Pushkin.

Mike Schanoda took a bold step last fall when he reintroduced Lincoln Park with a new lineup featuring drummer Colin Britten and singer Emily Armstrong as lead vocalist, taking the role once held by Chester Bennington.

Mike, who co founded Lincoln Park in ninety six, has long served as the group's de facto producer, as well as as MC and keyboardist.

The band rose to massive success in the two thousands with the run of new metal albums that have collectively sold more than ten million copies worldwide.

In November, Lincoln Park released From Zero, their eighth studio album and the first with Emily as front woman.

The records already surpassed three billion streams online.

On today's episode, Lea Rose talks to Mike Shanoda about why he chose not to retire Lincoln Park and instead took the creative risk of reinventing the band nearly thirty years after its formation.

Mike also shares his favorite Lincoln Park songs of all time and explains how the band managed to stand apart from the bro centric frat boy culture that defined much of early two thousand's new metal this is Broken Record, real musicians, real conversations.

Here's Lea Rose and Mike Shanoda.

I was listening back to your last interview on Broken Records.

So the last time you were on was twenty twenty one in March, and you were very much in your Twitch era, like, you know, five days a week on there, grinding, producing new music with people that you were meeting online, and you seemed like super pumped about it.

So how did that transition into Lincoln Park, finding Emily and the band starting up again?

Where do I even start?

So?

I was doing you know, after twenty twenty, I was doing some I was doing Twitch live streams here actually on this setup, and I I made songs with the fans.

I like they would throw ideas out, I'd make make tracks out of their ideas, and yeah we did.

I did some fun stuff there.

And at a certain point, you know, I was also starting to do sessions with other artists, like writing and producing, and I was making starting to make my own stuff again very quietly and really not putting any names on it, like just making the most random like stuff that you'd never even expect me to make.

What did it sound like.

The most I mean, well, some of it sounded like Lincoln Park.

Some of it sounded like me experimenting, like I've done a few different like projects for it, minor my own solo stuff, and there were elements of all those things going on.

But I had kept in touch with all the guys in the band, and we had gotten together, and then like it kind of just like nothing was there.

Like we would get together for a little bit and then you know, people just wouldn't show up or call back or whatever.

And that happened every every a couple maybe like once a year or a couple of times a year.

And sometime around I'm gonna guess it was like twenty twenty three, I started really talking to Joe and Dave like that.

I could tell that they were really ready to do something, and I was as well.

So when you all made the decision to come back together, was it more just to kind of see what happens or was it like, all right, we're going to do an album, we're reuniting, we're getting a new singer, we're going to go on tour.

Was it like a whole that very opposite of that.

It was the opposite of that, because we were like we really wanted to take the like pressure, it's so much pressure to like to like start Lincoln Park again totally, that's a very big idea, and it was it's like scary.

It was scary, and it was like there are too many things could be go wrong and there were too many questions.

So we really just we really just approached it like following like little glimmers of interest, you know, like whatever seemed seemed like it held our attention and we wanted to do more of it.

We just follow those things.

And even when we had people come in, we never said it was Lincoln Park.

It was like they'd see it be it'd be you know, me Joe Dave in the room.

But even if it was just me in the room, like obviously I would, we would never like I shouldn't I shouldn't I say obviously, because it's like if there's just one of if it's just me, then the question is less of an elephant in the room, but if it's three of us, it's more of an elephant in the room, like is this a Lincoln Park session?

So yeah, when we first started, it was like that, you know, we would just kind of get together with people and mess around and again like some of the stuff kind of like to somebody else's here, maybe it sounded like it could be a Lincoln Bark song, but definitely to ours.

We were kind of exploring different I don't know, esthetic or a different like creative path.

And then yeah, and then slowly like we started to like we had met Emily.

I had met Emily like back in like almost like twenty eighteen nineteen I think it was, and just kept in touch.

She was going to do another Dead Sarah record.

She did that and then got like just reconnected and started bringing her in with the other guys in different combinations.

We'd have, you know, get together with different writers or something, and really it Galvin, I when it was like just when Brad came into and it was just like the six of us in the room, then it was really it felt like, oh, I want to do this every day, Like it's the best.

Wow.

She is so awesome?

Yea is she?

Like there's something special about that woman.

She's incredible.

She's incredible to watch.

She's an awesome performer.

