Mike Shinoda on the Rebirth of Linkin Park and His Creative Evolution

the opportunity to continue doing what we love to do got taken away like in our minds it was almost like done part of maybe the motivating factor was to show what it looks like to like be rock bottom and dust yourself off and get up and do it again in 1996 a 19-year-old in Agora Hills California with an eye for design and an ear for music had an idea obsessed with art and classically trained as a Pianist Mike shenoda heard classic rock samples in the hip-hop he loved and became transfixed with the potential of combining

his love of rap with his love of heavy metal the band he co-founded Lincoln Park became one of the most popular and influential groups of the 2000s cementing shinoda's leading role in convergence [Music] culture and it all started with one idea [Music] 2011 take one Mike welcome to idea generation thanks for having me absolutely it's uh it's our honor I wanted to talk to you about collaboration when I look at sort of the breadth of your career that is one of the sort of most significant through lines and something that it appears you have mastered

what is in your estimation the key to a successful collaboration well I think I'm lucky in the sense that um I I I grew up you know drawing in and painting and making music in a way that was a little more solitary like I I I I make my thing and that's and I finish it when I first got together I had a really good friend in that I've known since I was about 13 and uh his name is Mark and he and I started a band called zero and zero became basically Hybrid Theory which

became Lincoln Park during that time when I was like starting you know to work with him I was like making a couple like beats for friends who were who rapped and Mark and I were doing stuff with like rock music and then I went to college and I went to college for illustration in art school you there's a lot of criticism it's part part of the part of the process of being in school for art is that you make things and then the instructor and the your classmates critique them and you all give each other

criticism and so with those two things going on like the band going on and the and school going on where there's a lot of collaboration and constructive criticism sometimes with good intentions sometimes not at least I got much better at hearing criticism and building ideas with people the most important idea I've ever had is probably more of a realization than an idea just the realization that like sometimes I can't do it on my own that like needing help and asking for help is like like kind of like there's a there's an honor in that and

also like a wisdom in [Music] that you mentioned growing up you know drawing obviously playing piano as well and pursuing sort of a myriad of creative arts yeah um I'm curious you know how did your parents professional life inform your sort of career Ambitions they were from very different backgrounds uh my mom and from rural Appalachia in the m in the Hills uh they grew tobacco on a farm their nearest neighbor was like a mile down a dirt road my dad was um first generation Japanese born in the US um his father immigrated over from

Japan and uh they were intered in World War II um he ended up going to school and becoming an engineer and he worked in the space program and Aerospace and and and like space shuttle space um he literally worked on rockets and and the space shuttle um itself my mom ended up working um doing like like paperwork and stuff like that she was more of like a with secretary assistant type of position and she met my dad there and she eventually became a court reporter um the reason I say all that is I have my

dad's like engineer kind of brain and my mom when she got into court reporting was very much it was very there's a lot of medical background she had had to learn and and a lot of English and grammar and so those things kind of she she supported those things with us like if we we use bad punctuation or bad grammar on something she'd call us out immediately were there any sort of influences in your immediate family or or sort of friend circles that kind of opened your eyes to the possibilities of a career in the

creative arts I just grew up drawing like I I I was drawing from the moment I could hold a pencil and um my mom and Dad figured out very quickly that if they went out to dinner and they just gave me something to draw with that I'd be occupied for any amount of time they could sit and have dinner with their friends for two hours 3 hours even and I'd be fine so that was just um a part of my life all all all throughout my childhood and it was actually the thing that I thought

