hahninator

I'll do it for South America and Europe today. Waiting on more European information still after that, because that'll decide if it's One More Light European Festival Tour or One More Light European Tour, etc. Need some specifics. Waiting to see if they play any solo headlining shows. Good point by you, because this is the first time they've done full tours before the album has come out since Meteora. With Living Things and The Hunting Party, for example, they toured Europe then released the album afterward.

Well Mike teased part of WID today, and Joe was fucking with LITE last week or so.

Linkin Park went live from Third Encore rehearsals today to play a heavier version of Heavy for fun. Check out a funky version of Heavy from Joe's Instagram here. EDIT 2/24: Another livestream happened, this time with Brad running through his rig.

In Italy? Muse is bigger at least, they are playing actual stadiums.

Stripped down songs sounds like a quiet portion of the show like 2007-2008, but expanded possibly to 5 or more songs. Interesting. Intimate performances would be cool. Same. Hope they perform a few full club shows, even around the world.

Technically LP hasn't announced it yet themselves. Carpool karaoke needs to happen.

Powerless acapella came on my Spotify custom playlist of the day. Wow, really great track.

No, it was the last show of 2015. http://lplive.net/shows/db/2015/20151114

The first promo appearance for Heavy has been announced and Linkin Park will be performing the song live on "The Late Late Show with James Corden" on Monday, February 27th. The show is filmed at 4:00pm in Los Angeles, CA and tickets can be acquired here. The airing time will be at 12:37am EST. This will be Linkin Park's first appearance on The Late Late Show. Stay tuned for more promo dates as Linkin Park is sure to play more than just one show/event for the single. Source: HeadlinePlanet.com and Linkin Park Spain 2/23 EDIT: Interbridge.com says Kiiara will be joining for the performance. Confirmed by Linkin Park: "We'll be making a special appearance on the @latelateshow with @JKCorden next Monday, February 27th on @CBS." LPU members can enter a fan club lottery to get a ticket to the performance here.

Phew, that took a lot of editing. Does SiriusXM usually publish theirs?

Back in November 2015, Brett from Alternative Nation broke the story about how Chester had left Stone Temple Pilots. The news, coming as a complete surprise, was ironically leaked by Scott Weiland. Our staff member LESTAT was able to confirm this news almost immediately with his sources that are close to Chester...and the impeding press storm forced STP and Chester to play their hand and announce his departure. In today's massive tour of press outlets for the new Linkin Park single Heavy, Chester for the first time actually gave the explanation of why he left the band. The interview came from Q104.3 today and once again, Brett and Alternative Nation provided us with the recap. The video of the interview can be seen here. “Man, let me just tell you, I have the highest respect for Stone Temple Pilots. I love Scott [Weiland], I’m sad that he’s gone. He was a huge supporter. I just heard a really interesting story the other day, about how he had heard [Hybrid Theory] with one of the programmers in California, and basically said, ‘That’s it. That’s what you guys are going to be playing from now on.’ That just means a lot to me, because he actually introduced me to a lot of the people I play music with. I’ve seen Stone Temple Pilots play probably about 30 times, a huge influence on me. They really made music that I absolutely loved, and I still love to this day. So the chance to go out and perform those songs with those guys was very cool. Honestly, Robert [DeLeo], Dean [DeLeo], and Eric [Kretz], those guys are super talented. I’ve had the privilege of not only being in Linkin Park and being around a bunch of geniuses, I got to go and be in Stone Temple Pilots and be around a bunch of geniuses, and just kind of sit back and kind of ask myself, ‘How did I get here?’” I had so much fun. I actually still get to play with those guys every once in awhile, I have a deep deep love. The only reason why I’m not doing it now is my kids, they would cry every time I would go on the road with STP. When I leave on tour with Linkin Park, they’re like, ‘Okay, we’ll see you when you get back.’ They understand what I’m doing, but when I would leave with STP they would cry. I started realizing, I think they thought I was choosing to do that over being at home with them, because I would be done with Linkin Park and coming home. It was just too hard on my family, so I basically was like, you know what, I’ve got to stop being selfish here. When I’m not doing Linkin Park, I’ve got to be home with my babies.” So as it turns out, it was his kids. At the time, Chester said it was too difficult to juggle Stone Temple Pilots and Linkin Park at the same time, which may be true in some regard but Linkin Park also just took well over a full year off of touring. STP is still searching for their replacement singer for Chester.