Like I feel like you just struck gold and it's so awesome to bring a woman in Lincoln Park is so like I look at your old photos and it's just like, dudes, it's like energy, dude energy.

It's funny because we were in the context of like the bands and the and the festivals and the shows that we were doing.

We were the least broy bros of the of the lineup, Like we were on these shows with like it was like oz Fest, yeah, and like people were just like waking up getting drunk, like blacking out and then waking up next morning and chugging a pedia lighte to like rehydrate and then drink again.

And we were just sitting there in our bus like isolating ourselves because we didn't there were only like a handful of people on those tours that we were like, oh, like these are kind of our people, yea, And I have nothing against like all those folks from those from those tours, like a lot of really sweet performers, great great dudes in bands, though, like you were saying, like the energy was very masculine energy.

The crews were all bros with tattoos and beer guts, and like that wasn't our even way back in like two thousand and two, two thousand and three, that wasn't really our scene.

Yeah, that was the I was looking at the photos for Hybrid Theory, and I guess it was like the photo that was on the back of the CD maybe at first, and I was thinking about you because you've always been sort of like the art director for the band.

Right me and Joe.

Yeah, Joe and I had met in college.

We both studied illustration and he left to go do film and I stayed and finished my I got my my bachelor's.

So very visual.

Do you remember like what your thought was for the aesthetic of the band in those early days for like that shoot?

Yeah, totally.

The first meeting we had with the label about the aesthetic, like what art direction we'd like to kind of go in with with Hybrid Theory.

You know, the folks that we already knew were they had said to the to the art department, Oh, these guys like they you know, a couple of the guys went to art school, so they take this pretty seriously and then they know more about it than your average band.

Like Mike has done.

He designed like, you know, single covers and CD covers for a few artists.

So oh that's it was like little little hip hop groups like Styles of Beyond and a Carnadian rapper named Soccrates a couple of things.

I don't remember what else I did, but you know, just enough enough.

I felt like I knew enough to like have have a more detailed conversation about it.

And also I didn't want to be like drawing the covers because that wasn't really the aesthetic we were going for.

And then we like we realized that there's this guy named Frank Maddox who he had done like the Deaftones stuff, which we thought was so cool.

White Pony looked incredible, So we started meeting with Frank and one of the things we all bonded on super early was like this new thing that was going on called street art is what there was basically like an elevated version of graffiti, but like a lot of illustrators and people with that kind of talent were moving into the graffiti world.

And you had characters like Banksy showing up yeah, yeah, exactly, and obays stickers were actually on at the time MTV, Like they were showing up in the background of things on MTV.

And I don't even know if MTV knew that that was happening, but people like us, we were like, oh my god, Shepherd's everywhere.

This obey thing is so cool.

Yeah, and so we were that was our inspiration.

I mean we really we really bonded over that, among other things.

Very cool.

And then how thinking about I mean, I've seen a lot of people say that from ero is sort of maybe in ways referencing hybrid theory, and I want to ask you about the name, like from ero is that a reference at all?

Obviously it's maybe starting over?

Yeah, so that's one one meaning.

Is it also Zero your first band?

Yeah?

So the people I feel like usually people who are like, oh yeah, it sounds like hybrid theory.

They though ninety nine percent of those people don't realize that we were called ero before we were hybrid theory and that ero was that sounded like hybrid theory, Like that's theory was ero.

So when we started the band, we you know, it was XCRO was the name of the band, and it was like just a very like uncooked, not quite developed version of what it became.

You know, we were still figuring out the sound, and especially early early on, we just didn't have the gear, Like, we didn't have the stuff that we would need to make the things that we wanted to make.

The very first deal we ever signed was a publishing deal, and we knew at that time that like signing a publishing deal so early was probably financially a terrible idea, but we also didn't take the band so seriously yet, like we were just like, well, I'm just as happy like going back to my day job, like and playing music on the weekends, Like I'm doing this because it's fun and because I like the stuff we're making.

So if we signed this publishing deal, we can all buy new gear and actually make the stuff we want to make.

And so we bought you know, we bought a new sampler, we bought a new guitar, cabinet, new guitar, new bass, new drums, new and we for the first time we had pro tools on a computer at home, and I was the guy.

I was the pro tools guy.

So I was learning that and learning about how to have engineer or how to produce a song.

Everyone we ever worked with, I was just like like picking their brain about you know, how do you do this, how do you do that?

And learning on the fly.

