked me, I had this demo that was intended to be an electronic instrumental track. Like the Meteora version of "Cure for the Itch." And a few guys said but Joe in particular said, "I think this song needs vocals, it's going to be a good song - it could be a good song." I took it home, I had this idea for a song that I had tried a few times and it didn't work out. It popped into my head and I tried it over the top of this thing and it became "Breaking the Habit." A lot of my stuff that I'd write, it would take many many weeks to get to a place where it sounded like the song. This one immediately sounded like the song. This one, I was playing piano and singing. I turned off the track. I started playing the song and I did it - within a few hours it was done. Sometime you tap into something and it's the song. I feel like "In the End" was that way. To some degree "One More Light" was like that. And other songs, like, "Somewhere I Belong" it was a grind to get them where they needed to be. Sometimes I hear the song and that's apparent, I can hear that in "Somewhere I Belong." "Faint" off of Meteora was a bit of a grind to get where it was. "Faint" was not a two steps forward/one step back kind of process, but "Somewhere I Belong" was that process. "Faint" was big step forward, and another big step forward, but it happened over three months. I'd come in with the song and it's like "Oh, what about this, what about this?" And Rob's like, figuring out how the drums should go. And the second he arrived at the thing we were like, "Oh my god the song is so much better now that you added the flavor on the song." Listen in full here which starts at 41 minutes.

I don't understand why you keep saying this when @LPAAltwireDerek said it is not Lost. He has the songs - we don't.

Vulture has posted a new interview with Mike ahead of the Meteora|20 release this week. Some highlights: "Joe Hahn and I used to go to a record store called Fat Beats and buy vinyl. DJs would press unauthorized scratch records with other people’s sounds on it and shit. So when there were DJ battles, you could be scratching something that other people didn’t have, and we would buy those records and use them. So it wasn’t a leap to say, “Oh, at some point I’d love to make a record that I can scratch onstage.” Me and Joe made a single pressing of original sounds and whatever else. There were a couple things on that record that were actually lifted off of other people’s records. We never sold it. It was just for Joe to scratch and give out to friends. I still have a couple copies." "We had met with every label and most of the indies and got turned down by everybody. Then we got Chester, and we were like, “Now we’re going to get signed.” We went and met with everybody again, showcased for everybody, and they all turned us down again. We were doing okay, playing shows for a hundred people in town, but nobody wanted to sign us. We eventually signed a publishing deal with this guy who had signed Limp Bizkit and some other people and he ended up taking a job at Warner, and we went with him as a function of him taking the job. We basically had a development deal, where if it worked out, they put out our record, but if it didn’t work out, they’d just cut us loose. And it worked out." "The unspoken, sometimes spoken agreement between me and Don Gilmore was that he was in charge of the rock aesthetic. I gave him feedback on it, but he would not give me feedback on the hip-hop that was going on the record. He was like, “Just so we are clear, Mike, you are in charge of making sure the hip-hop is pitch perfect on this thing. I won’t know.” So if I made a beat or Joe made a beat and somebody had criticism and wanted to remove a weird sample or something, we had to have a discussion without Don. At the time we were using really obnoxious samples. If you listened to some of the records we just named, some of the sounds on them are abrasive, and we loved that." “Massive” and “Healing Foot” also should’ve come out in 2003. There are hits on that demo disc. "One of those two I think I tried to resurrect during Minutes to Midnight, and again, it was like, “No man, we don’t want to look backward at all.” So this is all about that 2003 moment. There’s a certain level of quality control going on. We want to make sure that when we put something together, it’s thoughtful and we’ve done our best. Is it going to be perfect? No. Is it going to appeal to everybody? Of course not. It never will be."

It's almost unbelievable the release week is finally here. It's been a very long time coming, we've been going wild since December about this release haha

Why do you keep saying this? lol

While we don't have that Slip and And One, the Stick N Move on Hybrid Theory 20 is most likely from the NRG sessions in early 2000.

Welcome! Very jealous of the amazing opportunity you had to hear Meteora 20 before anyone in the world. That was the first listening party and a true exclusive for the Spanish fans. Your descriptions are awesome. Don't worry about any small details like that - I can't even remember something 8 songs ago when I hear an album for the first time haha. Don't apologize! You did an incredible job, better than I could have done. Hope you have a great time here on LPLive and congratulations on being selected to attend the listening party.

There are so many unreleased show intro/outro beats by Mike and/or Joe it's crazy. Hope the Denver and Manila shows have them at the end. And Seoul has the full 2003 show intro. All of those are awesome.

This sounds pretty cool. And it was one of the final songs at NRG they were working on, in that last batch of songs that made it so far into the process. So they must have really loved it. Excited for the release! Thanks for all of the info on the songs!