What a comment on FB. "Honestly this is a pretty big blow for the band. Pooch is THE best in the business and he is a huge factor in what makes LP sound so great and "sonic" live. I hope his replacement will be able to do just as fine if not a better job."

There comes a time in life where one must move on, and we regret to inform fans that Linkin Park's front of house engineer Pooch has moved on from Linkin Park to work with other artists. Ken "Pooch" Van Druten was in charge of LP's live sound since 2007 which was the start of the Minutes To Midnight touring cycle. During this period the band undeniably had one of the best live sounds in the touring world and that sound was due to Pooch and his team. He mixed bands from Linkin Park to Guns N' Roses, Smashing Pumpkins, Slash, System Of A Down, Rob Zombie, Limp Bizkit, Jane's Addiction, Eminem, Justin Bieber, and more. We conducted a very detailed interview with Pooch in 2008, in the middle of the Minutes To Midnight touring cycle, which can be viewed here. Pooch is well-renowned in the live music industry. He contributed to three Grammy nominations and won the Top Dog FOH Engineer of the Year award six times and the Parnelli FOH Engineer of the Year award twice, which reflects quite well on his status in the industry. To us, he's one of the best in the world and that's hard to dispute. From 2007 to 2012, Linkin Park sold their performances online in the "live CD" (then "Digital Souvenir Package") program. 229 shows were released in this program (master list here). If you bought a show during this period, Pooch mixed the release. Countless other releases were mixed by Pooch, including LP's Road To Revolution CD/DVD in 2008 from Milton Keynes, England. Many fans know Pooch because of his outgoing attitude before and after shows, often taking time to talk with fans about Linkin Park, their shows, and to pose for pictures. It's uncommon in live music for a crew member to have such a notable relationship with fans of a band across the world, but during every tour we'd see pictures of fans with Pooch across social media or posts tagging him saying, "thank you for the show setlist" (or guitar pick, or any other concert souvenir). He did interviews with LP fansites, guested on fansite podcasts, and more. From his interview with us... "Every LP fan has been really cool. I have worked for other bands where people can be a bit annoying (too much alcohol and such), but for the most part before and after the show I enjoy speaking with fans. Especially if they are interested in the gear." Pooch's contributions to the Linkin Park world go beyond mixing the band, mixing their live releases, and having a great rapport with fans. LPLive is more than 10 years old. Throughout this period Pooch made countless contributions to our live history of Linkin Park. Exact performance dates were confirmed, setlists for private shows revealed, and more. He is singlehandedly one of the best and most reliable contributors to our live guide. LPLive would have gaps in history if it weren't for Pooch. Here are a few stats... - Pooch professionally mixed 432 live Linkin Park performances, plus countless hours/days/weeks of rehearsals for these live shows. LP has performed 876 shows in their entire career - Pooch has mixed 6 shy of exactly HALF of the amount of shows Linkin Park has ever played. - He was a part of Linkin Park's first visits to 20 different countries across the globe: Sweden, Russia, Poland, Taiwan, China, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, Greece, Turkey, Macau, Argentina, Chile, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Norway, Romania, Ukraine, South Africa, and Belarus. And of course, a part of huge returns to Brazil, Belgium, Mexico, Philippines, Malaysia, etc. - He was involved in 4 Linkin Park album touring cycles (Minutes To Midnight, A Thousand Suns, Living Things, and The Hunting Party), but he also worked with Dead By Sunrise and Stone Temple Pilots. Remember the time he was Chester's security guard for DBS in Hamburg? - He helped debut 35~ different Linkin Park songs live. (yes, this took a full Skype chat of "what is an actual live LP song versus an interlude, etc" debate...) Here are few highlights of releases in Linkin Park's career we thought fans might look back on, mixed by Pooch: - Bristow, VA 2012 - In My Remains live debut - Milton Keynes, ENG 2008 - From The Inside from the Road to Revolution CD/DVD - Auburn, WA 2007 - part the first live "DSP" the band ever released - Toronto, ON 2007 - No More Sorrow from the LP Underground 7.0 album - Burgettstown, PA 2008 - LPU's online release of Crawling (feat. Chris Cornell) - LPTV Europe Winter 2014 - LPTV using Pooch's mixes, check out Wastelands So on behalf of all of us, #ThankYouPooch, and good luck on your next endeavor!