I was going to say, because that's pre YouTube tutorials, so it's not like you could just like, yeah, so you had.

To get the info from somebody who was doing it, I mean, and I wasn't in a position to intern I had bills to pay, and we our band was starting to have like real fans by the maybe by the dozens at that point.

I don't think by the hundreds at that point, but yeah, we were called ero.

And so when fast forward to like, you know, twenty twenty four, when we were making this album, it was funny because the band we were making the band, you know, at the same time that we were making the album, like the band was coming into focus while the music was coming into focus, and so we were learning about like different things that our new lineup could do.

There were like combinations of different people in the when you put us together and that played a certain way, it sounded new and interesting, and so for that, you know, that was one of the reasons why we gravitated towards the name, because it did feel like a restart and a return to some of the things that we really loved in the beginning.

Were you hesitant at all to bring a woman in since I don't know, I mean, it's a big change, but it's not a big deal.

But for some people it may be a big deal, Like.

It was funny because I didn't I didn't mention it to any of my friends, like I didn't want anyone to know that that's what we were considering, really, And I started to notice every time somebody would talk about a band that had a female singer, I started to notice the way they would talk about them.

And in particular, the thing that I noticed more that people won't say in an interview or on Twitter or whatever they what they won't say is that it's that whole thing about when a woman who's in that kind of a position like asserts herself.

You see it in corporate culture too.

She asserts herself, she's bitchy all of a sudden, like they call her, they they they characterize her a certain way.

And so when I was like when we started like thinking about Emily, I was noticing that.

And and you know, she has a very she she like sails back and forth between like very low key and like go with the flow, and then right into like very confident, like badass who knows what she's doing, and she's and that was I think that was one of the things that we really enjoyed as we were starting to get to know each other, it's like, oh, she's always that whatever that ebb and flow is of when she wants to be in the front seat and when she wants in the backseat and when she like has an opinion but she doesn't want to be forceful.

It's like very it locks right in with our our energy too.

There's a lot of people to lock in with, like because six is a lot, yes.

A lot of three people and they can't get along twice as many.

Yes, what did your wife say?

Or just people close to you when you were like, all right, we're doing this again.

It's starting up.

It was a very slow It came about very slowly and gradually many months, many months.

So it wasn't like us, we're not snap decision kind of folks.

Yeah, that's that's to our you know, benefit and our detriment.

Like I think people know that about us.

So sometimes we take time with things, and this was definitely a thing we wanted to take so much time with.

Yeah, and yeah, it was just like you know, getting in the room, getting in the room talking and we'd end up like working on something.

Some days we work on stuff and just like for like forget what we were there for.

We'd just be talking and talking and talking and be like, oh my god, we've been sitting here just like hanging out for four hours, like we really ought to, like work on a song.

It's also like coming out of the pandemic and people have been isolated for so long, Like I remember those early days conversations where you're like, oh wow, I can't be I.

Mean, definitely, I think that was definitely it too.

But but but we you know, we had such a good We really enjoyed the process of making this album.

And not every album that we've made is that way, you know, I think notoriously, Like Hybrid Theory was like painful to make.

Minutes Midnight, our third album, was also pretty painful to make.

It was fare it was Hybrid Theory because it was short, fast, and everybody was like fighting against us on everything.

And Minutes Midnight was tough because it was very very slow and long and like eighteen months and one hundred and fifty demos and us tearing our hair out trying to reinvent our band.

And so since we had those experiences, I think we were able to like Harness the best outlook like it was like, we knew how to do a difficult thing and not be miserable doing it.

Yeah, does that make sense?

So we did very very difficult thing, but we enjoyed every minute.

Speaking of difficult things.

When I was researching you and just watching interviews with you and just thinking about you in this band and your history and your career, you so could have easily just like rode off into the sunset enjoyed your success.

But I feel like you're not scared to do difficult things, and reinventing the band in a way is like super super hard.

But maybe that's when you work best, when you're back is against the wall and people are doubting you.

Yeah.

I think that the thing that one of the things that really drove us is the idea that if we had just like hung it up and said, Okay, that was a good run and call it quits, that is such a like a shitty way to end, for the band to end or stop making new music.

That is like an awful story, like no one wants to read that book.

And instead to be able to say, like and then the guys dusted themselves up off and got up again, Like that to me is exactly the book I want to read.

Like that's the thing that's the hardest to do and the most intimidating, the most challenging, the most that could go wrong.

