Linkin Park/Sebago Collaboration Launch Party Interview With The Source Magazine

I'm so glad we've kept on topic... As a fan that has loved and appreciated every era of Linkin Park's music, I still fully support them in anything they do next. Heavy, soft, polka, I don't care. They have a great track record with pleasing me as a fan. The future is still very bright for the band and I hope that whatever they make is what they want to make. That's what I care about more than anything. The band being true and honest to themselves. That really shows in the outcome of what they put out.

 

When did you get into the band? Because I don't usually act like a Linkin Park hipster, but I've been a fan of the band for 13, going on 14 years, and were into them long before they were "the nu-metal band" to love who sold millions of records, won a grammy and had several #1 hits. I liked them before In The End became a teen angst anthem, and before the TRL kiddies ate it up.

So unless you were into them even before that (in which mad respect to you for liking them during their Xero/Hybrid Theory days), I'm pretty sure it's a little premature to act like you've been a fan for longer than me. I've been a fan of this band a very long time. This site started 11 years ago, after I was already a fan for quite some time.

 

I was a fan of Relative Degree.

 

What? I listened to rap when I was 4-5 years old too .

Honestly, if anybody is still holding out hope that Linkin Park will go full on BACK TO DER ROOTZ or else they'll stop being a fan, it's probably due time you leave the fanbase because it's never going to happen. Linkin Park have said on countless occasions (even post LIVING THINGS) that they have no intentions of repeating themselves, and that they're done making Hybrid Theory clones. Hell the only reason LIVING THINGS even remotely resembled Hybrid Theory in spots was due to the fact that during the writing process, the band unintentionally created some 'old school sounding' tracks, and they decided that rather than trash a good song, if they enjoyed it they should just put it on the album. This in no way was signaling a full on return to 'DER ROOTZ', and anyone believing that is sadly mistaken.

Infact...I find it funny that people claim to be hardcore fans of the band, but completely misunderstand ATS in it's entirety. Phoenix famously said back in 2001 that the band didn't want to become a group where you could say "here's your rap verse, here's your hard rock chorus" and that they wanted to create music that was only "Linkin Park". And yet with Meteora and even parts of Minutes To Midnight, that's exactly what they became. A formula following band. They turned into a band with a easily replicable sound, and who used the same structure (intro>verse>chorus>verse>chorus>bridge>chorus>outro) in every song and who started to become a parody of themselves once Collision Course came around. It's why many old school fans hate Meteora because it went against everything the band originally stood for. It was them using a formula, and sticking to what was popular instead of being their own band. A Thousand Suns is the closest to the original "idea" of Linkin Park since Hybrid Theory. It's the band defying categories, or formulas to make music only THEY could make...which was their intention as a band all along.

So sure, you can hate ATS. But to wish for a return to a stale sound, and therefore want the band to limit their creative output...well that's just completely missing the point of this band entirely and what they originally stood for, before they were even called Linkin Park.