I would be doing for a living we are somewhat contemporaries about the same age and you know in the late ' 80s early '90s I would say music in particular culture generally was much more bulcan IED than it is today and growing up you know for me it was like I listen to de la and tribe and Nas and wuang and that was a thing and then there were the kids that listen to Nirvana and Sonic Youth and lemon heads or whatever um obviously you were able to pull from a myriad of different Inspirations again

in an environment where that was not not something that was you know um sort of lionized in the way that it would later become um how did those ideas sort of come into Focus for you I was always just drawn to those to a lot of different things like I I was like what you're describing like I remember in one of my classes it was actually it was an art class um my friends at my table we were hip-hop kids and that's what we listen to and there were some kids who were Rock kids and

they sat at a different table and they were Metallica teas and we hated each other just on the music I mean it was like it was like it wasn't that deep like we didn't we weren't like fighting or whatever physically but we were we would make fun of each other we wouldn't hang out we would not associate because the music was the divider eventually I just naturally heard things I heard things that were bridges that were connectors like it started with Beasty Boys sampling Zeppelin and and hris cuz I wouldn't I didn't just like listen

to the Beasty Boys record and memorize that and move on to the Run DMC record and blah blah blah I heard those samples and I realized oh that's the ocean by Zeppelin that's When the Levy Breaks by Zeppelin and a little while later bands like like rage and chili peppers and and there was a there was a soundtrack called judgment night do you ever remember that with the dell and dinosaur junor right so so like that had helmet and House of Pain together on it and stuff like that I was like this is it man

this is I love I love whatever this is these are the like these guys like what I like this is the kind of music that I'm listening to and there are once you start thinking about that you just realize there's so many ways to blend it my biggest early supporter uh I had a piano teacher from when I was like I don't know like three four fiveish uh for about um 12 years and at a certain point um I was learning classical Theory all the basics and um at one point I got really when I

really fell in love with hip-hop I was learning about jazz I was learning about Blues some rock and I told my teacher I wanted to learn those things in particular Jazz and um they my teacher said said well I think you should actually quit lessons and I can't teach you that and and actually what you really want to do is you want to start making things and so you should probably like look toward look into buying that type of uh gear and learning how to use it and it was one of the most selfless like

sweet honorable things that she could have done like she basically was saying she was willing to like lose a client lose her whatever that's worth to her every month um in order for this kid to like pursue their dreams and get you know figure it out you know it's an incredible way to be do you remember writing the first song where you felt like you had found this sort of balance of almost like the you know songwriting with the density of rap music but with hooks that had Echoes of a Metallica oh I I can

tell you that the off the first off of Hybrid Theory the song that I always that I've always I think the whole band pretty much thinks was like that thing is paper cut the very first track off the very first record the reason it's there the reason that's the first song is because it it really contains the the basics of everything that Lincoln Park is like in The rhythms in the way the drums and the and the samples and the guitar cars are treated the wrapping the the hookin and then it ends with Big Melodies

and it's not it's it's it's manages to be like high energy but also introspective right because a lot of stuff that was coming out at that time was very much like we we called it frat Rock like it was aggressive and Macho and whatever and we yeah there's a time for that some stuff um that we made it like leans into that a little bit but mostly not usually not usually our stuff was more interesting perspective what was the process to get from you know forming zero and to getting to paper cut like how many

songs did you have to make you know I I know the the the group lineup switched up uh along the way yeah originally the band I mean the thing zero started with just me and my friend Mark and he was the one playing like rag against this machine and stuff for me like he introduced me to some of those bands and I introduced him to wuang and so on and we were making demos back then that were we started off making joke songs cuz we weren't we didn't take ourselves seriously enough to like make real

songs but that's the thing is I think that that was really valuable to us cuz we could make things and experiment and get better at it without the pressure of like you you're like saying something serious or whatever and then you added Chester into the mix and swapped out a a different singer so yeah so so our singer at the time um he went into management and we found Chester um Chester came in through a mutual friend and it wasn't long I mean the steps to get from that point to to our first album like

we showcased with for we showcase for every label they all turned us down and we ended up um just going with our anr guy he had taken the job at Warner and and they okayed us to like do some demos and see you know it's almost like a show us what you got kind of deal how did you deal with the series of rejections and was you were were you guys of the mind that like oh they they don't get it or was it demoralizing I'm sure it would make a better um movie script like

screenplay if if it was like we were all like it's the only thing we got we're all in on this music [ __ ] but the truth is that our band like everybody was smart and everybody had other things going on like you know we had jobs and and whatever and if it didn't work out we would be okay I think when people are thinking of good ideas and bad ideas sometimes they're they're using a metric like they're judging it based on like is it going to be successful or are other people going to like

this idea and um at least in for my art and for my music the best metric is really how much I like it or how much it moves me like I think we can get fooled sometimes by chasing after things that we think other people are going to like cuz a lot of other people are going to like this idea so it's good not necessarily like the I always say the worst thing that could happen would be for a lot of people to like a song of mine that I don't [Music] like what was the

dynamic and sort of the internal politics of the band in in that early stage I just remember everybody being really really like focused on the next on on like the craft and the next thing back then everybody was spending a lot of time playing shows like they would be playing shows every weekend every or every other weekend we play shows like every other month because we were spending the whole time writing new songs and then and rehearsing and getting better so we spent a lot more time on ourselves and on our foundation than just like

trying to get fans how would you say that the sort of ideas of what the band was going to be sort of evolved or changed between like Signing Day and turning in Hybrid Theory well when we got like signed it was really like basically like a development deal like it was like a wait and see kind of situation I don't think we really knew that when we signed it we weren't fully I wasn't fully aware that that's what was going on so the more we recorded the more we wrote The more we recorded and honestly

the more we stuck to our guns and said you know because there were a lot of we would get suggestions from the label about doing things differently and usually we we didn't we told them no what were the kinds of suggestions it were um hey you should meet with this producer you know hey you should there was I mean on the funny side there was one time that that anr guy asked us to cuz we were still getting comfortable on stage and working out like that part of things and he had us meet with this

guy who like choreographed and helped with Stage stuff on like these like Rap and R&B shows and this dude comes in and he's like basically a choreographer and he's I literally suggested he's like you need to have like a like like a thing on stage like a gimmick where like for example like you could like come up to the microphone and like step out to the side and step out of your shoes or like kick a shoe off we were like what the [ __ ] that was a literal suggestion and he was to I

mean I don't mean to sound make it sound like he's a crazy person like he was just shooting from the hip like it was just something that popped into his head but like a real thing that happened was like as we finished Hybrid Theory we were like the only person the person who is going to mix Hybrid Theory is Andy Wallace Andy Wallace mixed these records over here that blend samples and rock music and Industrial sounds in a way that feels modern to us it's very full it's it's expert level mixing like we love this

and they also by the way mixed like Nirvana's never mind he's an icon like he does he does huge records too he's the only one who can mix Hybrid Theory and the next thing we knew like our anr guy had done a test mix with somebody else and it was because of politics and stuff going on on his side and we were scared to death that this guy was going to just like take our record and go do his own thing with it and put they were going to put it out that way um so

those were the places where we had to like put our foot down and have like difficult conversations with people and fight for our own vision in 2000 Lincoln Park released its debut album Hybrid Theory immediately catapulting the band to super stardom over the next decade and a half Shinoda helped push the group to expand it Sonic pallet while also helming high-profile collaborations and a solo album but the 2017 death of beloved singer Chester Bennington would put the future of Lincoln Park in doubt you turn in Hybrid Theory and I'm I'm curious sort of what were

your and your bandmates expectations in that moment like what did you what did you really think was going to happen next we thought we we were just looking at it like okay now we've got to go on tour support the record promote it it's going to be fun love going out and playing shows um they picked a single they picked one step closer and then that's going to come out and we'll see how it goes and it came out and it it caught fire immediately it went really big on alternative radio at a time when

alternative radio was maybe like leading pop radio like things were crossing over from alternative to pop all the time which is you know not happening now so much you feed it into the machine that is the label and would you say that they were helpful in orchestrating here here's a really important thing to know so yeah they were they were uh they had a really good team in place incredible team and when the album came out it was about to come out we were talking just the band we were talking about like what what do