Yes, honestly, and for ourselves and for our like our kids, for our fans, like to do it, to do it and say, yeah, we took huge risks on this, Like there's so much about the new like the new music, the new lineup and everything else that is I mean even before we even like put out, before anybody knew anything, we were like, okay, here's a laundry list of the things that people are not gonna like, Oh what was that?

All of the things that they all of the things that they ended up not liking, like all the things that anybody on the internet argued about and continues to argue about about our band.

If anyone thinks that we didn't think of those things, they're crazy, Like, I we live and breathe this band.

We thought of all those things, and we know, Okay, that's that's is that.

Okay, that's gonna be okay, right, Like they're gonna they're gonna like they open mouth, breather neck beard.

Misogynist metal fan who loved our band, who loved our first two records and hasn't listened to the band since.

But like thinks he's a Lincoln Park fan.

He's gonna hate this band and like be vocal about it.

So that's okay, like great, because that person's gonna get rid placed by ostensibly like a fifteen year old girl who's like, I've never been into like loud music before and I want to learn to play guitar now totally, and that is I mean, I love that.

I love that too.

We'll be back with more from Mike Shinoda and le Rose after the break.

How did you think about the art direction of the of from ero?

Do you think about, like are you granular down to like how everybody is dressing or can everybody just wear whatever they want?

The former I'm granular, I'm granular down to font kerning, I'm I get down into like I don't like the shade of color that's underneath this body of text and we need to Yeah, can you change it?

Like even the like the photos and stuff, I was like the thing we were, the thing we were, the color that we were wearing got like shifted a bit in the photo and like I want to pull out the change up the colors, to pull out more of those that palette.

I love it, but it's also like I do have to like at a certain point cut myself off.

That's just my personality.

I have to like intentionally stop, yeah, getting into the weeds on things.

I love our our the art that we that we make for our albums and for our merchandise and stuff.

Joe and Frank and I like get you know, we we get so excited to do it and get in the weeds on how how to make it Like our dms, our texts, our Pinterest boards or whatever are chaotic, but but like very full of energy and full of life.

So when you're bringing in a new lead singer, you also, since you're so visual, you also have to like their look.

Yeah, so that makes it even harder.

You could find someone who sounds incredible, who's incredible songwriter, right, but they have to have a look like she has such an awesome look.

Yeah.

Fortunate, it was very fortunate that we didn't have to worry about that with her.

Yeah, Like that's my favorite thing.

Actually, my favorite thing about about having about that part of our our band dynamic now is that when we're making a female item for like our web store, then I can just like shoot the things to them and be like, hey, do you like this?

Would you wear this?

Or like we sent her a bunch of blanks of T shirts and fits and whatever, and she's like, yeah, these these four are the good ones and the other ones that I would never wear, and so it's it's we get to have her input on those things.

Yeah, it's funny because if we didn't acknowledge that when why I was talking about, like the attention to detail.

Different people in the band have that for different things.

Emily and Colin are very easy going, and they haven't really I think they're they have this tendency to like stay to be easy going, but we keep pulling them in and be like no, like we want your opinion on these things.

And it's it's happening more and more often now, which is really great.

But the you know me, Joe, Dave and Brad have no problem like getting very granular.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did it seem Was it reminiscent at all of when you were integrating Emily into the band.

Did it make you remember integrating Chester into the band at all?

Was there any like overlap, like where maybe the older guys.

Are probably there.

There were a few times when I remembered, like, oh, yeah, we had a similar conversation.

The conversation we had with Emily today was similar to the conversation a conversation we have with Chess back in the day.

Yeah, there were times when it kind of like occurred to me, but nothing that really stands out.

It's just like you know, of course, I feel like, of course that's going to happen, right, because it's the same you're doing the same activity, right.

But we also got to learn from that, like we're when we were like writing from ero, we were also having to have like like almost like logistical conversations about like Okay, well we're so focused on the studio and writing these songs that we've got like questions about the band that are like more touring related questions or like business related questions like what do we do?

How do we handle this?

And we needed to like talk more regularly and get on ooms and do that part of the thing.

And like with any group of like brothers, like you get into some bad habits in terms of like communication style or like ways that you think about it.

Like Dave for example.

He was funny because he was just like I.

He told us, I have this like mental block.

I hear band meeting and I immediately gough right, Like He's like, and it's not it's not your fault.

