Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Friday, December 25, 2009
Mike Shinoda Talks About New Album
With the recent release of the fan club-only rarities compilation LPU9: Demos and a Grammy nomination for best Hard Rock Performance for "What I've Done," from their live album, Road to Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes, the decade is drawing to a close nicely for Linkin Park.
Which is to say the '00s are ending as positively as they began for the California sextet, whose 2000 debut, Hybrid Theory, ranked as the seventh-best selling album of the decade. "It's been an absolutely unbelievable ten years," says Mike Shinoda, the band's resident rapper and sonic mastermind. "But I'm even more excited to find out what the future has to offer."
The near-future will see the release of an as-yet-untitled new Linkin Park album and, hopefully, some other guerilla-style goodies. Speaking on the phone from his home in L.A., Shinoda filled us in on the band's recent projects, what to expect from the new album, and his own holiday plans.
Did going back and listening to your demos for the LPU9 album reveal anything to you about the way the band works?
So we've got all this stuff on hard drives that we occasionally reference for ideas, but as time went on we realized that we like making new sounds more than listening to our old ones. So we decided that if we weren't going to mine this older material, we should put it out.
Excellent. Now what about my original question? Anything to that?
[Laughs] Yeah! Sorry I went off on a bit of a tangent there. You definitely pick stuff up when you go back and listen to older material. There were situations, for example, when I listened to the demos and realized that I loved playing with my MPC sampler -- it had a sound that I liked a lot that the samplers I was using on the new record didn't have. So I ended up using that again.
Tell us about the new album.
Well, Rick Rubin is producing it. I'd say we're about halfway done. I'm really happy with what we have so far. We're having a ton of fun in the studio. We really want to do something special and unique for the next record -- we want to redefine the band. I feel like on Hybrid Theory we wanted to introduce ourselves to the world with a certain sound. Then on [2003's] Meteora we were trying to show that we weren't a fluke and we could do the sound that made us successful a second time. By the time we got to [2007's] Minutes to Midnight, we wanted to break down that sound and go outside its confines. Now that we've done that, we feel like we can do anything.
Can you describe any of the songs?
That would be really hard for me to do. I have a tough time doing that. But I can say that it sounds brand new. The thing is, there are so many different ways to make music these days with virtual instruments, software applications, physical instruments, and computer programs. Then when you get in the position of being able to use almost any of it -- that's what we did on Minutes to Midnight . We wanted to play with as many instruments and sounds as we could. But on the new record, now that we have a sense of everything that's available to us, we can reel it in a bit and focus on just the things that we like, which so far is turning out to mean music that is more beat-driven and has a keyboard and drum machine kind of feel.
Have you picked a name for it yet?
Way too early for that.
Did Chester's going off and working with [solo project] Dead By Sunrise have any residual affect on how he's now contributing to Linkin Park?
That's a good question. I related to where Chester was at when he was making the Dead By Sunrise record. I went through the same thing with [Shinoda's side-project] Fort Minor. He had songs that he had to get out of his system; songs that the rest of the guys in Linkin Park couldn't necessarily get behind. Not because they wouldn't like them, but because they aren't right for a Linkin Park record. I think for both of us, working outside the band made us feel like we could focus better when we eventually came back.
Aside from the album, what do you guys have planned for the future?
We really wanted to start a phase in our career where we could release music more often rather than have to wait to put out a new album every four years. The demo album is sort of representative of that. But we also wrote "New Divide" for the Transformers movie. Chester put out his Dead By Sunrise record. We're working on the new album, so things are already moving along nicely. We're really trying hard to give fans the opportunity to hear new material from us more often. It's just a matter of finding the right outlets. Hopefully, those outlets aren't always in the form of albums.
What's going on with you for the holidays? Any big plans?
Usually I spend my holidays with my family. My parents still treat Christmas like I'm thirteen years old. It's super traditional. I write out a Christmas list beforehand, we eat turkey and drink hot cider. It's pretty funny.
What'd you put on your Christmas list?
That part's pretty tough! I can't ask my parents to buy me a mixing board or a Neve console. So I end up asking for a nice sweater. That's more their speed.
Source
Which is to say the '00s are ending as positively as they began for the California sextet, whose 2000 debut, Hybrid Theory, ranked as the seventh-best selling album of the decade. "It's been an absolutely unbelievable ten years," says Mike Shinoda, the band's resident rapper and sonic mastermind. "But I'm even more excited to find out what the future has to offer."
The near-future will see the release of an as-yet-untitled new Linkin Park album and, hopefully, some other guerilla-style goodies. Speaking on the phone from his home in L.A., Shinoda filled us in on the band's recent projects, what to expect from the new album, and his own holiday plans.
