NEW LINKIN PARK IS ALL CHESTER, BUT SHINODA VOX AVAILABLE

Mike Shinoda sings on the original versions of Minutes To Midnight, and he’s glad Chester sings the final versions on most of the album.

Linkin Park’s Minutes to Midnight is about a week-and-a-half away from hitting stores on March 15. The album features a new direction, and an increase in the vocal load for Chester Bennington.

Vocalist/instrumentalist Mike Shinoda, who did most of the rapping on Meteora and Hybrid Theory, said he’s happy that Chester is taking most of the vocals on the album.

“In a lot of cases I did a lot of writing, and then I gave it to Chester and he did a lot of singing, which, I think he’s one of the best singers of our generation. So, I really love to hear him sing. I was really happy to have him singing more on this record.”

Minutes To Midnight comes in two deluxe versions with a DVD, and Shinoda says it’s well worth the purchase. On them fans will get a chance to hear songs from the album with Shinoda doing early vocals on the tracks.

“And you see actually all those demos, you hear all the demos, of me singing the songs before Chester sang the songs, so you can actually go in and check out, as we were writing a song the original melody would be there but the words, there was just ‘la, la, la’ all the way down the track, but the melody was pretty much the same as what ended up being on the final, and that was a cool progression. Sometimes the song would stay with ‘la, la, la’ vocals for like six months before vocals, before a lyric actually showed up because it didn’t strike me or Chester until then.”