It's not that I don't like hanging out and talking about our band.

It's that the one that we do a quote unquote meeting, like you're gonna go in and you're going to talk about good stuff and bad stuff and hard things and whatever and and stressful.

And he's like, I've just my brain is just like put that in this like negative bucket and I need to like figure it out.

So we actually went in and we we all had versions of that.

So we all like had to like be do some like reflection and look at like, okay, what what would make it more enjoyable?

Yeah, to like get on the you know, get on a oom, not.

A band meeting.

Maybe.

You know, do you guys ever have you done any sort of like therapy together or gone on a retreat or anything like that.

I've heard about Obviously Mentala did the doc about it, but like her Pearl Jam goes on retreats together to work on communication.

I don't know if we have a problem with authority or something, but that type of thing we've we've brushed up against it, and it doesn't It hasn't worked well for us because we just feel like the person, if there's a mediator, that they don't know us at all.

Yeah, because they don't, right, So, like we know everybody's buttons, we know where all the bodies are buried, and you just so you can like totally subtly antagonize each other if you want to.

And it's so for us it's been.

It was much more about like, well, the problem isn't that we're we know each other so well.

The problem is that you got to care a lot and be grateful that this thing is very special, and that when if you do something to to like antagonize your bandmate like you would antagonize your sibling, you're hurting yourself.

I love the band.

If I'm if I'm doing something that's making him or her uncomfortable or upset, then I'm hurting myself.

Yeah.

So I think that we thankfully have a very emotionally intelligent band who can self regulate to some degree.

Yeah, it seems like that.

And as someone who's been on the receiving end of hate for you know, decades, not all hate, but there's been.

You know, people have critical opinions.

Do you find that you're less likely to do the same for other bands or like do you get involved in conversations online for artists that you love and do you ever have critical opinions?

I mean, I don't like to get down in the dirt with people on stuff online, online arguments or life.

Probably the biggest waste of time I can think up.

So that's really not my not my cup of tea.

Everybody who who reaches a lot of listeners reaches also a lot of haters.

Like you can't have one and not the other.

And so like for us when it first, like when we first did our launch show, that surprise show that we live streamed, I was kind of like struggling to find like, Okay, how did it get received?

Because you can't go into the chaos of social media and expect to hear the actual truth.

I know that the people there were having an incredible time, but also like they were really really happy.

They were crying, yeah, and they were emotional, and also it's like there's a lot it's a huge change.

Right, there's a lot to process, and so they were like processing in real time and then they went online and they were processing out loud and getting together with everybody else was doing the same.

And it wasn't until we started getting actual numbers, like data, and I was like, oh, this is this is amazing from my brain because I can I can say actually this many people are listening to it, and it actually people actually do like it.

How did you guys know in the beginning with hybrid theory that it was catching on, that it was actually working.

I mean the South, you know, there was sound scans so you could see how many units you were selling.

Yeah, you don't get that, like and you know, you don't get the Internet response, which no, it's hard to measure allway.

I hate the like Peanut gallery of the of social media.

It's like I really don't participate.

I mean my my Twitter now is like, you know, I don't like that platform.

I don't like how people act on it.

I rarely go on on it.

I prefer Instagram.

I like TikTok, but I don't actually post much on it because I don't feel like compelled to.

It doesn't feel like the place for me to post very much, but I do woul like look at it.

But yeah, it's like, you know, when we were getting started, like you didn't have those things, so you weren't mired by the admired in the like the chaos of people's opinions and by the way, not real opinions.

You were just only getting their snap judgments, yes, and like whatever they can fit into the shortest little like couple sentences.

So we didn't have that.

We had like going out and playing shows, being on the road, like meeting people in person.

Oh, this show had you know, we had one hundred fans.

This show we had one hundred and fifty fans.

This show we had three hundred fans.

Like we could tell from people showing up that they were that it was working.

Yeah, And at the time when Lincoln Park was out, the first couple albums, one thing that really distinguished you was the lyrics and how vulnerable they were.

And we were talking earlier about you know, like dude bands, and that really seems like something that was different, especially with all the male bands.

Did you guys know that at the time, Was that something that you consciously was.

One of the main things that we that main things that we intentionally focused on to differentiate ourselves because one of the things we one of the things we loved about what was going on and in rock music alternative music was the sound of everything.

Like we really liked the sound, and we really liked the way that new bands were mixing in hip hop and electronic.