you think a good first week would be for like what should we expect you know and our best number was about 12,000 units sold which would be high it would be big for a brand new band to come out and and sell 12 and I think uh we ended up in the 40s 45ish blew our minds like it blew everybody's Minds like they everyone was paying attention then all of a sudden our the bands that we were playing with some of the bands that we were we were playing first out of three and the bands

are treating us all bad because they're like mad that we're doing so well um it was funny it was a funny time and how quickly did all of your lives completely flip on their heads I think we were we were um had our heads down and we were work working really hard and very focused so we weren't aware of of it and we actually went straight from Hybrid Theory into Meteora with very little break like some things were happening in our lives that that were changing but we weren't spending a lot of downtime to absorb

them so you know guys were buying like their first nice car maybe buying a house it was it was intense but the music the career was going so fast that we didn't even pay attention to it and um it wasn't until after the second album that we took a break intentionally everybody said like let's we're tired and we got to like recalibrate our lives and we got to re we got to recalibrate our Creative Vision and see what the right next step is cuz the first two we can't do three like if the next record

is like just riding the momentum of the first two then we're going to be stuck it's going to like bottleneck like our capability like our potential as a man I'm curious going to that second record was there a feeling that you were just simply creatively in the zone and or was there uh a sense of stakes and you know a pressure yeah the stakes there were Stakes it was high stakes um so Hybrid Theory first record was the biggest record on the planet that year and that was a year when it was like Britney Spears

and Christine Aguilera and Justin Timberlake and sync or whatever I don't remember exactly all of the ones that were on the on the in the conversation at the time but we saw them as like huge pop artists we didn't see ourselves that way at all and when we heard when we got the like the data back or the results back of like they're saying you add up all the numbers like you guys are bigger than them on the planet Earth and we were like that doesn't make any sense so to go from that to okay

now let's make another record is terrifying but luckily I think we were again like we were so in the groove and we had so much we were just working so hard that it didn't have time to sneak into our heads too much like we just kept working and the um and the result was we found a way to continue the creative like direction of the first Rec record and open it up enough that we could say okay like first record was very alternative rock hip-hop like it was statement it was a statement record and then

the next one we added these homemade samples we added electronic bits we had a song called nobody's listening that was a basically a rap song we had a song called Breaking the Habit which didn't have any uh distorted guitars on it and it was a big single for us so it's like okay we can we prove to everybody like we can make a song without traditional Rock elements in it that performs well right that does well in the marketplace like that was the part that I think was a big uh big success for us like

as artists pivoting is hard change is hard so you know if somebody's wondering like how do I know when to change directions or even like how do I know when to stop like when is something done uh those things are I think those things come with experience and age I do it all the time when I'm working on things if I'm working on an album especially from song to song I might make something one day where I go this is the best thing I've ever made and then I wake up the next day and I

hate it and then couple weeks later it's like I make something else and I go this changes everything in this whole album everything about this project needs to move closer to this new thing I just discovered and uh yeah it's it's like I I feel like with change with pivoting like the more often you do it the better you get at it and doing it is hard but once you get used to the discomfort of of change then you get better at it when it happens and you you're saying that then going into the third

there was a feeling that you had to sort of reapo the strategy yeah so after the second record we we took a step back I did a record called Fort Minor to get out of my system like this this is the hip-hop it was almost like this is the hip-hop I grew up on and what I how I would do it today at that time um we had already done Collision Course with Jay-Z tell me how exactly did that uh short MTV asked Jay to do mash up who do you want to do it with

he said Lincoln Park we said here are I I said here are three mashups like that was our response he said do you want to do it I sent back three mashups and he responded back oh [ __ ] and then they everybody knew like this was a thing and uh we ended up playing first we did that record um I produced it and and assembled it using like his Black Album um they did O capillas and instrumentals you had the stems and I was yeah and I used our stems and whatever and I I

