LINKIN PARK COMPARE MINUTES TO HYBRID THEORY AND METEORA

Linkin Park spoke with us at the Golden Gods and gave us the skinny on their new album The Hunting Party, how it is described as a Hybrid Theory prequel, reu…

It what is certainly one of the most anticipated albums of 2007, Linkin Park’s ‘Minutes to Midnight’ finds the band moving in a different direction from anything they have released in the past, while completely reinventing their sound and their songwriting and recording process as well. For ‘Minutes to Midnight,’ Linkin Park took far more time in the studio working on vocals, melodies and lyrics compared with their previous multi platinum selling albums ‘Hybrid’ and ‘Meteora.’ Although some fans understandably might feel apprehension in a sonic change, the band feels this is by far their best work yet.

We caught up with Linkin Park’s keyboardist, vocalist and guitarist Mike Shinoda, who also co-produced the album with Rick Rubin, and bassist, Phoenix, to discuss the band taking more time on this album than anything in the past.

“In comparison to the other albums, I mean ‘Hybrid Theory’ took, we spent two months on that in the studio, obviously writing a lot before we got in. Then ‘Meteora’ was about three months in the studio and this record was a year and a half in the studio. Nine to twelve months on lyrics, melodies and vocals, so with all that said I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to somehow reinvent the band you know. It was a serious of happy accidents getting there.”

Linkin Park’s first single, ‘What I’ve Done’ debuted at Number 1 on Billboard’s Modern Rock singles chart, which was only the third song ever to dorn so, following ‘What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?’ by R.E.M., and ‘Dani California’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Does the band follow the charts closely?

“We don’t follow albums charts really closely. We know some of the facts because, ‘What I’ve Done’ debuted at number one on whatever Rock Chart and it was one of only a few songs to do that and our manager gets excited about stuff like that. He sends out the email ‘Oh my god! Check this out.’ It’s not that we don’t love that and feel pride ‘Wow it’s cool that our song did that!’ But at the same time it’s not our main focus. I’m not at Billboard checking that everyday. I’m more screwing around on You Tube.”

So with close to a year and a half in the making of ‘Minutes to Midnight’ the band is rehearsing the new songs into their live set and they are finally ready to start touring again.

“I think our first goal was to have the album done and for us to be touring last summer. Which at this point is like eight months ago. Is that right? Nine months ago? Gradually we’d get up to that deadline and say ‘You know what, things are going really well this is not a good place for us to clamp down and finish the album, but let’s continue writing and see where it goes. And now release the album in Fill in the Blank.’ And when we get to that point it keeps kind of inching along until we reach a point where we kind of sit down in a room and everybody says ‘Wow this is done! We’re done!’ Let’s talk to Warner Brothers, let’s talk to our agent, let’s get the album out and start touring.”

Linkin Park’s first U.S. tour date in support of ‘Minutes to Midnight’ will be at the Bamboozle Festival on May 6th in New Jersey. Also slated to perform along with Linkin Park are My Chemical Romance, Muse, Taking Back Sunday and many others. It was also recently announced that Linkin Park will be the musical guest on Saturday Night Live on May 12th just a few days before ‘Minutes to Midnight’ is released in the U.S. on May 15th. Look for the band to announce extended world tour dates on their Projekt Revolution Tour in the very near future as well.