But our criticism of it was that they were tourists when it came to those other genres, Like they were mixing them in, but they didn't go deep into any of those genres, Like they were just hearing like five ten songs by so and so and then like using things that they heard, Whereas that's all I listened too, and I listened to like ninety percent that and then to do rock, I was like, okay, this is like I love specific rock groups and I like all this hip hop electronic music.

So one thing that was like that was a thing.

And then when it came to as you were talking about, like the lyrics.

One thing that we really didn't like about a lot of the bands that were coming out is that everything felt like a frat party.

It was just like this like belligerent, drunk, misogynistic, I'm gonna kick your ass.

Everything was I'm gonna kick your ass.

Yeah, And now we were just like the least I'm gonna kick your ass group of guys, and so that's what the lyrics became.

We were like, Yeah, this is we relate, this is the type of band that we relate.

So smart.

I heard you also say that in the early days that instead of just like going out and playing tons of shows, you guys sort of laid low and just practiced and really stared out.

Because the idea was that all of the baby bands in our like in at La Area, they were out playing as much as they could because they loved playing, but they were out playing like covers, or they were out playing crappy songs that they had just thrown together that week, and they'd play every week or two weeks.

We would play every few months.

We would rarely play because we'd spend all that time making new songs, and then when we played, we got to play a whole bunch of new songs that would we put a ton of effort into.

And I think that's certainly one of the cornerstones of what we do.

Like we spend a lot a lot more time crafting a song than a lot of folks.

I in fact, one of the you know earlier we were talking about when I was doing sessions with other younger artists, first thing I noticed is they don't spend enough time on their songs.

They think that like they they write a song in an afternoon, and they think that going back to it like the next day or the next week and working on it another day is like, Oh, this is really like we really put the work in.

Yeah, I have worked.

I have songs that have been in some version of like conceptualization, like they're foggy ideas of songs.

I have ones that are like ten years old, like it's not even close.

I've tried like breaking the habit was notoriously a song that I had written a bunch of different I tried to write that song a bunch of different times, and the one that made the album was when I sat down and it poured out of me in like an hour and a half.

I was like, oh, wow, that's the way this song is supposed to go, and it was you know.

From there, then we crafted and crafted and crafted it over over weeks.

Sometimes a great song does just come out very quickly, but you're lucky if it does.

Like I feel like most of the time, you got to know that something's inside.

It's like sculpture.

Yeah, you got a big old piece of granite, and you've got to like get inside there and have a vision for what's in there.

What's the secret that it's like holding.

Can you remember in your career overall, any significant musical breakthroughs you've had like a moment where maybe something that wasn't working all of a sudden worked, or you figured something out and it just sort of like opened up an entire new door or direction for you.

I mean, I feel like it happens.

That's like the thing that always brings me back to making of songs and albums is that thing, Like I'm always chasing that thing because that the moment when you go, oh, I figured out something new, or I messed around and achieved a thing like landed on a sound or a song or a lyric or a melody or something that is special.

Did you always come up with all the melodies for the band?

No?

No, not all of them, but I do.

I sit in the driver's seat in it.

Like I didn't even know it was called produce.

It was called producing until Rick we worked with Rick.

Rick was like, oh, you're like the producer in the band, and I was like I am.

That's when I started, like, you know, asking for a producer.

Everybody was like, yeah, of course, I don't know why I was not aware of that's what it was.

And of course it's different, like different genres of music have different definitions of what a producer is.

I'm a producer in more of the more traditional like pop or rock sense, where I like to like it's almost like a curation and a direction thing, and I'm trying to like pull all the best stuff from the whole band and group of people working and like get it into the song in the most exciting and effective way.

So yeah, So when when you know I do have like us, sometimes I'll come in with a lot of a song and it's like eighty percent there, and other times I come in with nothing and I just have Like the other day, I sat down with Colin and I got together.

We were just screwing around making something, and all I had that I walked in with was Hey, I listened like three three These three songs came up on my phone and on shuffle today and I noticed that they had something in common, Like, let's start there, let's work on the thing that is in common in these three songs.

And the thing that was in common was like it had a verse that was quiet and in loud and then quiet as loud and it worked.

Like it's not, you know, any more specific than that.

It's very like it's barely enough to say, let's write a song like this.

Yeah, well, last break can be back with Mike Shinoto.