Did going back and listening to your demos for the LPU9 album reveal anything to you about the way the band works?
So we've got all this stuff on hard drives that we occasionally reference for ideas, but as time went on we realized that we like making new sounds more than listening to our old ones. So we decided that if we weren't going to mine this older material, we should put it out.
Excellent. Now what about my original question? Anything to that?
[Laughs] Yeah! Sorry I went off on a bit of a tangent there. You definitely pick stuff up when you go back and listen to older material. There were situations, for example, when I listened to the demos and realized that I loved playing with my MPC sampler -- it had a sound that I liked a lot that the samplers I was using on the new record didn't have. So I ended up using that again.
Tell us about the new album.
Well, Rick Rubin is producing it. I'd say we're about halfway done. I'm really happy with what we have so far. We're having a ton of fun in the studio. We really want to do something special and unique for the next record -- we want to redefine the band. I feel like on Hybrid Theory we wanted to introduce ourselves to the world with a certain sound. Then on [2003's] Meteora we were trying to show that we weren't a fluke and we could do the sound that made us successful a second time. By the time we got to [2007's] Minutes to Midnight, we wanted to break down that sound and go outside its confines. Now that we've done that, we feel like we can do anything.
Can you describe any of the songs?
That would be really hard for me to do. I have a tough time doing that. But I can say that it sounds brand new. The thing is, there are so many different ways to make music these days with virtual instruments, software applications, physical instruments, and computer programs. Then when you get in the position of being able to use almost any of it -- that's what we did on Minutes to Midnight . We wanted to play with as many instruments and sounds as we could. But on the new record, now that we have a sense of everything that's available to us, we can reel it in a bit and focus on just the things that we like, which so far is turning out to mean music that is more beat-driven and has a keyboard and drum machine kind of feel.
Have you picked a name for it yet?
Way too early for that.
Did Chester's going off and working with [solo project] Dead By Sunrise have any residual affect on how he's now contributing to Linkin Park?
That's a good question. I related to where Chester was at when he was making the Dead By Sunrise record. I went through the same thing with [Shinoda's side-project] Fort Minor. He had songs that he had to get out of his system; songs that the rest of the guys in Linkin Park couldn't necessarily get behind. Not because they wouldn't like them, but because they aren't right for a Linkin Park record. I think for both of us, working outside the band made us feel like we could focus better when we eventually came back.
Aside from the album, what do you guys have planned for the future?
We really wanted to start a phase in our career where we could release music more often rather than have to wait to put out a new album every four years. The demo album is sort of representative of that. But we also wrote "New Divide" for the Transformers movie. Chester put out his Dead By Sunrise record. We're working on the new album, so things are already moving along nicely. We're really trying hard to give fans the opportunity to hear new material from us more often. It's just a matter of finding the right outlets. Hopefully, those outlets aren't always in the form of albums.
What's going on with you for the holidays? Any big plans?
Usually I spend my holidays with my family. My parents still treat Christmas like I'm thirteen years old. It's super traditional. I write out a Christmas list beforehand, we eat turkey and drink hot cider. It's pretty funny.
What'd you put on your Christmas list?
That part's pretty tough! I can't ask my parents to buy me a mixing board or a Neve console. So I end up asking for a nice sweater. That's more their speed.
Source
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
In The End - #2 @ Top Alternative Songs Of The Decade
Order of 10 best songs Alternative genre during this decade, according to AOL Radio Blog. Linkin Park ranked second thanks to "In The End" it. We should be proud, because "In The End" is only 1 of the Alternative genre seabreg song ever released. Imagine. From 2000 until now.
