Interview with Chester in Kerrang

Yahoo has excerpts of an interview with Chester in this week’s issue of Kerrang magazine. MSC has the scans here. Also, the LPUX merch packages have started shipping, you’ll receive a shipping confirmation email, and your receipt will also be updated to say SHIPPED.

Chester Bennington cringes when recalling the earlier days of Linkin Park as he was “such a nightmare”.
The 35-year-old rocker is frontman of the nu-metal group, and has spoken in the past about his battles with alcohol when the band were at the height of their fame.
Chester, who says by 2006 he was “a full-blown, raging alcoholic”, regrets being argumentative back in those days.
“People didn’t want to talk to me about things that might cause a confrontation because I would be irate. I had no idea I was such a nightmare,” he confessed in an interview with Kerrang! magazine.
Chester feels he is in a much better place nowadays, and is happy to say he no longer consumes alcohol. He feels confident he will never return to his alcoholic ways.
“I don’t drink, and that’s the most important thing right there,” he enthused.
“I choose to be sober now, I choose not to drink. I have drunk over the last six years since I started my journey and thankfully it’s not turned into anything bad.
“But what it comes down to is that I just don’t want to be that person anymore. I don’t have all the emotional stuff and all the turmoil going on all the time anymore. I’ve gotten comfortable with being out of all that stuff.”
The rocker also took the time to consider the next Linkin Park album, which is in the process of being made. He argues that it should be very different to their 2010 offering A Thousand Suns.
“We want it to be different than A Thousand Suns. I don’t want to explain how because I don’t want to put an idea into people’s heads. The music is great and well ahead of where we were expecting to be,” he enthused.
“It will probably get a very polarised reaction, which pleases me. As an artist, I want a reaction.”

Source : LPTimes

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Interview with Phoenix on Bahoudii TV

Bahoudii TV has an interview with Phoenix and a report on his trip to Haiti, thanks to MSC for the tip.


Source : LPTimes

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A conversation with Mike Shinoda

