Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda Says ‘Living Things’ Was Spontaneous

2012-07-11

Story by Anne Erickson

Linkin Park’s ‘Living Things’ Headed for No. 1 Billboard Debut

Linkin Park’s fifth studio album, “Living Things,” entered the Billboard 200 chart at No. 1 last week, and the lead single off the album isn’t doing too shabby, either. The catchy, pulsating song, “Burn It Down,” is already No. 1 on the Active Rock Chart and #3 on the Alternative Rock Chart. 

With that kind of success 15 years after they first got together, one would think the gentlemen of Linkin Park would have no room for insecurities. But if you ask multi-instrumentalist Mike Shinoda, there was a time when Linkin Park weren’t sure how this new album would turn out. That uncertainty, after all, is just part of the creative process. It’s the result of a band that feels their way through writing an album instead of coldly plotting it out.

“When we’re writing a record, there’s a misconception [that] maybe [we’re] thinking of something, and planning a goal, trying to imagine a song and then making a song,” Shinoda told MTV News of the band’s spontaneous writing process. “That’s not how we work. We basically sit down with instruments and try to pull it down out of the air.

“You go into it without thinking, and then you see what comes out. And in the process of making the last record, a lot of what was popping out was about nuclear war, stuff like that. I think, having gotten that out of our system, this record, when we sat down to write songs, it was always personal, and it kept happening.”

Linkin Park will co-headline this summer’s Honda Civic Tour with Incubus. The run kicks off Aug. 11 in Bristow, Va., and wraps Sept. 10 in San Diego, and find all of the tour dates here.

 




Anne Erickson
Posted by Anne Erickson | Alternative, Music, Rock, Rock News

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