LINKIN PARK AND MUSIC FOR RELIEF HELP FIRE, CYCLONE VICTIMS

After raising money for displaced families of the recent California wild fires, Linkin Park and Music for Relief look to aid victims of Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh.

After raising more than $50,000 last month alone to help displaced families of the recent California wild fires to rebuild and to help with the reforestation efforts, Linkin Park and Music for Relief will look to help victims of the recent Cyclone in Bangladesh. They are holding an auction with items donated by such artists as The Deftones, Avril Lavigne, Smashing Pumpkins and of course, Linkin Park. Cyclone Sidr, which devastated the coastal regions of Bangladesh on November 15th, killed approximately 3,500 people and left over 600,000 homeless. It also destroyed the country’s rice crop, which counts for close to two thirds of their economic income. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the Music for Relief auction will aid efforts to provide food and essential survival materials to more than 13,000 families left homeless by Sidr. Music for Relief, a non profit organization founded by Linkin Park, has raised over $2 Million for the victims of the tsunami tragedy in Southeast Asia and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

We caught up with Linkin Park’s multi talented artist Mike Shinoda to get his thoughts on why Linkin Park started Music for Relief and how he’s seen it evolve since then.

“When we started Music for Relief we started it with the tsunami in South Asia. Music for Relief has evolved since then. Instead of just being on the back end, the kind of the recovery end of things, we’re trying to be on the preventative end of things as well. That said we’re doing different things that have to do with green measures, climate crisis issues. But then, when things like this cyclone happen or the wild fires in California happen, we kick back into gear and we try and help out as best we can.”

Shinoda grew up in Southern California and he talked about friends that were personally affected by the recent wild fires and how Music For Relief was there to help.

“I have friends that were effected by the fires and moved out of their homes. Lots of bad stuff happened out here in California and L.A. and that kind of hit home for us I think, you know. So, when stuff like that happens we just do what we can. We do our best to help out and Music for Relief is all about making these connections in the music that hopefully can help out the bigger picture. We have a lot of artists that have donated stuff to auctions and they were very helpful and we’re very thankful for that.”

Linkin Park are currently on a brief hiatus for the holidays before beginning a new round of touring in 2008 in support of their multi platinum release ‘Minutes to Midnight.’ The band will be touring Europe and The U.K. in January of 2008 before starting a North American stadium tour. The guys are taking out Coheed and Cambria and Chiodos as their opening acts. Dates begin Feb 12th in Omaha, Nebraska and extend until March 10th in Sacramento, California. For anyone interested in making a donation, you can visit musicforrelief.org.