A Conversation with Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda
(transcribed by Theo Shier)
Mike Ragogna: So, Linkin Park goes to the United Nations.
Mike Shinoda: We were on tour in the US as a part of our world tour behind our record A Thousand Suns, and we got an email from the UN. They were asking if we wanted to do a meeting with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and some members of the UN Foundation to discuss Haiti. We were thrilled about this opportunity because we’ve had this ongoing effort to benefit the folks effected by the earthquake in Haiti. Our effort is called Download To Donate. Basically, the UN wanted to recognize Music For Relief and Linkin Park as well as Download To Donate. So, long story short, we got online (on) the Facebook Town Hall. It was an online chat in four different cities, it was the biggest one they’ve done and it’s complicated to do. I think we were in New York, LA, The Bay at Facebook headquarters, and in Washington, DC. The UN Secretary General sat down in a room with four members of our band and we talked about Download To Donate and Music For Relief’s effort. They were very complimentary of what we’ve done so far, and we also got a chance to all talk out some of the ideas about how we can continue to help Haiti. Even a year out, the recovery effort is still on going.
MR: It’s encouraging there’s still a focus on Haiti.
MS: To be fair, there are always a lot of events that deserve that news time. It’s tough for people to figure out what to pay attention to and what to donate to and even if they have money to donate because times are tougher. People maybe don’t have the money to donate to a cause like this one even if they love it. One thing that we wanted to do with Download To Donate was to make it really easy for people to participate, and if they wanted to participate and they didn’t have money to spend, then they could do that to. We created www.downloadtodonate.org and a hundred percent of the proceeds go straight through to Haiti. The idea is that originally, we would let you go on and download all of the music, which at that point was twelve songs and you could donate whatever you wanted. At this point, it’s evolved into a different format. Now a year later it seems like a static donation price is really what’s working for us. It’s a ten dollar donation–you can either go to the website and donate that money or you can text relief to 41010. Basically, you get access to the entire library of music at Download To Donate–it’s no longer 12 songs, it’s now over 60 songs. For ten dollars, you can get 60 songs, it’s from artists like Alanis Morissette, All American Rejects, Crystal Method, Enrique Iglesias, Everest, Glitch Mob, Jack Johnson, Kenna, Linkin Park, Lupe Fiasco, Metric, and many more. There is tons of music, and if you go to www.downloadtodonate.org, you’ll check it out. And a hundred percent of the money flows right through and goes straight to Haiti Relief.
MR: What was your impression of how that Facebook conference went.
MS: I was thrilled with it. It was short because we were all separated. We wanted to make sure we got the basic information out there and really had an informative discussion. I felt like we had an informative discussion, I really learned a lot. Basically, we went offline and our band talked with the UN folks in LA for a while. Phoenix and I were actually up in Facebook headquarters, so we continued online with the folks from UN Foundation for a while. One of the things that stuck out to me was that they had done a campaign to get malaria nets to the families that were living in the tent communities in Haiti. A lot of people–their homes destroyed or had nowhere else to go–they were living in these tent communities. A lot of them were getting sick and dying from malaria, from diseases by insects, and they needed these insect nets in these tent camps. So, the UN Foundation did a campaign where they got those nets for the people, and they saved all of these lives just based on a simple campaign like that. They have a new campaign, which I thought was really great–it’s a solar light campaign. In a lot of tent camps, they found out that there actually isn’t any light. People are going around with lanterns and candles and things like that, but it’s not safe for women and children to be running around in the dark. There could be predators, and as a lot of people know, a lot of the prisons were destroyed, so a lot of the inmates had basically escaped. They haven’t had the best time in cleaning that up and recapturing the folks that were supposed to be in prison; they’ve had some violence and things like that. One of the things they’ve done to head some of that off is to create light at night. It seems like something that’s really simple and we take for granted for sure. They have a lot of sunshine down there, so solar lights are a good solution to the problem. So, they have a campaign right now where they are trying to get solar lights down to the families. We tend to support that with our campaign.
MR: The goal was a hundred new solar lights, do you imagine they will go beyond that?
MS: I believe they absolutely will. They will get as many as they think are necessary. The good thing about these campaigns is that they are very specific with a targeted goal like the one you just talked about. It’s easier to see exactly what you need, how many lights you need, how many families they are going to, and what kind of effect they are having. A lot of people, when they worry about donating to a charity, it’s like, well, if the Red Cross takes in all of these millions of dollars, where does it all go? They want to know specifically what’s being done. With a targeted campaign like the solar light one, it’s all very specific and you get very specific results.
MR: It seems like your band is a band in which everyone is always experimenting with new things. Is that a fair assessment?
MS: Yeah, I would say so.
MR: How far do you think you’ve grown as a band since your early releases?
MS: Well, creatively where we were at in 2000, we were trying to make Hybrid Theory a statement record. We were saying this is who the band is, this is what we’re about, this is what defines how we mix different styles and how that differs from other bands. The record, from song to song, I feel, was intended to make a clear statement about the music we make. As far as the identity of the record, there was a lot of similarity from one song to the next. To give you an idea of how you record a record like that is, you set up a main guitar tone, a main drum tone, and you play almost all of the songs with that one thing as if you’re playing in your rehearsal studio. On each record, we want to challenge ourselves though, back then, it was challenging ourselves to make this sound that was our own and new. As the band has evolved, the challenge has been how do we take that and really represent where the band is at now. We want to keep it challenging and keep it interesting. If we were to just keep doing that over and over again on every record, that would be lazy of us. So, what ends up happening is, basically, from record to record, we do new things and challenge ourselves in new ways. Especially on the new record, obviously, we were trying to step outside of the box and try something different from what people expected of the band, and even maybe what we expected of ourselves.
MR: You also played “The Catalyst” at The Griffith Observatory to help promote the album.
MS: Another event that brings to mind was we played in front of a great Spanish landmark called Puerta de Alcalá, and that was for the MTV VMAs, and we played “Waiting For The End.” That was the song that was televised. but we actually played a full hour set and over 50,000 people showed up to watch the show. They were standing in the streets and singing the songs. We were able to film that, and we are going to be re-releasing A Thousand Suns with a special limited edition version which has the DVD of that performance. You actually get the DVD and the MP3′s of the live songs, so it’s a new release of the album for fans who are interested in that particular performance and want to see some of the old songs played live on stage.
MR: What advice do you have for new artists?
MS: My advice for new artists…I always feel like a broken record, I say the same thing. These days, the most important thing for them to do is to do it themselves, to get familiar with recording your own music, distributing your own music, building your own fan base without many other people’s help. I think the crutch for a lot of young artists is when they sign with somebody else, they think somebody who knows better is going to come in and magically make a fan base appear for them, but that’s not how it works. Really, there are so many applications, so many programs that you can download and you can use online that will allow you the tools to get it done. If you can create your own fan base of a thousand up to ten thousand fans, then if you decide to sign with a major label, you will have all of the leverage in the world. You’ve got a fan base of ten thousand people, that gives you more leverage so that they would have to give you more in your contract if you decide to do that. If you go it alone at ten thousand fans, you have every right to do that. You’re going to be making a hundred percent of the money instead of a small little sliver that they would leave you with at the end of getting involved with a small artist who has no leverage.
MR: Of course, there are so many more opportunities and options for an artist now than there ever were before.
MS: I was laughing about this with somebody the other day. Even just ten years ago, when we wanted to write music in our bus, it would take a unit the size of a refrigerator to get it done. Today, I can literally just take my laptop. We are talking about Pro Tools, we are talking about Garage Band, Logic, and all of the other things out there. I personally use Pro Tools, I think it’s great. Then, after you’ve made songs, you’ve got Facebook, you have Twitter, you have great sites like Bandcamp and Topspin that will help you, basically, sell your music and concert tickets. You literally can do so much now that you couldn’t do even five years ago. Artists can get really far doing it themselves.
MR: And you’re still on tour?
MS: Yeah, we just finished the U.S. leg of the tour, and we are getting ready for the European dates and all of the tour dates are on www.linkinpark.com. Don’t forget to go to www.downloadtodonate.org to get your sixty-plus songs. By the way, songs are continuing to be added. If you donate ten dollars now, then you get all of the songs plus whichever songs we add in the future.