If you had to make a playlist, and you don't have to answer this if you think it's stupid, but if you had to make a playlist of Lincoln Parks, maybe not best songs, but songs for someone who didn't know the band at all.

Like if it's an alien and you have to present a playlist or a group of like, you know, five songs, what would you share.

Well, I've done this.

I've done this before, Like I've been asked to like curate our you know, oh, he's gonna be on this radio station or it's gonna be on this playlist for this thing.

And I'd say in general, like some of the ones that I'm really proud of that I think really sum up the band, or like most fans know that I love.

Waiting for the end off of a Thousand Suns Papercut was first song on hybrid theory for a reason we were we knew that one had like that was the best signature Lincoln part, like it has all of the hallmarks of everything that we did and we're going to do for a while.

There's a reason that people like in the and and what I've done, Like those are those are ones that I think you know when even when they weren't finished yet, Like when we were making them, I I remembered coming up with with the piano and the verse and the chorus melody for in the end and playing it for our our our drummer Rob at the time, and he was like he had showed up.

He showed up at the rehearsal studio for a practice and I had slept it slept there overnight just trying to like it was like a like a so I guess the story is its like a like I was I basically created like a like a sensory deprivation chamber.

Like it's this windowless place with like a horrible couch and like just disgusting, And I just sat in there and wrote until I didn't even know what time it was.

And the thing that I came out of it that was the most exciting was in the end and he was like, this is this this is the most special song.

He's like, I We've got like I've been I've been literally dreaming of a song like this for our album.

Wow.

So things like that, I think like we as a band, like we know when those things come up.

Kind of like it kind of like speaks to the last to your last question, which is that sometimes when the when the special song is happening, like you just we get a feeling like we know.

It's not about it's not like a oh people are gonna like this.

I don't really operate I try actually then to not operate with that as a primary driver or like metric.

It's more about like I just as the song is going, like I know that I want to listen to it.

I think that's the that's really the big aha moment that happens.

What song or songs do you think you've had the best performance on?

Oh God, I don't know.

It's funny I was thinking the other day because I was I was trying to work out a this is maybe not exactly what you're asking.

But I was looking at some of the rap verses that I've done on our stuff, and some of my favorite rap verses that I've done are on deeper cuts.

They're not usually on the singles, which is really too bad.

What are some that come to mind?

I was thinking of, Well, I have a song called Kenji off of my My fort Minor album, which is one, and then there's a song.

We have a song called all for Nothing off The Hunting Party.

That album was with Page Hamilton, and I got to do that with Paige this on the last tour, like we happened to be playing.

We took a helmet open for us, and I was like, dude, we could finally play this song like we had.

I'll learn it and stuff.

Nobody even they even and Joe I had never played it before live, so or at least we hadn't in a really really long time.

It wasn't a mainstay in the set.

So like those verses, I really like, there's a handful of other ones, but again they're all like deep cuts.

What did it mean to you as just a fan and someone who grew up listening to hip hop to do the collaboration with jay Z.

Like it sounds like that maybe you weren't together too much for the collaboration, like it was sent back and forth.

Oh yeah, I mean well it was fast.

It didn't It didn't take much for me to put that to mash those songs up, like they were already you know, primed for that kind of approach.

Yeah, similar key, similar tempo.

I did most of the work on my like in the bus and Jay had been asked by MTV to do this mashup thing.

They said, who do you want to deal with?

He said, Lincoln Park.

They reached out to us.

I'm like literally made three songs, like numb OnCore was one of them.

I just sent them three mashups and he was like, holy shit, And.

Was that exciting for you?

Were like, oh yeah, we were such fans.

Yeah, and uh yeah.

I like got together once we got off the road and he was available.

We got together at a studio, at a studio that we always worked at, and spent I mean it was like a day basically it was like like you know, getting some new vocals on it and stuff.

And maybe there was a second day.

I don't remember, but like I think we were with him for like a day and then yeah, I I you know, I think Brad and I from that point, Brad and I kind of like finished up the production part of it and I mixed it and the next step was to get on stage together at the was it the Roxy or the Whiskey?

I don't remember when it been the Whiskey.

It was like, really it was, I think we were So he's very he's a bit aloof yes, So he he was.

He wasn't like making himself super available, you know what I mean.

And we did get some like hangout like like hot dinner and like we did get some good like non music time with him and his crew.

But you know, the the people around him were much more effusive and vocal and like all that.