If HT is a 9 or 10, Meteora is a 10, MTM is a 9 or 10, ATS is an 8 or 9, then LT and THP are both in the 6-7 range for me. They need to redeem themselves.

Mike and Chester w/ iHeartRadio. Nothing really newsworthy. Same ole stuff except Chester says he had to go back in and re record vocals to make them more energetic. What is the background music?

I agree, most artists are cutting down on time between announcements and release dates. This might be something on the WBR side though, they want time to promote it, etc.

Instrumental lol. Ouch. I wish bands would still release b-sides on singles. The last band I've seen do it was Brand New last year.

Warner Music Group in Central Europe is releasing a two track CD single of Heavy next month, on March 10th. In an era where music is mostly shifting towards streaming, it's good to see that the label is still releasing physical single CDs. Of course, the most interesting part of this to the fanbase is what track number two could be. Linkin Park is a bit of a tossup when it comes to singles - it's unlikely that it's a radio edit of the song since it's only 2:50, but it could be a remix of Heavy. The band has recorded a lot of live material as well, even from the last world tour for The Hunting Party. Last year, we saw a behind-the-scenes video of a professional mix of A Line In The Sand which still remains unreleased. EDIT: The tracklisting is now out: 01. Heavy (feat. Kiiara) 02. Heavy (feat. Kiiara) (Instrumental) 3/11 EDIT: The single has been released, and you can find a copy on eBay here. The back cover credits can be seen here. The credits are interesting because they mark a departure in song credits for Linkin Park, who usually shares credit as "Written by Linkin Park" instead of by individual members. This is true even for LPU demos in which Mike is the only writer of the song - they are all still shared and have been for the band's career after the Hybrid Theory release. With Heavy, we see "Written by Mike, Brad, Chester, Julia Michaels, and Justin Tranter." Also of interest is where vocals were recorded. Chester's vocals were recorded at The Pool Recording Studio in London. As it is unlikely that Heavy's final vocals were recorded in September 2015 when Mike did a writing session in London, there are two other likely time periods where Chester could have recorded in the UK. FIrst, the band visited Sweden and Germany in March 2016, doing events with Mercedes and WBR. He could have stopped in London then, or also in late July/early August 2016 when band members flew to Belgium for a racing event. Vocals by Mike were done at The Warehouse Studio in Vancouver. We know Chester and Phoenix went to Vancouver in May to meet with Mercedes, but Mike could have gone along at that time as well. Finally, Kiiara's vocals were recorded at Sphere Studios in North Hollywood, much later in the process. The song was produced by Mike and Brad, and vocals were produced by Emily Wright and Andrew Bolooki. Andrew's name was mentioned by Chester in the live chat, but we previously couldn't decipher what last name he said. Andrew has worked with Selena Gomez and Jesse McCartney. Finally, the song is mixed by Serban Ghenea, a name unknown to us before today as we were under the assumption that Ethan Mates had mixed the song and album. According to his website, "Serban Ghenea is an eight-time GRAMMY Award and three-time Latin GRAMMY Award-winning mix engineer." He has recently mixed the new The Weeknd song Starboy, the Zayn/Taylor Swift song I Don't Wanna Life Forever, Katy Perry's Chained To The Rhythm, Adele's Water Under The Bridge, Tove Lo's Lady Wood, Lady Gaga's Joanne, Bruno Mars's 24k Magic, and Oh My My by OneRepublic. He currently does not list Linkin Park's One More Light or just the single Heavy on his discography page. While it looks like that he mixes mainly big singles lately, it's possible he didn't mix the entire album. We will have to wait until May to see. Thanks to BlackChester for the heads up!

This is a great post. I completely agree. Man, when Chester rehearses for weeks, uses in-ear monitors, etc...he really is in great form. I was impressed. Sometimes he sounds off when he hasn't done anything for a while and you can tell he prepped for this performance. I like his vocals a lot on these tracks. A full set with MTV Unplugged is long overdue.

Wow this is a great point. He absolutely destroyed this in 2014.

I thought the reason the mixing process took months was because they had "so much material" recorded, so many songs to mix.

Just make it easier on Chester and drop the harder songs live. No problem. I don't care what the hell he sings, but I sure hope they'd pick songs that are easier on his voice versus making him sing Given Up into Blackout or something lol

MTM and LT are the most diverse albums the band has released, IMO. LT would have faired better as two EPs because of how different it is. MTM is diverse in a good way, a truly great alt rock record.