Linkin Park plays the Verizon Amphitheater Sept. 11
Photo by: Brandon Cox
Linkin park hits the stage on Thurs, Sept. 11 at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater for The Carnivores Tour, featuring Thirty Seconds To Mars and AFI.
One dollar per every ticket sold on The Carnivores Tour benefits Music For Relief. Music for Relief is an organization Linkin Park founded in 2005, which supports disaster relief and programs to protect and restore the environment. For further information on the organization or to donate, please visit www.musicforrelief.org.
Linkin Park’s latest album, The Hunting Party was released June 17, 2014. This is the band’s sixth studio album, which they decided to self-produce recording on analog tape. Linkin Park takes the album into a heavier-edgier direction by going back to the music that inspired them to become a band in the first place.
OCCG caught up with Chester Bennington and Mike Shindona of Linkin Park to talk about there up coming tour and latest release.
OCCG: You guys have been a band for 13 or 14 years now. You have all grown since then, how has going on tour changed since then?
Chester Bennington (CB): Well, I mean, honestly when you’re young and you’re out there and kind of – you don’t have a family, I mean, yeah, those are important and you’re focusing on the shows, but you’re also kind of focusing on, like, “Am I going to see – where am I going to shower? Do I want to keep this box of clothes this company gave me, because I don’t really like them, but I also don’t have any clean clothes?” Those are the kinds of things you’re thinking about when you’re young and you’re on the road. Nowadays, it’s, like, we focus on having our families out and, if we can have our families out, we – for me personally, like, all I focus on is preparing for the next show. So, I really don’t think much has changed in terms of our set-ups to get ready for the tour. I mean… we still kind of practice in the same manner. We rehearse in the same manner. The great thing is our crew knows us so well and has been with u so long, we don’t have to do sound checks anymore, which is pretty awesome, because that frees up a lot of time to stay back with your families during the days and listen to stuff. And so, it really has gotten a lot better now, I think, now that we reached the place that we have in our career. We’ve found a way to balance our personal and touring life a lot better. And so, that’s been really great, I think, all around for everybody.
OCCG: This was your first self-produced album, and the use of analog tape grain. Would you feel that you would go that route again?
Mike Shinoda (MS): Yeah. So, I think it’s something that we’ve been curious about for a while and it had to be the right moment to really dive into it. I’ve had a little bit of experience with tape on previous projects, but not really cutting such large chunks of the song and large performances to tape, and it’s so nice because it forces you to slow down and, like, really consider each performance, each recording of whoever’s playing at the time and whether or not you want it. That’s really, I think, it gives this album at least its sound. Yeah. So, it’s definitely something that’s kind of this point now is within our bag and we get to potentially go back and use it again, if the song asks for it.
OCCG: What your relationship is with 30 Seconds to Mars is and why it’s a good fit?
CB: I think, for the most part, I think the relationship is more of a professional relationship. I mean, I’ve been friends with Jarrod for a few years and way more than a few years now, but so we’re pretty friendly, but overall, I mean, it’s not, like, we’re all having birthday parties together and things like that.
OCCG: You guys – your newest album, Hunting Party, was just released two months ago. And if we could only listen to one song on the album, what song would you recommend? What do you think kind of, like, sums up the whole album? Or which one is, like, most meaningful for you guys?
CB: Well, considering that there’s no break between the first five songs, I would suggest listening to that as one track. Honestly, I mean, that’s going to – that’s how I feel. I don’t know. It’s always weird to kind of say what your favorite song is on the record, because when you’re in the band, you kind of have a close relationship with all the songs.
MS: I mean, I feel like whenever we go into make a record, we try and create the best thing we can create for that moment, and obviously with this album, it was – our effort was more in an aggressive and I feel like still a very experimental direction. And so, yeah, it’s been interesting. It’s, like, different people gravitate toward different songs for different reasons, and even I like different ones on different days. So, whereas, one day I love Keys to the Kingdom because it may be one of the wildest rapid fire songs on the album. Another day, I like Rebellion because it’s such a cool mix of the heaviest stuff on the record, but also it’s really melodic and a solid song underneath there. And then other days I like Line in the Sand. I think Line in the Sand does all of the best things that Linkin Park can do in, like, one song.
OCCG: This new record is seems to carry a very strong social message then the previous albums have, what was the concept of the new album?
CB: I guess… it was really lyrical when it came down to what we wanted to write about. We talked about things – actually the conversations were less about what we wanted to write about and more about what we didn’t want to do in the studio. And that’s really where the most interesting kind of revelations came from. It was, like, we said, we want to go into making a heavier record; like, what are the things we should strive for in terms of the style and in terms of what we’re drawing our inspiration from. And then, what are the things that like, we don’t want to. What are the things we want to stay away from? And I think that, for us, it was, like, well, clearly when you make a record with music, like, for me, it was to go more aggressive with what was the style and also was lyrics. For me, I just want to sing something. And for us, it was really, like, “Well then, if we’re going to be aggressive, what kind of things can we talk about?” I mean, look at where we are in our lives; look at what we do for a living; look at what we stand for as people; what do we really have to be angry about? And so, that’s where we kind of, like, said – looking at things lyrically, schematically that, I think, were important to us, and not coming across like a bunch of whiny teenagers is something that we want to avoid.
OCCG: $1 for every ticket sold goes to benefit your organization, Music for Relief? What can you tell me about the organization and why are you guys passionate about it?
MS: Music for Relief started in the mid-2000s as a response to the Indian Ocean tsunami. We had just been out touring in Asia. That was a – we’d just been there, gone, like, sightseeing tours and stuff, and then we were watching – we got home and we were watching the news and the whole place has been, like, destroyed. And we just felt like we needed to do something. A year later, we had been – Music for Relief had been around for a year and we realized that we were actively involved in cleaning up messes, but not so much involved in anything preventative. So, we added an environmental component to Music for Relief, and all in all, I mean, we’ve done projects all over the world.
