Rolling Stone Q&A: Chester Bennington

Rolling Stone recently conducted a (presumably phone) interview with Chester Bennington during a trip to Disneyland with his family. The following are a few noteworthy excerpts:

Which of the songs best encapsulates the results of working with Rubin?
"In Between" is a track that probably best captures what I'm talking about, It's a song that just starts out with a cello. There's literally a cello and a little sample beat. A piece of a beat. And Mike comes in and he sings the whole song.

What about "Hands Held High" and "Little Things You Give Away"?
Well "Hands Held High" [musically lends itself to singing]. And Rick was like, 'Forget that lets rap on that, Mike go ahead, do you [sic] thing.' It was an interesting piece of music to rap over but it works really well. "Little Things You Give Away" is this epic long, beautiful ride, and it's a little unconventional in the way its arranged too. So I think that's something that represents the diversity of the record.

Does Mike do a lot of singing on the album? Because the songs I've heard are largely you singing.
Mikes [sic] was like, 'I wrote myself out of the record.' There's not a lot of Mike on this record -- there's a couple of songs he's rapping on, he has a couple of songs he's singing on, he's singing a lot of harmonies and playing a lot of guitar. And, you know he produced this record as well, so it was interesting. I questioned that early on, like, 'Hey there what are you doing? Maybe we should try some rapping or more of you.' And he was like 'No, no, no. This is all you dude.' It was almost like after awhile we just stopped paying attention to him. We were just writing songs.


An introduction to the interview also lists the following:
The twelve resulting songs include the string-heavy ballads "Leave Out All the Rest" and "Shadow of the Day," as well as more textured cuts like "The Little Things You Give Away," [sic] featuring glitchy, syncopated beats. The latter track's lyrics ("The levees are broken. . . . Six feet under water") suggest a Hurricane Katrina connection, but Bennington prefers not to divulge too much. "We're at an age where we're paying attention to politics," he says. "But we don't want to preach."

Click here to read the full interview.
Thanks to lpxqwerty33 & Li!

 

I love you guys..but in a good way..

 

Well good to know the Mike exclusion factor was a mutual thing, not a 'HEY WTF WHY AM I NOT ON THIS RECORD.'

 

There's a little bit more info here-

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/14048512/spring_music_preview_fifty_musthear_albums/2

 

Anticipation builds more and more every day.

Awesome.

 

I think I added in about three [sic]'s

 

what's a [sic] do anyway?

 

Haha, and I thought journalists/editors are supposed to do something called proof-reading.

Oh, and for mcpancakes...

From everybody's favorite source: Wikipedia

 

So Mike wrote himself out of the album? What a plonker.

 

Yeah, I really don't like that at all.

 

What better way to spend the hours waiting in line for Space Mountain than conducting interviews. Heh.

Not too sure about the whole ZOMG WHERE'S MIKE thing. Maybe "In Between" will even it out a little. Have to wait and see, I suppose.

 

I think LP need to look into the 'if it aint broken don't fix it' degree a little bit. I mean yes, they needed some changes but Mike hardly on the album? No me gusto mucho.

EDIT: When I say Mike hardly on the album, I meant Emcee wise. After all that was part of why LP have been so successful.

 

I bet you that Mikes singing will be better then he's rapping

 

so sad actually ... so sad ...
we gonna miss mike alot in the album ... (with his AMAZING rap Style)
i'm so sad about hearing that
i really am

 

[sic] means something was spelled wrong on purpose, or if quoting from somewhere, that is what spelling was given.

 

I just think its a bit ironic because that Fort Minor song the begins with Mike saying his producers tried telling him to cut back the rapping on albums because it wouldnt sell and Mike proved to them that rapping with Linkin Park works...
and his next major work after The Rising Tied is this album where he purposefully stepped out of the spotlight and cut back on the raps.


but hey, on the other hand, I bet his two rap songs are some of his best work and once we're all used to hearing him sing we'll encourage that even more.

 

Mike pretty much has two songs to himself, so I don't see a problem with his lack of appearance on the album.

 

Where the heck is LPTV..:angry: