Justin

He might feel like the demand isn't there to warrant a release of an FM show outside of an anniversary or some other occasion that would call for it. As for the PT tour, Mike has said more than once that he is opposed to releasing a full live show from that tour because he wants it to be remembered as a "you had to be there" type of thing. Like a special moment in time that is only for those who were there.

We only know what they're comfortable with sharing. You say "except Mike" but Mike himself is pretty guarded when it comes to his life outside of music. He was a guest on a podcast a few years back and, during a conversation about video games, he said he was uncomfortable saying how old his kids were. That's his prerogative for himself and his family. With that said, Rob has always been the most private of all the band members. He will share what he wants when he wants, and in the meantime Mike and the others will continue to respect his privacy.

They definitely do. Mike mixed this song for inclusion on Meteora 20. The stems were required for him to do so. Same with Fighting Myself, which Mike outright said he had to make sure they had the stems for it so they could mix it for Meteora 20.

They did release the instrumentals for LT and THP, but they did not release the instrumentals for OML. They were leaked.

Thank you for finding that!

Inside of Me by Dead By Sunrise is a hard one for me to listen to.

It's all subjective, and I think a big part of it is what era of the band is your personal favorite. Some of the people I see saying that they prefer the 2002 mix of Lost have made it clear in other threads that HT and Meteora are their favorite LP albums, so naturally the version of Lost that was mixed during that time for inclusion on Meteora sounds better to them. Conversely, some of the people I see saying they prefer the 2023 mix of Lost have made it clear in other threads that the later albums are their favorite. That also makes logical sense.

I like that you pointed this out for people like me who were saying “please don’t be another weird dance remix…” it would be cool to get the instrumental and acapella. There’s precedent for LP to release a single like that, like they did with New Divide. I doubt that’ll happen, though.

Mike confirmed that in an interview. LP have been known to take an element of a demo and create something entirely new around it. Mike wasn’t saying Animals led directly to Roads Untraveled or that it’s the same song, just that the ideas in that demo led to other ideas which led to other ideas and so on until they arrived at Roads Untraveled.

During the making of HT, I think it was Brad who said they intentionally aimed for a certain number of tracks and to keep the album under 40 minutes because they wanted the album to not have any filler and to not overstay its welcome. It was just their mindset at the time, which we know they retained for Meteora. It wasn't until MTM when Linkin Park decided to really challenge any preconceived notions, even amongst the band members, about what they were supposed to sound like and what their albums should be.

They'd have become known as a relic from a bygone era. LP changed up their style right as nu-metal's mainstream popularity was fading, and they proved they were capable of more. Staying the same would've seen LP get left in the past. Without the agreement LP made amongst themselves to do whatever they want to do stylistically, they probably would've broken up eventually since both Chester and Mike both had different sounds they wanted to experiment with. I don't think either of them would've been happy to make the same type of music for 20 years straight.

What makes you think that? Neither of them have given any indication that they were done. I don't think Phoenix would've said that the band wasn't done if Brad, Rob, and Joe were out. He would know where they stand way better than any of us would.

I actually have to agree here. Mike himself spoke of having trouble getting booked at certain venues or events because promoters know "Mike Shinoda" doesn't draw as many ticket sales as "Linkin Park" when lineups are announced, even though he was playing a few LP songs at his shows. Most casual fans have never even heard the name Xero.

The intent isn't to tell the listener that the voices heard in the chorus are correct or to encourage others to have those thoughts. The intent is for the "shut the fuck up" line at the end to be directed at those voices. Mike also posted a trigger warning about the subject matter of the song. I will agree that it's the worst song of his catalog though, because the song just doesn't sound good in my opinion.

I get it, but that scenario would be dependent on an entire conversation taking place with specific verbiage when we have no way of knowing that it actually happened lol. Then there's also the fact that Brad literally said it was A6 when he heard that clip, which is like 3 seconds of Chester's vocals. I think he had heard the demo while the band was preparing LPU 2, which is why he was able to recall it so quickly, and the version we got obviously was instrumental because they decided to scratch the vocals at the time.

That’s some well thought out headcanon, but I think he’s saying “drag”, not “track”. We’ll see when the box set drops. I don’t think they would include two instrumental demos of the same song, so the one on the Lost Demos CD will probably have vocals. We’ll see if that line is included.

Definitely the classic LP sound! I felt like a kid again hearing a “new” Meteora track.

Isn't that A.06?

Yeah like that one guy whose name I don't know, nor do I care to know, who brought Mike the closest I've ever seen him to being outwardly angry at an interviewer. There's a difference between that guy, and "Tell me what it was like to work with someone who struggled with the issues that Chester had." It was uncomfortable at times, but it was real life. Stern wasn't objectively rude or inappropriate. Mike was prepared and didn't seem caught off guard by the lines of questioning, either.

It is. I can tell Howard is a true LP fan and that was a really cool part of the interview. I’ve always thought, and I know I’m not the first to make this observation, that Chester was the heart of the band while Mike was the brain. I’m not saying Mike was smarter, but there was just a difference in how they approached things. Chester was always the most willing to speak his mind, for example, while Mike is usually very cautious in his wording.

I saw a comment on Reddit recently where someone brought up how Chester said Mike was one of the best songwriters of our generation. The response was basically "Wow! To be told that by Chester himself, I can't imagine the honor Mike felt." They were peers. Chester was obviously incredible, and I'm sure they both appreciated and admired the other for their respective strengths, but he and Mike were best friends and collaborators. It's not like Chester was a literal deity among men lol. Chester would have been the first person to read that comment and laugh like "Dude what? I was complimenting my friend."

That's just Stern's style. I'm sure Mike was well aware of that before he agreed to the interview. He asks questions like that because he knows most interviewers would never go that deep. He isn't the guy to sit down and ask a bunch of well written, respectful questions. He's blunt and seems to ask questions on the fly as soon as they come to him, unfiltered. He's been doing that for decades and, again, Mike had to be well aware. If not, he wouldn't have answered those types of questions. Not everyone wants to hear an interview like that which is fine, but it's also expected at this point. Most interviewers ask about the band's favorite memories of Chester, the most fun they had in the studio, etc. Stern tends to go in the opposite direction.

I love how Mike has joked a few times about how LP fans "think" that there are amazing songs just sitting on hard drives somewhere, but then the band releases songs like these which prove that there are, in fact, amazing songs just sitting on hard drives somewhere!

They were still processing Chester's death, and the world was reeling from the pandemic still in October of 2020. Quite a few news channels, in the US at least, literally had a death counter on the screen 24/7. That wasn't a good year for anyone. In 2023, the band can now look back at their time with Chester with joy rather than sadness. Those feelings are coming through strong throughout this entire process and it's been really cool to see.

I appreciate how much effort was clearly put into that, and I’m not downplaying it at all, but I really doubt Warner will be doing that kind of math. I don’t think they have a set equation like that to determine when to release promotional singles from upcoming releases. Not to mention I doubt they would release a promotional single 7 days before the full release. IF Fighting Myself is released as a single ahead of the boxset, I would honestly guess it would be around mid-March. Maybe a month from now.