Wizard Song is truly shocking. Fully expecting it to sound wildly different due to the mention of Shifter being so different from the final FTI at NRG. So if Resolution made it to NRG the instrumental likely evolved heavily. It might be GREAT. Let's see!

Altwire is back at it again, this time with the exclusive first look at Meteora|20 with the first public review of the release! There is a full run down of all of the "Lost" demos as well as a lot of feedback on the release in general: "But I know you’re here for more than a recap of what you’ve heard, so don’t worry – I have what you’re looking for. “Massive” begins with a glitchy, fast-paced breakbeat reminiscent of “Session” and some of the band’s late 90s demos. Soon, the track transitions to an alternative metal sound that would fit well among the hard rock sound of the early 2000s. In the verses, Mike Shinoda sings solo, delivering poignant lyrics such as “I guess it’s true, you can’t really change the person you’ll be. The least I can do is set myself free.” The song then progresses into an anthemic sung chorus in the style of TRUSTcompany. Shinoda sings, “I heard the screaming in my dreaming every night. I awake, and I’m still mistaking you for right.”" Check it out in full here.

We get to do it all again for MTM20, new Linkin Park music, and more. Don't worry, it won't be the last exciting thing haha

Unless the guy is wrong - if he wasn't a hardcore LP fan he could have messed up on the descriptions. Since no one else is confirming it, we will have to wait and see. He could very well be wrong.

Sounds like there are surprise songs, the Don't Stay and BTH demos. The QR code? Or LPU songs? Didn't he say Resolution was NOT a Lost demo? It is its own song?

Could be anything from losing Chester is too much on him emotionally to participate in something like this - remember, Don was at the helm for two of the biggest rock albums in our lifetimes and knew a lot about Chester from these sessions and time together, to anything else like he has moved on from it in his life, or something. Chester would be blowing up about Lost if he were still around. Hell they'd play it live for a special event, I'm pretty sure of it. Whether for a TV performance on SNL or Kimmel or an exclusive LPU event, that seems like something LP would do with a number one song from something 20 years ago and how much they like interacting with their fans.

Brad said Lost was mixed with the rest of the album in New York and Lost was the only extra song they mixed at the time. That's a pretty late cut from the album at that point. Any final predictions for the demos? Wesside with vocals? A6 with screaming by Chester? Resolution being a Lost demo? Figure.09 with singing verses? There is a ton of potential in these demos for epic stuff.

Fans: We want more from other members besides Mike always doing the press Also fans: These interviews with Brad are repetitive lol. Any time we can hear from the band these days is good. Brad speaks very well and this was a solid interview. Talking about Don, mentioning he (Brad) was the one that wanted the song mixed by Manny, etc... the smaller details like Mike taking residency in a bus in 2001 to get demos made for the next album, all of that is cool.