 Source : Linkin Park Times

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Don't Sleep On Linkin Park

Over the last 15 years there have been many acts that have presented themselves as rap/rock acts and attempted to sustain their careers while maintaining the sensibilities and credibility of both genres. Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock come to mind as having a successful run but it is Linkin Park who claims the prize for staying power, consistently churning out number one albums and top-selling tours over the last decade.

In 2000 Linkin Park effortlessly reached rap and rock fans with their chart smasher “In The End” from their number one debut album Hybrid Theory. “In The End” is arguably the epitome of an original rap/metal track. The video was as intriguing and visually stimulating as the lyrics were thought provoking.

]“On the last record, we were trying to figure out where we wanted to go. I mean, we were in a box. We were Linkin Park who makes this certain sound and we wanted to make a record that didn't sound like that," lead vocalist Mike Shinoda told AllHipHop.com.

When you think of the fusion of rap and hip hop, historically, you have to give credit to the song and video that first made a tangible and palpable connection between the two genres and cultures, “Walk This Way,” a remake of Aerosmith’s rock juggernaut, whose new version included verses from rap pioneers Run DMC. The song was released in 1986 and was a bona fide mash-up before the phrase even existed.

It was a monster hit that aptly appealed to both audiences. It is not to be overlooked that before the collaboration, Run DMC’ s production had consistently had a heavy rock influence which is apparent in hits like “Rock Box” and “King of Rock.”  Later, The Beastie Boys had success with this formula.

That was due in part to diverse producer and Def Jam co-founder Rick Rubin who is still proving his relevance and coming full circle, having co-produced Linkin Park’s latest number one album A Thousand Suns. Linkin Park was looking for a more progressive sound than on previous albums.

"Rick is one of the most versatile producers that I love. I mean, there are guys that make a lot of different stuff and I don't like what they do and I love what Rick does.  I guess the best I could describe it is that when we first started the demos for the record it was clearly different, it was a very specific sound for A Thousand Suns and we were a little hesitant bringing a producer onboard, but once we met with Rick, we knew it was going to be a good fit."

The album debuted at number one in 2010 and is still producing hit singles such as “Waiting for the End” with its infectious beat, laced with hip hop undertones and “Wretches and Kings” whose sound is heavily influenced by Public Enemy is also an outstanding track off their latest album.

When Linkin Park teamed up with Jay-Z in 2004 for the breakthrough mash-up album Collision Course, the validation of a hip hop giant certainly galvanized their credibility as hip hop artists, if there had remained any doubt. Collision Course was an innovative project with each single combing the production and vocals of songs previously recorded by both acts.

The album was mixed by Mike Shinoda and reached number 1 on the Billboard album chart. Another credible hip hop endeavor was Shinoda’s side project, The Rising Tied in 2005. The album featured hip hop heavyweights Black Thought, Common, Lupe Fiasco and Jay-Z who also served as executive producer. The Rising Tied was developed under Shinoda’s Fort Minor side project and created so that he could express music that he felt did not fit Linkin Park’s style. Michael Shinoda told AllHipHop.com that Linkin Park has progressed to incorporating those types of songs today.

“I think, well, the reason I did the Fort Minor record was because, at that time, Linkin Park was kind of, I felt like there were things that were going to work for Linkin Park and then there were things that were not going to work and I didn't feel like those songs could work on a Linkin Park record," Shinoda explained. "Since then, the band has really broadened its horizons and the ideas that may have ended up on a Fort Minor record back in the past now can be a Linkin Park song and that's why you get songs like, 'When They Come For Me,' or 'Wretches and Kings.' Those songs off the new record are, I mean, they really started as demos that sounded more like a Fort Minor demo, I think, and then once we all kind of get together and work them out, they grow and they change and they end up on a Linkin Park record.

"Just as a side note, I think, for Chester and I especially having done, like, these side projects, I think it's a good feeling to know that the other ideas that we have, these, like, kind of off the wall things, not only are they accepted now, but they're welcomed and the whole band is excited about them," Shinoda said.

From “In The End” and Hybrid Theory in 2000 to the current A Thousand Suns and songs such as “Wretches and Kings”, 2011 makes a remarkable unprecedented 11 year run for the rap/metal band. Linkin Park was named the number one selling Rock/Alt band by Billboard/Soundscan and has amassed over 50 million album sales. Shinoda remains modest about their formula for success and ability to sustain in both genres.

“I think that gap has been bridged a million times and we just happen to have grown up on many different styles of music and when we write music that's how we write it," Shinoda said. "I think one misconception about how our band or maybe other bands, too, is that when you sit down to write a song you're thinking of imitating something else.

"When we go into the studio, we don't set out to say, 'Let's write a song like another song.' We just sit down and try and write something that is exciting to us and something that's fresh and especially on the new record, "A Thousand Suns," that's where the majority of the songs came from. Just trying to write something that sounded different and was exciting to us,” Shinoda told AllHipHop.com.

Linkin Park is currently on the North American leg of their A Thousand Suns World Tour. The group promises a musically and visually stimulating show for which they developed new technology and each ticket holder receives a free mp3 download of the concert they attended, each of which will be a unique experience.

“We play different set lists and then within those set lists we improvise, so we wanted a way for the look of the show to kind of ebb and flow with whatever we do with the music. So, from night to night, the music will be different and the visuals will be different as well. No two shows will be the same.”

 Source : ALLHIPHOP

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Interview with Mike from Boston Globe

Linkin Park will be playing at the TD Gardern in Boston, MA on Feb 1, Boston Globe talk to Mike via the phone from a Chicago tour stop.

“I don’t think we ever do anything half-assed.’’ That’s how Mike Shinoda explains the sonic change-up his band Linkin Park made on its 2010 album “A Thousand Suns.’’
On the phone from a Chicago tour stop, the Linkin Park rapper-songwriter-producer says he and his bandmates in the multiplatinum rock group started down this new road with their previous album, “Minutes to Midnight.’’ But this time, they knew a radical alteration to the rap-rock hybrid they’d come to be known for since the turn of the century, with hits like “Breaking the Habit’’ and “What I’ve Done,’’ was necessary. Instead of channeling all of their angst into buzzsaw riffs, keening screams, and brawny raps, the band, with returning coproducer Rick Rubin, explore more electronic, ambient, and, frankly, mellower paths.
“We’re not trying to offend fans of [early albums] ‘Hybrid Theory’ and ‘Meteora.’ We’re trying to make music that’s challenging for us, that’s coming from an honest place,’’ says Shinoda. “We realized that [the old sound] was the thing that was selling, but we decided to take a risk.’’
Linkin Park brings sounds both old and new to the TD Garden on Tuesday.
Q. You worked with Rick Rubin again on “A Thousand Suns.’’ How was that? Was he on board with the new direction?
A. On the last record we were trying to break outside of the confines of a sound that we had established ourselves and we no longer wanted to feel like we had to make that thing over and over again. We wanted to do something different, so he was trying to give us the moral support and the tools to find new ways to make new sounds. On the new record we were already comfortable with being uncomfortable. We almost did the record ourselves but we took a meeting with Rick and it just fit. He understood the demos. He understood where we wanted the record to go.
Q. What’s been the reaction to the record? I think it’s your most interesting one yet, but I’m wondering if I’m in the minority on that.
A. I would say that you’re not at this point, which I’m happy to say. I feel like we really lucked out that the touring worked out the way it did, because the US got some extra time to get used to the album — because it’s a different record. It’s full of ideas, it’s a dense record, sonically and thematically; and to be honest, I’m surprised when I hear people say that they loved it on first listen. More often than not, you hear people say that they had to get used to it or grow into it. And that’s fine. We thought that was the kind of record we were making.
Q. There’s definitely a faction of your audience, especially the metal fans, who have been vocal in their displeasure. But do you think you’ve gained any new listeners?
A. I literally heard somebody say, “When I saw that it was Linkin Park and I listened to the record, I didn’t like it because it was weird. And then I heard this great new song on the radio and I didn’t know what band it was by and I loved it and I went to buy it and it was Linkin Park.’’ They had the weird baggage of old Linkin Park in their minds, and as soon as they got rid of that baggage they liked the new album. That’s what we need right now, people to have an open mind that Linkin Park isn’t about one thing.
Q. You guys have been together for over 10 years, what’s the secret to a lasting musical marriage?
A. I think we’re really lucky in that sense. I don’t know if we’re an anomaly or not. We’re good friends and we still get along in the studio and touring. We even occasionally hang out on our time off which is, believe it or not, for a lot of bands pretty rare.
Q. Pop, dance, and hip-hop have become increasingly dominant in the last few years, with rock losing its profile somewhat. Why do you think that is?
A. I’m not a chart guy, I don’t follow the trends. I know what I like, just as anybody else does, and I haven’t been listening to as much straight-up rock in the last couple of years because it’s boring. The rock bands that I do like — Phoenix, the Temper Trap — tend to have something special about them that rounds out the experience and makes it more original and unique. There was a long period of time where bands were imitating stuff from the ’60s and ’70s, and that’s cute for a minute, but if you can’t bring something else to the table on top of that you can only hold people’s interest for so long.

Source : LPTIMES

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