Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda Says ‘Burn It Down’ is About Celebrity Life

2012-07-26

Story by Cat Badra

Linkin Park multi-instrumentalist talks about the band’s inspiration for ‘Burn It Down’

Linkin Park’s current single, “Burn It Down,” is topping the charts, weeks after its initial release. The track, which come off the band’s latest full-length, “Living Things, is No. 1 on Billboard’s Rock Songs chart and No. 3 on Billboard’s Alternative Songs chart.

The guys of Linkin Park drew inspiration for “Burn It Down” from their experiences with the negatives that come with celebrity life. “People build up a certain celebrity or musician or actor or whatever and they’re popular one minute and the next thing, you know either they’ve done something wrong or they’ve done nothing wrong and there’s just a bad rumor that goes around about them and then everybody’s attacking that person,” multi-instrumentalist Mike Shinoda told the Huffington Post. “We’ve actually lived through that as a band.”

Shinoda also has some tips for young musicians coming up in a very different environment that Linkin Park dealt with a decade ago. “It’s hard for me to give advice to new artists, because the industry environment we grew up in was so different,” he said. “…But a lot of that stuff aside, clearly, the thing that has always been a focus for us is making sure your songs are where everything is based on. You could have the best promotion in the world, you could get name-brand producers and video directors, whatever. Young artists are always aspiring to get with somebody else who is talented and say that that’s going to take their band to the next level.”

Linkin Park kick off their co-headlining tour with fellow alternative rockers Incubus on Aug. 11 at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Va. Find a full list of tour dates here.

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Cat Badra

Meet the expert - Cat Badra is a music writer for Audio Ink Radio and a range of other music, sports and lifestyle publications. She's a graduate of Michigan State University with a master's degree in theater and speech. Contact her at cat@audioinkradio.com.