had actually grown up making mashups they didn't actually know that but I grown up making mashups it's like how I learned to do music so it was easy for me it was second nature for me and that came through in the process um we got to play the Grammys with Jay and Paul McCartney and we won a Grammy for that then I did Fort Miner J executive produced that what does that mean to have him executive producing it was great I mean it was really he his his Insight was very like top like high level

he wasn't super super involved in the dayto day but he did help me kind of like direct it from that high level um the I think the thing actually was the most exciting to me were the were the guest the guest appearances on it like to get a like the verse that black thought did on on the song right now that's like that's maybe my favorite Black Thought verse and um top 10 black thought verses to me and to have it on my project is crazy like I just I just think he's you know such

an incredible artist um but yeah had common on there John Legend of course styles of Beyond um Holly Brook who became Skyler gry and uh many others and then like I think just coming out of that um oh Chester did a project called Dead by sunrise and then we kind of took a little break and then we um when we approached the next Lincoln Park album it was like I mean there's so much to talk about there but I think the most important thing was like I the reason I felt like I had to do

a Fort Minor record is because I felt like certain things didn't belong I got the impression from the other guys like certain things didn't belong in Lincoln Park like we do a very specific thing and everybody was saying at that point like look at how look how great this this stuff you guys were doing is like there should never be a thing that you can't do Lincoln Park it's all welcome so the next record became this Patchwork it took us a very long time to get there um but it became this Patchwork of all of

these different sounds and on the record you could hear from song to song everything was very different from the last thing my biggest Advantage as a Creator or entrepreneur you know what I'd say probably my biggest Advantage is my point of view um the way I see things and I think that's true for a lot of people who are you know successful at what they do but I have you know we all have a story I I have my own personal path that got me here and it informs me all the time in the decisions

I make and I work hard to enhance my knowledge base yeah I'm always trying to learn I'm always trying to get better at it and I do have a point of view just to dial back like you know you are a songwriter you are a rapper you approach things from a very lyrically dense and narrative-driven place a lot of times I'm curious how do you sort of balance finding inspiration for the next song um and also you know as you've gotten older and marriage and children and all of these things are there lines of where

you can let people in or not it does change in the sense that like like over as as as your family grows or your you you get older like your your priorities change and like the way you want to like your interests change like the things I'm drawn to have changed over time so like in some you know a few albums ago it was like the heaviest loudest most complicated stuff we could make and then the album after that was like a basically a pop record so you know like in terms of like what what

I want to do and what I want to get out of it is different completely separate from that we're at a very interesting time in our band as individuals because we experienced a great loss and the band was the opportunity to continue doing what we love to do got taken away like in our minds it was almost like done and there's nothing any of us could do to hide that like other people may have even felt it like nobody could feel it as as bad as we could feel it like that's we're going to it's

going to be the worst for us but they they were feeling it too they're feeling their version of it and feeling bad and I thought like for us in this year and in this effort part of maybe the motivating factor was to you mentioned family like to lead by example to show what it looks like to like be on be like rock bottom and dust yourself off and get up and do it again and go the only way to like to like get that across would be to actually do it and do it you know

do it well or do it honorably or do it like in a way that like you know shows your kids like a good example of it I thought after the passing of his longtime friend and collaborator shenoda began to process his grief first with a solo recording addressing his sorrow and later by working with new creative Partners ultimately a conversation with another Lincoln Park bandmate paved the way for the group's triumphant rebirth what role did the solo record serve in sort of recalibrating you and obvious you know I guess eventually creating the space for you

to be able to revisit this yeah yeah um it was a I mean so I did a record called post traumatic it was really just a diary it was a musical like Diary of that period of time you know kind of like if you listen to the record it starts off very very dark and then by the end of it it's it's lighter it like isn't like it's not all better but it's like it's lighter a lot lighter and um that's how I felt went on tour with that and did a bunch of shows and

those shows were really intended to be like a place to people for the fans to commune and and to see that I'm still here like to see in person that you know all hope is not lost kind of thing um to make it way more like dramatic than it needs to be um but some people did feel that way like some people people feel very felt very dramatic they felt very strong feelings and and I did want to like show up for that for them and for myself in person and do shows you know that