1) 30 Seconds to Mars: 'The Kill' (2006)
2) Linkin Park: 'In the End' (2001)
3) Puddle of Mudd: 'Blurry' (2001)
4) Incubus: 'Nice to Know You' (2002)
5) Seether: 'Fine Again' (2003)
6) Staind: 'It's Been awhile'
7) Jimmy Eat World: 'The Middle' (2002)
8) Three Days Grace: 'I Hate Everything About You'
9) Evanescence: 'Bring Me to Life' (2003)
10) The White Stripes: "Seven Nation Army '(2003)
"You can not talk about the top alternative songs of the decade without mentioning Mike Shinoda (keyboardist / rhythm guitarist) and lead singer Chester Bennington's Collaborations - Shinoda rhythmic delivery is spot on with Benningston's powerful and emotional singing. 'In the End' is probably the duo's most recognized performance (as well as 'Runaway' and 'Crawling'), as they sing about a person who has lost faith in a relationship - whether it be romantic or friendly: "What it meant to me / will eventually be a memory / of a time when I tried so hard / And got so far / But in the end It does not even matter. "" - AOL Radio Blog
1) 30 Seconds to Mars: 'The Kill' (2006)
2) Linkin Park: 'In the End' (2001)
3) Puddle of Mudd: 'Blurry' (2001)
4) Incubus: 'Nice to Know You' (2002)
5) Seether: 'Fine Again' (2003)
6) Staind: 'It's Been awhile'
7) Jimmy Eat World: 'The Middle' (2002)
8) Three Days Grace: 'I Hate Everything About You'
9) Evanescence: 'Bring Me to Life' (2003)
10) The White Stripes: "Seven Nation Army '(2003)
"You can not talk about the top alternative songs of the decade without mentioning Mike Shinoda (keyboardist / rhythm guitarist) and lead singer Chester Bennington's Collaborations - Shinoda rhythmic delivery is spot on with Benningston's powerful and emotional singing. 'In the End' is probably the duo's most recognized performance (as well as 'Runaway' and 'Crawling'), as they sing about a person who has lost faith in a relationship - whether it be romantic or friendly: "What it meant to me / will eventually be a memory / of a time when I tried so hard / And got so far / But in the end It does not even matter. "" - AOL Radio Blog
Friday, December 11, 2009
The top-selling albums of the decade :))
The top-selling albums of the decade, according to Nielsen SoundScan:
1. The Beatles, 1,11,499,000 units sold
2. 'NSYNC, No Strings Attached, 11,112,000 units sold
3. Norah Jones, Come Away With Me, 10, 546,000 units sold
4. Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP, 10,204,000 units sold
5. Eminem, The Eminem Show, 9,799,000 units sold
6. Usher, Confessions, 9,712,000 units sold
7. Linkin Park, Hybrid Theory, 9,663,000 units sold
8. Creed, Human Clay, 9,491,000 units sold
9. Britney Spears, Oops! ... I Did It Again, 9,185,000 units sold
10. Nelly, Country Grammar, 8,461,000 units sold
Source
1. The Beatles, 1,11,499,000 units sold
2. 'NSYNC, No Strings Attached, 11,112,000 units sold
3. Norah Jones, Come Away With Me, 10, 546,000 units sold
4. Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP, 10,204,000 units sold
5. Eminem, The Eminem Show, 9,799,000 units sold
6. Usher, Confessions, 9,712,000 units sold
7. Linkin Park, Hybrid Theory, 9,663,000 units sold
8. Creed, Human Clay, 9,491,000 units sold
9. Britney Spears, Oops! ... I Did It Again, 9,185,000 units sold
10. Nelly, Country Grammar, 8,461,000 units sold
Source
Monday, November 23, 2009
LP Underground 9
Here's the big announcement about the LP Underground 9 fan club package for 2010.
The package will be available in December. As usual, LPU members are eligible for in-person meet-and-greets with the band at shows and other special events. All members receive the LPU newsletter and collectible items, and access to the LPU fan club community...but the real gem here is the LPU9 CD. Here's this year's track listing:
1 - A-Six (Original Long Version 2002)
2 - Faint (Demo 2002)
3 - Sad ("By Myself" Demo 1999)
4 - Fear ("Leave Out All the Rest" Demo 2006)
5 - Figure.09 (Demo 2002)
6 - Stick And Move ("Runaway" Demo 1998)
7 - Across The Line (Unreleased Demo 2007)
8 - Drawing ("Breaking The Habit" Demo 2002)
9 - Drum Song ("Little Things Give You Away" Demo 2006)
For those of you who have been keeping track, "Across The Line" is a brand new, unreleased song. It was recorded during the "Minutes To Midnight" sessions, and was originally entitled "Japan." We know a lot of the fans on the LPU boards have wanted to hear this song, in its entirety, for a long time. We're putting it on the LPU9 CD for you!
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN "ACROSS THE LINE" ON YOUTUBE!
The package will be available in December. As usual, LPU members are eligible for in-person meet-and-greets with the band at shows and other special events. All members receive the LPU newsletter and collectible items, and access to the LPU fan club community...but the real gem here is the LPU9 CD. Here's this year's track listing:
1 - A-Six (Original Long Version 2002)
2 - Faint (Demo 2002)
3 - Sad ("By Myself" Demo 1999)
4 - Fear ("Leave Out All the Rest" Demo 2006)
5 - Figure.09 (Demo 2002)
6 - Stick And Move ("Runaway" Demo 1998)
7 - Across The Line (Unreleased Demo 2007)
8 - Drawing ("Breaking The Habit" Demo 2002)
9 - Drum Song ("Little Things Give You Away" Demo 2006)
For those of you who have been keeping track, "Across The Line" is a brand new, unreleased song. It was recorded during the "Minutes To Midnight" sessions, and was originally entitled "Japan." We know a lot of the fans on the LPU boards have wanted to hear this song, in its entirety, for a long time. We're putting it on the LPU9 CD for you!
