Fort Minor - Militia Exclusives

Summary

When the Fort Minor project was launched, Mike wanted to do another fanclub similar to the LPU for his project, so he created the Fort Minor Militia. Through the FMM, fans were allowed to purchase a package at Best Buy (or online) with a shirt, a welcome letter, and other items.

Mike also decided that this was the perfect place to release a few Fort Minor songs that didn't make We Major, The Rising Tied, or any of the single releases. Starting in November 2005 and continuing to June 2006, a track was released every month, complete with commentary by Mike. In total, fans were able to receive eight exclusive songs from the Militia. We thought it was important to mention that the person in charge of uploading these songs commented in May 2006 that there were "several more songs", but after 'Move On' was released the next month, the releases stopped. 'Kenji (Interview Version)' and 'Believe Me (Club Remix)' were streamed on the Fort Minor website, but the other six songs remained Militia exclusives.

On November 22, 2010, Styles of Beyond Central, an old fansite by Jay Sinkie, a devoted fan of Styles Of Beyond and Holly Brook/Skylar Grey, secured a release from management of the eight songs since they could no longer be found online anywhere for purchase. This release also drew attention back to the songs, which many people had not heard as Linkin Park had gained many new fans with the release of Minutes To Midnight in 2007.

His post read, "As many of you know, today (November 22), is the 5th anniversary of the release of the debut (and so far, only) Fort Minor record, The Rising Tied. In conjunction with the record's release, Mike Shinoda opened the Fort Minor Militia. Being the official fan-club for Fort Minor, it provided several exclusive features such as a members-only message board, behind-the-scenes video, and a track-per-month download of exclusive Fort Minor tracks that were unreleased via any other venue.

In celebration of this 5-year marker, for posterity's sake, and for those of you who missed out on this selection of unreleased tracks (or perhaps only got ahold of the low-quality/bootlegged version of the tracks via the fake Fort Minor Militia EP release, which included several unofficial Fort Minor tracks), we will now proudly re-release those 8 Militia Exclusive tracks for you to snag below!"

Tracklisting (w/ Commentary)

A very big thank you goes out to Astat, who might have been the only person to ever save the track commentary from Mike at the time. He dug up the file and posted it on LPLive in January 2013 for fans.

01. "Do What We Did" (demo)

(feat. Styles of Beyond)

all instruments and scratching by M. Shinoda produced and mixed by M. Shinoda

Released: November 2005

Mike's Note: In making "The Rising Tied," this song was the first song that I worked on with Ryu and Tak. They cut their vocals at their studio, Spytech (the studio in the Remember The Name video). I played all the organ and guitar sounds, then cut them up and added dusty record crackles so it sounded like a sample. The chorus was made by recording the vocal, then putting it on a CD and scratching it on a CD-turntable.

02. "Kenji (Interview Version)"

produced and mixed by M. Shinoda

Released: December 2005

Mike's Note: this song is a fort minor militia preview. it will be available on fortminor.com later, but you're hearing it here first. this version of the song contains interview clips only...all the things that were in the interviews that i couldn't fit into the song, but i thought i should put this out there for you to hear. i think this version really tells the intimate side of my family's internment camp story well. also, don't miss this part of the story: my dad's family was pretty successful before they were forced into the camp; when they got out, they had newspaper for wallpaper and were picking grapes as day-laborers. the internment had hit them pretty hard.

03. "Tools of the Trade" (demo)

(feat. Styles of Beyond and Celph Titled)

produced and mixed by M. Shinoda

Released: January 2006

Mike's Note: a lot of people keep asking me about this song. here is the story: celph titled came to LA for his first time, to visit and do some vocals. on his last day, he came to the studio a little buzzed, drinking cisco. then ryu and tak proceeded to peer-pressure him into drinking WAY too much, and by the end of the day, he was vomiting and passing out in the studio bathroom. we were all drinking, and you can tell, based on how ridiculous the verses are. celph had written some verses, but didn't finish recording because he was too wasted-- so we had cheapshot try to read his lyrics. this was supposed to be an interlude on "the rising tied," but it turned out way too silly.

P.S. - i made the majority of the beat out of random crap from my kitchen and bathroom.