address this stuff head on being a producer there's such a it's a a very broad range can me a broad range of things from the you know the Pete rocks and the premieres that are banging on the machines to the you know Rick rubin's yes asking I don't it's unfortunate that those are the same that that they get grouped into the same word producer it's really not the same there are like just within the realm of like so like if for for a Premiere a DJ Premiere or a Pete Rock like it's the it's the

the track um more so than like a even a Timberland who is arranging The Hook and the shape of the vocals and giving feedback on the shape and then a big step over into somebody like um well Rick Rubin can do those things but he's he exists much more now in the in this other bucket which is completely different Rick doesn't push any buttons he doesn't know how to work that gear he doesn't care about it because really his his value in the studio has nothing to do with those like you're going to be much

more you're going to be much better off if somebody else does those things cuz Rick's value is about the big picture ideas um Direction artistic vision and and voice like like the concept of voice not the literal voice in working with him on what do we do three records with him um he suggested a chord once it was the third measure of the chorus of waiting for the end I can tell you exactly what it was it was the only time he doesn't do that yeah but to actually to go backwards you were asking about

like you know producers and things like that like my role the way I ended up in my role producing this record for example has been through learning from the folks really great folks that we've worked with getting confident enough getting getting knowing my way around an album enough through working under great people um that I that I could feel like I could take it on because I know that I would do a good job don't let it be driven by ego let it be driven by like what I can [Music] deliver do I doubt myself

I doubt myself all the time and I think this moment actually this this year with Lincoln Park kind of like um re restarting um is a really great for me it's a very proud moment it's a it's a feeling of success just in the fact that the band was um like it was stopped it was blocked it was it was like it wasn't going anywhere and we were able through you know hard work and and pers perseverance and good ideas um and a lot of support from really great people who we love who also had

good ideas and and put in the work uh we were able to uh you know dust ourselves off off and um and try again would you guys like to hear a new song something about the new album something we haven't played yet I think this is the time to do it you've touched on obviously the gravity of deciding to try to re-engage Lincoln Park and to make new music with a new lineup and what was your sort of path of coming to feel okay with this and then confident in it so I had met Emily

in 2019 I met col in around 2021 and then sometime in 20 probably 22 23 is I had I remembered having like a breakfast with Joe Han and he and I like we we've kept in touch but he had like moved to Hawaii like we weren't we weren't seeing each other that often and uh we had this really great convers ation about about what if like what if the band there there's if there's aund things to solve to make Lincoln Park work again um all unsolved like at the end of all of that what if

it's like barely viable enough that we'd be like I don't know all traveling together in a van right like if it was just the smallest thing it can be that to you know the idea that is it really about the music is it really about the Brotherhood and the like getting it together for the right reasons I think I said like what if we all had to share a bus and like play like midday on a festival lineup and whatever which is like a respectable way to be but like for us that would be very

small compared to what we do and he without even blinking was like yeah of course I'd be fine like I'd love that and he went on about like you know the time we spend together and making great stuff and it made it was so inspiring like he was so focused and he was so like centered and I left that conversation just being like Oh I think this is like I think it's different that felt way different than anything in recent years and I talked to to Dave our base player I was like hey you know

Joe and I said Joe and I had this thing and he was really excited and we started just resolving to spend more time together even if we didn't hit it play a single note if we just sat around and just daydreamed about it that would be okay and it started there at what point did you propose adding Emily to the mix and oh that was that came way later I'd be like yeah we're just screwing around like we're just going to write today there's going to be a bunch of different people in the room some

of them are are going to be from my band but other people are not and we're just going to make cool stuff and see what happens and sometimes because there were no like there were no guard rails on it it just went somewhere [ __ ] terrible because we didn't establish like what it was for um cuz we didn't commit to what it was for I didn't say anything about you know officially anything and I think I I I was feeling it a little bit but I was curious and I didn't want to like push