Jay was very like aof is the perfect word?

Yeah?

Is there a band that Lincoln Park really like vibes with that maybe wouldn't be obvious someone that you've or a group you've encountered on the road, or someone you've worked with in the past, where you guys are just like a crazy good fit.

Yeah, for sure.

I always joke with Pete from Fallout Boy, A lot of people know that we're we're friendly, and Pete is just Pete's very sweet guy.

He's really funny, and he also like when they first came out, I think he knows that.

Like I was like, ugh, like what is this I for some reason, like when I first saw him in their first video, I was like, oh, I don't like that guy at all.

And I think he was much more like at that point, he was like really like trying to be a star.

And I may have been like reacting badly to that.

And eventually a mutual friend put us together and was like, I don't know why you guys haven't hung out, Like you guys are so similar, just the way you talk, the way you think and stuff, and he had like put us together, and I begrudgingly like got into a conversation with Pete and I was like, Oh, this guy's actually really great.

Yeah, I mean, but there's tons, I mean, there's so many different, so many people the band, like you know gets along with I know Dave, actually, I know Dave spends a bunch of time with like Mike and Tray from Green Day and oh cool.

Well, I was telling somebody the other day one of my kids friends is like obsessed with my chemical romance, and I was like, you don't even know, like they're the like Gerard in particular is like one of the sweetest guys in the world, and that tour we did with that band is like, to this day, my favorite tour that we've done because they we were so we had such a strong, like friendly competition with them.

They were direct support.

They played right before us and played so well and so hard every single night that they gave us a run for our money, Like we were we had to play better because they were playing so well.

Did you guys actually talk about it or was it just like all the time?

All the time?

I would like like I would we'd Gerard and I would see each other on like backstage or whatever, and we'd be like, dude, I think you got us last night.

That was a good one.

And it was back and forth.

And he met his wife on that on that tour as well, so that we were like I was seeing him less because he was hanging out with Lindsay Love.

So what's the latest, what's next?

I know we're almost at time.

What's like right now for Lincoln Park?

What are you guys focusing on?

I mean so much?

Well, I think the most important thing is like we're in the midst of putting out a few new songs, so we added we have a deluxe version from ero out now, and yeah, it's gonna have three new songs.

We've debuted one of them it's called Up from the Bottom.

We love the song, and the other two we love just as much, if not more.

And we're gonna be on tour heavy.

This is like probably the most aggressive tour year we've had in like over a decade, maybe fifteen years.

It's a lot of shows, and the US in particular, we made a point to like play a bunch of markets that we don't we haven't hit in forever or we wouldn't usually get around to, but to go to so we're super excited about that.

Gonna hit Europe after that and come back and play more shows in the US and then go to Latin America.

How do you prepare for that?

Personal, like, just as far as taking care of yourself.

You know, it's it's that that, like, you know, very much like pacing yourself.

It's a marathon, honest print, Like you gotta you know, pay attention to the fact that it's like, oh, it's we have months and months of shows coming up, and we tend to like we tend to take it pretty easy on the road anyway.

Like I think Emily's actually even more like right now, she's she's ever since we started these shows, like she's been very diligent about her her you know, diet, her sleep, her resting, her voice, Like every day off, every day off is the vocal rest day.

She actually doesn't speak out loud on those days.

Not kidding you.

I could see why, I know.

Yeah, And then yeah, and it's funny too because I was thinking about it, and she's taking really care of a voice.

But then like when we're in rehearsals, we'll do like four days in a row of like five hour rehearsals, or like when she came would come in here and like record like we she'd be singing all day and like her voice was it was great.

It was her voice was fine.

So I know she's just like being extra careful.

Yeah, but uh yeah, the tour, This tour is like a very very ambitious schedule and ambitious tour and we're super we were very excited about so we want to really pace ourselves and do a great job.

Cool, Well, thank you, so much, Mike for taking so much time.

I appreciate you and congrats on the success of the new album.

Thank you, and.

I'm excited to hear the next new album.

Sounds like you're.

Working with We've got like I said, we got two more songs in the pipeline, we got two on the way, so I'm excited for everybody to hear those.

Yeah, have fun on tour.

Take care of yourself, all right.

Thank you.

An episode of Scription, you'll find a link told playlist of Lincoln Park songs, as well as their latest album from ero.

Be sure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast to see all of our video interviews, and be sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod.

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I'm justin Richmond.