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN "ACROSS THE LINE" ON YOUTUBE!
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington on divorce, drugs, and Dead By Sunrise
REVOLVER The hiatus in 2005 was the first time Linkin Park has taken a break in 10 years…
CHESTER BENNINGTON Meteora and Hybrid Theory both had 24-month touring cycles, so we were on the road for a really long time. We weren’t really happy with how Warner Bros. had treated us at that point. It was a pretty frustrating time. It was like, “Here we are, we sold 20 million albums” and they’re still telling us, “You’re a fluke.” We sold 10 million records, how much do we have to prove?
In the print interview, you talk about your divorce. Is this when you started losing your shit?
I just completely lost my mind. Over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, I was just a trainwreck.
Did it start on one day or was a crescendo?
The day it started was the day I knew I was gonna move out.
In our interview you talk about partying hard. What do you mean by that?
It could have meant going to a strip club and having a few drinks. It could have meant staying at home and watching the waves break and drinking Jack and Cokes all day. Or it could have turned into a four- or five-day drug-and-alcohol binge, pushing yourself to the limits of your mind. I think the one common denominator in all that stuff is no matter what I was doing, there was always alcohol…and there was a lot of it. I would sit there with my guitar all day and write songs and get drunk. And when you’re drunk, if somebody said, “Hey let’s go do this particular drug, or that particular drug, or a combination of all of them,” you’re like, “OK.”
And in the middle of this you had to go play Live 8? What was that like?
Live 8 felt like this thing that was way bigger than me. It was important and getting a message out. But at the same time my brain was firing all kinds of electrical signals into the wrong places. Another thing I had to do because it was important and bigger than me [was a Music for Relief show]… I had no idea what my money situation was like. I was living in this little apartment. And it was like, “Hey, we need you to go to Thailand to go for Music For Relief to talk about all the stuff that’s going on over there with the tsunamis.” You guys can’t think of a-fuckin’-nother person that might be better suited for this right now? I don’t have any fucking clothes! All my stuff’s at my ex-wife’s house! She’s not letting me in! You want me to go? I don’t have a couch! … Life doesn’t fucking stop going because you decided you’re having a bad day—or a bad year.
What happened?
Unless you’ve had it happen to you, it’s kind of difficult to grasp. They started prescribing me Klonopin for anxiety. Taking that and drinking as much as I was drinking, it’s a combination of the two things that will kill you if you stop doing them suddenly.
My left arm would start to bounce, and then my head would start to twitch. I was embarrassed by it. There was only a few people who had seen me like that. Talinda [Bentley, Bennington’s current wife] would have to come in and comfort me and talk me out of it, and I would have to get something to drink to bring myself down. It was crazy. I got hospitalized a couple times. Finally I sat down with her and a couple of my friends in Dead by Sunrise and said, “I need to go into treatment.” On the way to treatment the night before, I was like, “Let’s get fucking hammered! This is my last time.” No one else got hammered with me. They just sat in a room and watched me. It was pretty pathetic. Went into treatment, was there for 30 days, got out. Three weeks later I was drinking again. I drank more. That was when my wife pretty much had a complete nervous breakdown over it, called everybody in Linkin Park. Couple hours later they were all at my house. Told me how much they loved me. I got on the plane and went back to treatment again.
It was a real intervention?
Yeah! I was sitting there going, Fuck… If I had just not picked up that first drink again. Went back to treatment. Came out in a much better place. Stayed sober for about a year. Relapsed. Went right back into hitting the program hard. Seven months later relapsed. That’s been the case for me.
You had demoed much of the Dead by Sunrise album in 2005. But when you re-recorded the vocals in 2008, were any of the songs hard to record?
“Let Down,” for example. That was in the middle of the divorce and that’s what that song was about. When I wrote the demo, it was really fucking good. That was harder to redo in the studio when I’m happily married and got a lot of success and I’ve got stuff again. It was hard for me to go back to that place because I didn’t feel that way; I didn’t feel that desperation. It was harder for me to do the final recording for that song because it was hard for me to tap into those emotions.
When you listen to the record now, do you feel like a different person?