anybody in any direction and and then I think one of the other guys said you know what do you think what do you think about these two like they seem to be they seem to click with us better than the rest and I was like yeah I think that's [Music] right what when I was young I thought success you know was the same thing that like most people think of um and then after you know we had our first album did better than anything we could have imagined like there there literally could have couldn't have

been a better outcome um in terms of like numbers and things like that and um after that I had to change my like calibration um because it's it's it's not on its own that type of success isn't going to be fulfilling so it became for me it became a lot more about artistic expression and finding like almost like the the true nature of a thing that you're making like if you can capture the if you're writing a lyric and you can capture the truth in that lyric if it's just the TR the truest or the

realest or the most authentic thing that you can write or make or say you know that's a version for me that's a version of success you know you guys have have a thing and a thing that people love very deeply and have you know huge amounts of emotional investment in um and I guess you know as the band has progressed increasingly there's a probably a tension between scratching the itch that you know that they want scratched and pushing things forward in a way that perhaps makes them uncomfortable but is maybe more creatively fulfilling for you

or ultimately more fulfilling for them well with the new with with the new album with from zero that was the ultimate test of that it was like how do we there there are all of these different elements in play there's you know people that loved the the first our first two records and didn't love anything after that there's people that were along for the entire ride and preferred the more adventurous stuff there are people who are potential fans that have never liked the band but with the new lineup they would there's also then the the

aspect of of Chester and Rob who who are not in the new lineup and how do we treat that how do we do it respectfully to them for them um how do we do that while maintaining our new members Emily and Colin and lifting them up and giving them the best platform to succeed from it was fraking insane that's that and that's just on the creative side not to mention then like things like marketing and album and blah blah blah like it's been this like almost impossible puzzle of things to worry about did you have

anxiety going into this process yeah yeah yeah the whole time I was uh turning gray and losing hair no I I I there were definitely big big moments when I was like um are we doing the right thing like I don't know um but honestly like I think the music really I I feel like the music got me through it like I feel like the that when we made the As we were making the songs every time I like really sat and I listened to what we were making it felt reassuring like it felt like

yeah this has got the DNA of Lincoln Park in it even though it's different I know it's there you don't have to like I don't have to guess and so the at the end of the day the big the big question like the challenge really was how do we present it I know it's there but in order for someone else to realize that they're going to have to give it a chance so how do we set up the best version of an invitation to come give it a chance whether it was for with Fort Minor

or your own you know solo record 2019 you have proven that you can do it on your own and that there's an appetite from the fans for that I guess what was animating your wantedness to solve this very fraught emotionally and also you know potentially uh dangerous intellectual challenge the the way the fan base reacted to it was the core fans of mine were very like excited about it like there were people there who wanted it to to wanted to hear it and wanted to to um me to keep doing it but what I also

realized is that there is a there is a correlation between the like actual Artistry and the actual like quality in a sense of the things that we would make together as a band like there's a magic to that part of that is the group like the team and the shared interest and the shared ideas and the camaraderie and the fun we have all of those things um the scariest part about it is okay if we you know I know that that thing is special and I've and I've done it with and I've I've tried to

do it with people that are not Lincoln Park and forget like the audience at large is reaction to it I listen to it and I go it's missing something it's not all there like I I don't it doesn't come out of me the way that the like right way and part of it is just because I've got a short hand I've got a I've got like a understanding a creative like like chemistry with my bandmates that I don't have with anybody [Music] else it's it's natural it's effortless well not effortless but easier and and that

is I've it's almost like I did my you ever heard about like Aboriginal oh yeah people like doing a walkabout I did my Walkabout I saw things and I came back and I went yeah this thing that where I started this thing is unique I thought it was unique that was a guess and I walked now I've walked all over and I realized that I didn't see it anywhere else and I then I saw great things I saw people that are incredible but when I do it with them it's not incredible and when I come

here it's incredible [Music] [Music] w