Justin

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.

So do you have to be subscribed to YouTube Premium in order to watch this?

I don't see why there's a debate about this happening right now lol Commercial success isn't an objective measure of quality. I love Meteora, but if you're implying that ATS is like a plate of fancy looking food that actually "tastes like shit" then it can't be overstated how much I disagree with you on that.

Let’s not make this a thing lol. I’ll say this: If you played me this song without telling me what era it was, I would probably guess Meteora just because of the overall sound. I can hear the LT comparisons but that only makes sense since…. It’s Linkin Park and they made both albums! Every song that made it onto Meteora, and every other album they’ve made, has its place. I saw some people saying they should’ve dropped Nobody’s Listening or Session or Easier to Run to make room for Lost, but obviously there’s a reason that didn’t happen and there’s a reason those songs DID make it. We know how the band works. They vote on everything. It’s not like they forgot this song existed when they were finalizing Meteora’s tracklisting.

I love SFN. I never understood what makes people think it's one of their worst songs ever. The lyrics are inspired and Mike and Chester both give good vocal performances on that song.

It could. The song was written and recorded 21 years ago but it stands up with the best music currently topping the charts. Lost, even just based on the snippets we've heard so far, could definitely be a huge hit.

Lol I saw one comment there that was like "I'm not looking forward to this song specifically but I am interested in the boxset overall." Like what? It's the first major release by the band in 2.5 years. They're active again, communicating with fans and building hype. They took the time to mix and master one of the most sought after tracks by the fans over the last 20 years. This is a big deal.

It’s cool that you did that, but many LP working titles have nothing to do with lyrics. For example, Cuidado is a demo for Lying From You.

Was that ever confirmed to be the working title? I thought that was something fans called it for the last 20 years because that’s the first line we hear Chester sing in the making of Meteora documentary. Either way, I’m still convinced that Lost is that song. We’ll probably see very soon.

Or there was a working title, like most LP songs, and Lost wasn’t decided on until much later in the process.

I wonder if the band/label will be surprised if M20 outsells HT20. Would that bode well for continued 20th anniversary boxsets? I really want an ATS boxset in 7 years lol

The 2002 mix would be the demo as they found it during this process. The thinking at first was that we would get that demo, plus a remaster of sorts for that demo, touched up for release as a single in 2023. The 2002 mix was listed in the original “leak” of the track listings for M20.

RaR 2004 is easily available in many places and simply not really worth a DVD release. There’s no need to really include that when it’s out there in high quality already. I asked Mike about the Meteora remixes, and he seemed to have forgotten they were even a thing. So he either didn’t find them or he did find them and the band decided they weren’t good enough to include on a release like this. CC, sadly, I think will get a social media post and some merch in 2024 for the 20th anniversary… I really want the full show but I don’t know that the band/label will think CC is worth anything approaching these anniversary releases. I love CC and would love the full Roxy show, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up for it at this point… MFR 2005 would’ve been cool, but I can also see LP looking at that show the way Mike looked at the entire Post Traumatic tour. It was a moment in time and a “you had to be there” type of thing. EDIT: Just to clarify: When I say “ I asked Mike”, obviously I mean on his Twitch stream lol

Maybe I’ve been under a rock but I never knew Snoop Dogg rapped Gin and Juice over It’s Goin’ Down. I really hope they don’t edit that out of the DVD because of label stuff, etc.!

Reminds me of how surreal it was in 2020 to have a question and be able to just ask Mike directly on Twitch. Some questions that we had been wondering about for nearly 20 years suddenly were being casually answered by Mike himself, one after another. Crazy!

I know you're joking but I wouldn't be shocked. The Beatles still have previously unreleased and unheard music being released on box sets today! Revolver came out 58 years ago and unheard demos and alternate takes were released on a box set for that album just a few months ago. The Beatles were only a band for 10 years. If they still have stuff left in the vault, I know LP/Xero does.

I’ve never played WoW nor have I ever heard the original. So to me it just sounds like a new beat by Mike. I can certainly understand the context now that it’s been explained, and I can see why some people are just not going to like any remix at all because they see it as already perfect. I just personally think that if you don’t like it, it’s easy to just pretend it doesn’t exist. I mean LP could release a dubstep remix of BTH and a lot of us would see it as almost blasphemous, but I would just pretend it isn’t a thing, the same way I do with at least 8 or 9 of the existing official remixes of BID lol

Yeah some of those comments are pretty brutal and clearly coming from a place where they would have bashed literally whatever that remix had sounded like. They're mad that it exists at all. I saw one comment that just said "Some songs shouldn't be remixed. Ever." - Reminds me of some Beatles purists who have responded to the recent remasters, like Revolver that just came out, with immediate derision simply because they think it was perfect in the 60's and shouldn't be touched. It's like... Just don't listen to it, then. I don't like most of Recharged or the 100 Gecs remix of OSC, but I'm not actively angry that those things exist lol

Mike is very in tune with the LP fanbase always, and we know he considers how anything he or the band says will be received. The band 100% knew what teasing "exciting things" and putting a Meteora tease would lead to immediate Meteora 20th anniversary box set speculation.

Of course not lol. Hopefully he would appreciate the honesty as long as the criticism is civil.

Even more so since, based on recent history, Mike would have already come out to shut down speculation if it wasn't something big. He's done that a few times now, most recently on Twitch when he said "anytime the band says anything or does anything, everyone tries to start up the hype train, and we're, like, 'No, no, no, no. Don't start up the hype train.' You're gonna disappoint yourself. Don't do that." The fact that nobody from LP's camp has come out and clarified that this isn't something huge to get hyped up about is encouraging.