I know I talk a lot about it, but the reality is, I came out on the other side. I made a great record with Linkin Park, made a good record with Dead by Sunrise. I’m good dad, I’m a good husband, I have a lot of friends. The bad thing would had been if I had died or continued to do that to myself. And ended up somewhere in the shithole. The good story is that didn’t happen. I get to keep making music.
http://www.revolvermag.com
CHESTER BENNINGTON Meteora and Hybrid Theory both had 24-month touring cycles, so we were on the road for a really long time. We weren’t really happy with how Warner Bros. had treated us at that point. It was a pretty frustrating time. It was like, “Here we are, we sold 20 million albums” and they’re still telling us, “You’re a fluke.” We sold 10 million records, how much do we have to prove?
In the print interview, you talk about your divorce. Is this when you started losing your shit?
I just completely lost my mind. Over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, I was just a trainwreck.
Did it start on one day or was a crescendo?
The day it started was the day I knew I was gonna move out.
In our interview you talk about partying hard. What do you mean by that?
It could have meant going to a strip club and having a few drinks. It could have meant staying at home and watching the waves break and drinking Jack and Cokes all day. Or it could have turned into a four- or five-day drug-and-alcohol binge, pushing yourself to the limits of your mind. I think the one common denominator in all that stuff is no matter what I was doing, there was always alcohol…and there was a lot of it. I would sit there with my guitar all day and write songs and get drunk. And when you’re drunk, if somebody said, “Hey let’s go do this particular drug, or that particular drug, or a combination of all of them,” you’re like, “OK.”
And in the middle of this you had to go play Live 8? What was that like?
Live 8 felt like this thing that was way bigger than me. It was important and getting a message out. But at the same time my brain was firing all kinds of electrical signals into the wrong places. Another thing I had to do because it was important and bigger than me [was a Music for Relief show]… I had no idea what my money situation was like. I was living in this little apartment. And it was like, “Hey, we need you to go to Thailand to go for Music For Relief to talk about all the stuff that’s going on over there with the tsunamis.” You guys can’t think of a-fuckin’-nother person that might be better suited for this right now? I don’t have any fucking clothes! All my stuff’s at my ex-wife’s house! She’s not letting me in! You want me to go? I don’t have a couch! … Life doesn’t fucking stop going because you decided you’re having a bad day—or a bad year.
What happened?
Unless you’ve had it happen to you, it’s kind of difficult to grasp. They started prescribing me Klonopin for anxiety. Taking that and drinking as much as I was drinking, it’s a combination of the two things that will kill you if you stop doing them suddenly.
My left arm would start to bounce, and then my head would start to twitch. I was embarrassed by it. There was only a few people who had seen me like that. Talinda [Bentley, Bennington’s current wife] would have to come in and comfort me and talk me out of it, and I would have to get something to drink to bring myself down. It was crazy. I got hospitalized a couple times. Finally I sat down with her and a couple of my friends in Dead by Sunrise and said, “I need to go into treatment.” On the way to treatment the night before, I was like, “Let’s get fucking hammered! This is my last time.” No one else got hammered with me. They just sat in a room and watched me. It was pretty pathetic. Went into treatment, was there for 30 days, got out. Three weeks later I was drinking again. I drank more. That was when my wife pretty much had a complete nervous breakdown over it, called everybody in Linkin Park. Couple hours later they were all at my house. Told me how much they loved me. I got on the plane and went back to treatment again.
It was a real intervention?
Yeah! I was sitting there going, Fuck… If I had just not picked up that first drink again. Went back to treatment. Came out in a much better place. Stayed sober for about a year. Relapsed. Went right back into hitting the program hard. Seven months later relapsed. That’s been the case for me.
You had demoed much of the Dead by Sunrise album in 2005. But when you re-recorded the vocals in 2008, were any of the songs hard to record?
“Let Down,” for example. That was in the middle of the divorce and that’s what that song was about. When I wrote the demo, it was really fucking good. That was harder to redo in the studio when I’m happily married and got a lot of success and I’ve got stuff again. It was hard for me to go back to that place because I didn’t feel that way; I didn’t feel that desperation. It was harder for me to do the final recording for that song because it was hard for me to tap into those emotions.
When you listen to the record now, do you feel like a different person?
I know I talk a lot about it, but the reality is, I came out on the other side. I made a great record with Linkin Park, made a good record with Dead by Sunrise. I’m good dad, I’m a good husband, I have a lot of friends. The bad thing would had been if I had died or continued to do that to myself. And ended up somewhere in the shithole. The good story is that didn’t happen. I get to keep making music.
http://www.revolvermag.com
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