Brad Delson has just sat down with Rock Antenne for an audio interview, which you can listen to here. Most of it has been summarized below: Making 'Meteora': "We had a really big challenge of desperately wanting to follow up Hybrid Theory. There was a lot of nonsense in the press that we were made up somehow. The challenge was how to physically make these songs while we were still on the road. We actually outfitted a bus with a studio. Mike basically moved into that bus and we would spend time with him on that bus, creating ideas that ultimately formed the bedrock of this album that we made with Don Gilmore who also produced Hybrid Theory. We wanted to prove that Hybrid Theory wasn't a fluke, that we had something to say. We wanted to make something timeless." About "Lost": "Not everything we make is great. We make a lot of stuff to try to capture something really, really special. And this is one of those moments. And I haven't heard it in probably 20 years. And when I heard it, I was floored by it. It's one of my favorite things we've ever made. I think his vocal performance is exquisite. The subtlety on the verses and the power in the chorus... the vocal production is really, really special. Don Gilmore is a really fantastic vocal producer, among all of his other talents. I think the way he captured Chester's voice on that song... is one of the best songs we've made, I think. I am super stoked. Here in the U.S. it's number one right now at alternative and at rock radio." "Lost" being left off of Meteora: "The icing on the cake is when we were making the album, Mike and I were in New York with Andy Wallace, a legendary engineer. He mixed Hybrid Theory. He mixed fourteen songs and we were going through, like, how to sequence them because our format was the "album", like we wanted a whole album to take you on a journey and tell a story. And so getting the sequence right and getting the elements right is an art form unto itself. We had this song and we felt like it was similar to our other song "Numb", and we really wanted "Numb" to have its own moment to shine. So let's hold this other song off of the record and maybe at some future moment it'll have its own day in the sun. And then we forgot that that song existed." Mixing "Lost": "I really wanted the multitracks. Even though the mix was beautiful, it really didn't feel like a timeless song and I wanted to give it to Manny Maroquin who mixed our recent albums, to listen to it with fresh ears." "Lost" video, Meteora visuals: "I think that the visuals that were created for this song are really special. As artists, we've always prioritized the visual landscape of our band. It was never like, "Oh now we are going to just add visuals." Mike and Joe both went to one of the best art schools in the states and are really accomplished artists. And we've able to collaborate with artists like Delta, who created that Meteora wall. When I think of Meteora, I think of stepping into a whole universe. I'm not just thinking of songs, I am thinking of a whole experience. And when I think of songs on the album, I think of their visuals. That's the first thing I think of. When I think of "Breaking the Habit", I am seeing "Breaking the Habit." Joe went to Japan at that time and collaborated with some of the most talented anime artists and created a whole visual world. And the fact he was able to revisit that for this song and put a whole new spin on it just makes total sense to me. Like it's really a beautiful, exquisite piece of art. I am really stoked on the directors that worked on that and how it turned out. It's super, super cool. I don't even know how they did it." The name 'Meteora': Brad actually Googled the Greek meteora. "These were really inspiring to us. The vastness, they feel really breathtaking. I think there is an interplay between the cliffs and the manmade element. I think it's a juxtaposition I think these images to me convey like a majestic vastness, they conjure a timelessness and they also conjure a juxtaposition of elements you don't expect. I was not fortunate enough to visit this place. When I went to Greece, I was very focused to getting to the show on time. That's the thing people don't realize about touring. I would say the exception is Germany because I spend so much time in Germany that I feel like I know Berlin pretty well, Berlin specifically because that's the place I spent the most time when I was in Germany. Most places we tour to, we would see the hotel, the venue, a restaurant and the airport at a really crazy pace. This time in our career was really a whirlwind. I am doing two hours of press today and it feels like a lot. When I was that age, they would have been like, "Okay you are going to do two hours of press before the show, because you are young and have lots of energy." So it was a whirlwind at that time, it was clear in the documentary footage on this box set. It feels like an amazing sense of being grounded and having a deeper appreciation for everything we have created and for the impact it has had and continues to have. I am really grateful." Chester's birthday: "It's obviously sad, because I miss him. Also beautiful to have an extra special day to celebrate his memory and his legacy and how much joy he brought people, and light and life that was inside of him that he shared so vulnerably." About 'Meteora': "The emotion in these songs is so clear and true that I think that's what ultimately makes it stand the test of time." The success of 'Meteora': "I think we learned as we've grown as artists, you can't control how something is going to do commercially. You have no idea how other people are going to feel about it. The only thing you can control is your own creative contribution to something. So our ethos was kind of always like, "Let's make exactly the album we want to make, that we want to listen to", and we hope that other people feel the same. Also, all 6 of us have very different musical tastes, so if we would find something we really loved, it was a really good sign." What's going on with Linkin Park: "I think we are really focused on this release. We put a lot of energy into this box set. There is a tremendous amount of music on it that people haven't heard before. I think in particular, this song "Lost" is connecting more. Someone pointed out of the recent songs we've released, "Lost" is having a bigger impact." He adds "I think the moment we are in is celebrating this album and I think with this song, it's just something special you can't predict. Even if you try to line everything up, you never know how something is going to impact people and connect."

I don't think "a lot" of people are having trouble liking "Lost" - it's one of their best unreleased songs they've ever put out. It's up there with "No Roads Left" and "Across the Line" in terms of songs not making the album. "More the Victim" may end up being in this list too, let's see what the lossless stereo mix of it sounds like. "Fighting Myself" is pretty good. Brad said he personally wanted it mixed from Manny for this release.

Maybe Wesside and Resolution are instrumentals since they are last on the tracklist. And Massive + A6 also have vocals. Not too surprising about Germany - they have done exclusive things there before... Berlin got a club show in 2012 as an exclusive intimate performance, there was a THP exclusive exhibit or store (forgot which it was) there in fall 2014, they filmed the Samsung 2014 show in Berlin, etc.

Updated the thread. Thanks martinez. Need to make you a mod so you can quickly edit stuff. The Numb clip isn't from Numb, there is no making of footage for that song that we know of, at least that has been released publicly. They didn't need to label it that, honestly/

As the Meteora 20 release gets closer, please feel free to submit news in here for us to create a thread with, or create a thread yourself.

They'll ship it there, they shipped one to me in the US but they didn't email us and offer it to the US fans as far as I can tell.

You can really tell Lost has a modern mix when you listen to Fighting Myself go into it, because the FM guitars are just bludgeoning heavy haha. The Lost 2002 mix will be cool to hear.

They excluded US fans from it. It was international only. In fact the first one was UK/EU only and I thought that's what the second one was too until some fans in Mexico and South America mentioned it.