LPLive Note: DJ Cheapshot and Vin Skully made a remix/parody of this song sometime after it was released and put up on Soundcloud in 2010 with the title 'Trades of the Tools'. Listen to it here. The commentary on that one reads, "Mike Shinoda made a song called "Tools of the Trade" for the Fort Minor album (it ended up not making the final cut). He made the beat out of household products and people thought it was pretty awesome. Vin Skully and I were at the studio one day and couldn't come up with anything, so we decided to waste time by parodying the Shinoda track. Here it is in all of it's glory! Enjoy!"

04. "Where'd You Joe" (WYG remix by Mr. Hahn)

(feat. Holly Brook and Jonah Matranga)

produced and mixed by Joe Hahn

Released: February 2006

Mike's Note: Joe just made this a couple weeks ago. We have a couple remixes of the song floating around out there (one by Styles Of Beyond producers Skully and Cheapshot, another by LP guitarist Brad Delson). I love Joe's--I think it's one of the most unique remixes i've heard of a Fort Minor song. I hope all of you out there who are remixing or plan to remix FM songs are inspired by it. Those of you who don't make music can just sit back and enjoy (smiley face)

05. "Strange Things" (demo)

produced and mixed by M. Shinoda

Mike's Note: this was the first fort minor song. i did it just for fun, screwing around in the bus. i like the beat, but i don't like the lyrics. all the stories in the song are true, by the way. this song basically got scrapped as i started making other things that i liked better, but listening to it now, there's a cool kind of nostalgia about it.

06. "Believe Me" (club remix)

(feat. Styles of Beyond)

produced and mixed by M. Shinoda

Released: April 2006

Mike's Note: okay, before you listen to this, hear me out. i've said before that i can make any type of song you ask me to, and i was thinking how weird "believe me" would have sounded as a typical rap song. i went the "dirty south" route with this one--i wanted to do something fun (but a little ridiculous) with it, just to entertain myself. now you can listen to it...but make sure your system has the bass turned all the way up.

play it loud.

07. "Start It All Up" (demo)

produced and mixed by M. Shinoda

Released: May 2006

Mike's Note: this was the second fort minor song ever. it sounds a little like something out of the late-80's or early 90's...i like the beat. the lyrics are actually from a linkin park song that never went anywhere. i working on the beat, and they just popped in my head, so i put them over this beat. i did the scratching in the bridge as a filler, and had planned to have someone else come in and scratch it if i ever finished the song...but i ended up deciding that this song wouldn't make the album, so i stopped working on it.

08. "Move On" (demo)

(feat. Mr. Hahn)

produced and mixed by M. Shinoda

Released: June 2006

Mike's Note: i thought it would be a cool idea to do a song about sitting in at my own funeral. also appropriate, because doing the fort minor album was like leaving one life and moving on to something else...i thought it was a cool metaphor. as far as the instrumentation goes, i don't play koto, so i used a variety of keyboard sounds to make the "sample." i cut it up and put record crackles on it to make it sound dirtier. mr. hahn blessed me with some scratches. and yes, that weird sound on the end is supposed to be there, your computer's not screwed up...in general, i think the song sounds unfinished, but i didn't know what else to do with it.

Fake EP (2006+) / "Spell It Out"

Starting in 2006, someone decided to group the songs together and call it the "Fort Minor Militia EP". However, no EP has ever been released and this is not a real release. The songs were released one-by-one via the Militia and never intended to be a part of a single release. At the same time, a track entitled 'Spell It Out' was released by a fan, which is not a real song. In this track, Mike's verse from Handsome Boy Modeling School's 'Rock And Roll (Could Never Hip Hop Like This) Part 2' (feat. Lord Finesse, Mike Shinoda, Chester Bennington, Rahzel, Qbert, Grand Wizard Theodore & Jazzy Jay / Knockers (feat. Tim Meadows)) off of their 2004 White People album was put over a fan-made instrumental beat and labeled a Fort Minor track. Do not be fooled!

As of this writing, you will still see the incorrectly labeled "Fort Minor Militia EP" listed on Wikipedia.

Download

mp3 (zip)

You can view the thread for the original release on LPLive by SoBC here.