Mike Shinoda Talks New Linkin Park Album, Scoring The Raid and More with ArtistDirect

Mike Shinoda recently spoke to ARTISTdirect about a number of topics he's currently involved with, including his scoring of The Raid: Redemption, the sound of the new Linkin Park album and horror movies among other subjects. It's a great interview so read the whole thing via the link and check out an interesting excerpt below where Mike labels the new album a "firecracker record" and in relation to A Thousand Suns "This is not a concept record in that style. This is a song-based record":

"Did scoring the movie influence the direction of the new Linkin Park music?

I don't know. This next album is a little more of a compact, "firecracker record," as I like to call it. As opposed to the long landscapes we were creating with A Thousand Suns, this is not a concept record in that style. This is a song-based record. Also, as we were writing The Raid: Redemption, I remember getting three-quarters of the way finished, looking back, and going, "We got really far, really fast and I love a lot of the stuff we did. How did we do that? What can I learn from that?" It occurred to me that we didn't check in as often. That was one of the things that happened. We got a chance to really go down the rabbit hole with the music and let ideas snowball. I came back to the band that week. We have these weekly meetings, and we meet every Monday to check in about the songs regardless of the progress. Sometimes, we do more than one check-in a week, occasionally. I said, "Let's try something different and not check-in so often. Let's just write and see where we go." For me, if I work on something more days in a row without checking in, I feel like I get more consumed by it. I'm inside it. I don't have any point of reference, and I'm in this crazy place with the song where I know every little nook and cranny. I think that's benefited this new record a lot. We stepped back from the criticism and stepped into making it."

"You strike a balance between the organic piano and string sounds and the electronic elements. Was that integral to the score for The Raid: Redemption?

As evidenced by the stuff we've done with Linkin Park over the years, that's just been something I have a personal obsession with. Even on the first Linkin Park record, Hybrid Theory, that's what the soldier with the dragonfly wings on the cover was all about. It's about the hardness with the softness. Although we have our moments where we want to play something that's just brutally loud and Chester's screaming his brains out, we're the same band that's going to write "My December" or sing something softer. Both come naturally to us, and we love to do both. Some people get turned off by one or the other, and we're okay with that. It's kind of unapologetic in that sense. When they first contacted me about this movie, they cited a few things that I do like Fort Minor and the remixes. I knew they wanted to do stuff I like to make for fun. When I talked to Gareth Evans [Director] about it, I said, "For this movie, I really want to do something that's fun for me. I don't do film scores, but I want to get into them more. I'm interested in them. I want to go a little bit more traditional." He loved what I wanted to do. Some of that required creating musical themes that represented different characters and creating sonic things that represented certain characters. The piano in the earlier part of the movie is usually attached to Rama's wife. The main bad guy in the movie, Tama, doesn't have a theme. He's got a sound. It's this one weird distorted sample that echoes out. That's all you need. You get that in a moment, and you know it's him. We tried to play back and forth with those elements because, in our minds, they had to really represent the characters we were portraying."

Read The Full ArtistDirect Interview

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The Raid: Redemption will be in theatres from Friday March 23rd and you can sample and buy the soundtrack at http://theraidsoundtrack.com.

The new Linkin Park album is tentatively scheduled for Summer 2012.

Source: Artist Direct

 

HAHAHAHA.

 

Maybe the new album will be called "Firecracker"?

Interesting read, I like how Mike's doing things outside of LP to challenge himself and become a better musician. This makes me excited to watch The Raid.

!

 

One of the Youtube comments called Mike "Trollnoda" haha, someone make a Trollnoda smilie!

 

I marked out when he mentioned My December. In an interview. In 2012.