Wywiad - Hit Parader 4/2002 ( Mike )

Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda still finds it hard to believe that he's in a band whose debut album Hybrid Theory has gone doiuble platinum. The dark-haired singer is still trying to come to grips with the notion that the group he shares with vocalist Chester Bennington, guitarist Brad Delson, drummer Rob Bourdon, bassist Pheonix Farrell and turntable wiz Joe Hahn has emerged as one of the last year's most amazing rock and roll success stories. And he's still trying to comprehend the life-changing impact that fame and fortune will have on his relatively lovely existence.

"I can already tell the differences," Shinoda said. "I can tell it when people recognize me on the street, and I can tell it by the number of phone calls I get. Being in a successful band does impact your life inb a lot of ways.I don't think any of us was really ready for this. We weren't the kind of band that set out from Day One to become rich and famous Rock Stars. We just wanted to play some good music -- and we still do."

If Linkin Park were working the tables in Las Vegas you could bet your bottom dollar that they’d be holding a winning hand. That’s the way it has been for the better part of the last two years for vocalist Chester Bennington, guitarist Brad Delson, vocalist Mike Shinoda, drummer Rob Bourdon, keyboardist Mr. Hahn and bassist Phoenix. Their debut album Hybrid Theory emerged as the biggest selling album of 2001. Moving over four million copies. Their videos for songs like Crawling and One Step Closer won a variety of industry kudos while remaining MTV playlist staples. Along the way, this multi-talented California based unit almost single-handedly proved the on going viability of the oft-criticized rap/metal form. Indeed highly enlightening for Mr. Shinoda.

Hit Parader: Four million albums … not too shabby!

Mike Shinoda: (Laughing) No kidding! I think we were all pretty surprised when the finally tally came in the end last year, and it was announced Hybrid Theory was the year’s best selling album. We knew how many albums it had sold, but we really hadn’t followed how well everyone else had done. I mean there were some MAJOR releases last year. And we ended up topping them all. Amazing!

HP: In many ways Linkin Park singe-handedly “saved” the whole rap/metal world. It had fallen into a real party-hearty category before you came along.

MS: We never viewed ourselves as one of those bands that just took rap and hip-hop elements and mixed them with metal. There’s always been more to what we do than that. I know back when the album first came out, people heard we were a rap-metal band and figured we’d be like Limp Bizkit. Nothing against them, in fact we love them, but we aren’t anything like them. Our music is a very natural and very powerful hybrid.

HP: You’ve become known as the “rap guy” in the band. How do you react to that?


MS: Well, it’s true, so I guess IU should react to it with a lot of pleasure. But I’ve always looked at what I do and what Chester does as two pieces of the puzzle. We definitely compliment each other, and together we give the band some of its distinctive quality. I mean, let’s face it I’m never going to have a voice like Chester – in fact I can’t even think of a few people that have ever had a voice like that. But I’m very happy doin’ my thing and helping the band do theirs.

HP: One of the elements that has emerged as a key to the Linkin Park “sound” is the power of your lyrics. Has that always been a vital element of your approach?

MS: That’s something that has always been there, right from the beginning. We’ve always wanted people to not only get into the energy of the music and get into the beat, but we also wanted them to be able to hear our lyrics and relate to them. I’ve noticed that a lot of current bands don’t even bother to include a lyric sheet inside their albums anymore, and we wanted to make sure we did that. Our lyrics are very personal, but they’re not about really crazy things. For the most part they’re about everyday things that everyone has experienced or can experience. The fans hear our songs and then hopefully their own stories fit right in. That’s the way it should be with music. You have to be able to relate to it on a personal level, or it looses a lot of its appeal. One of the greatest compliments that we ever have is when a fan comes to us after a show and thanks us for a song that we put into words what they were feeling. Wow, that’s the best.

HP: Where does the band stand as far as the next record goes?

MS: We’ve been so busy it’s been a little tough to focus on it the way we’d like. But I guarantee you that we will. We’re one of those bands that’s determined to stick around for a long time … whether people want us to or not (laughs). The only way to do that is to keep making good albums. We know that a lot of people will be looking at us next time to see if we can repeat what we did on Hybrid Theory and the answer is that we won’t. By that I mean that while we’d love to repeat the success, but I think you’re gonna hear some really different and exciting things on the next record.

HP: Take us through the band’s creative process for writing a song

MS: We’re very much a team in this band, we like working together and writing together. No matter who may have come up with the basic song structure, when it comes to something like the chorus, you can bet everyone wants to put their own two cents in. It works for us. I imagine for some bands that can lead chaos, but for us it’s been great. We challenge and push one another, but since we’ve been together for so long, we just seem to sense what will work, and what won’t work for a given song. We never even argue about those things. We just trust one another totally.

HP: Tell us something that would really surprise us about Linkin Park.

MS: Maybe the most surprising thing is how well we all still get along. Sometimes you hear horror stories about bands that have been together on the road for a year or more, and that’s just not true with us. We started this whole thing as really good friends, and we still are really good friends now. I don’t think we’re the kind of band that’s got a lot of hidden secrets or surprises. With us, it’s pretty much “what you see s what you get.” We all have our tastes in music, but even those are pretty normal. I like all sorts of things from rock to rap. Chester has really diverse tastes. Brad’s taste may be a little surprising because occasionally we catch him listening to pop music. But all those influences and tastes are cool. They all go into the mix and come out as Linkin Park.

Autor : Henry S. Shaw