Transcript: LPU Chat with Chester

After having to reschedule his chat session with the LPU, Chester got a chance to talk with LPU Members today about a variety of things, including the new album, live shows, the writing of A Thousand Suns and his musical career. We here at the LPA managed to get into the chat and put together an abridged transcript, in which Chester answers a lot of interesting questions! Take a look below!

Q: What is the new album going to sound like?

It’s going to be different. Too early to say what it’s going to sound like, we have no idea. But, we’re working with Rick, and we’re in the process of writing some songs.

Q: What was the hardest obstacle to over come while making A Thousand Suns?

I would say that just kind of getting out of a comfort zone when we write. Once you know how to do something, you kind of want to keep repeating that and that gets really easy, but I think that overcoming the safe route is probably the hardest part because it’s easy to do the same thing. It’s harder to take a chance and make music that sounds different than the stuff than the stuff that was successful in the past.

Q: Will you make another Dead By Sunrise record?

Maybe. I don’t know. I think I’ll probably make another one. But I think that Dead By Sunrise is something that’s gonna have to happen when I’m not busy with Linkin Park, and that could be in a long time. So I don’t know when the next one will come out.

Continue reading the Full Transcript here!

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Q: Will you be performing any other covers?

Playing covers is something we don’t do very often, so we have to be picky about that kind of thing. But eight years ago when we didn’t have very many songs to play live, we would actually play songs like “Wish” or any of the other Deftones songs or whatever we could throw in our show because we only had like 36 minutes of music. So I don’t know how often we’ll do covers.

Q: What lessons have you learned over the past 10 years?

I’ve learned a lot of stuff over the last 10 years. I think I’ve learned to calm down a little bit. I was just a little kid, a young man when we started this. I’m kind of like an old guy now. I think learning patience and being a dad is really something that I didn’t know…I didn’t know I would be the person I am today for sure 10 years ago.

Q: Will you play Robot Boy live?

Maybe. I would like to play all of A Thousand Suns from beginning to end live someday, that’d be cool.

Q: How do you keep your voice good after grunting / screaming?

I don’t know. I’ve never kind of figured that out. The first couple of days on tour are usually the toughest, but honestly I don’t know how my voice holds up after every show. It’s kind of a mystery.

Q: What is the hardest song to sing?

I would say that Crawling has caused me the most trouble live more than any other song. Just because it’s that one long note the whole time, but I think probably Crawling and probably With You was hard when we used to play that one.

Q: How do you come up with lyrics in other languages?

We don’t really think about it. We just write them in English and just translate it in whatever country they’re sold in. I’m not sure if they translate word for word, but we don’t really think about it when we’re writing.

Q: What was it like to be in the Saw movie?

It was a lot of fun, I really really enjoyed it. I would love to do more movies, but I don’t know if I’m that good of an actor. Saw was awesome. I love those movies. I think the movie could have been better, but I really have to say it was one of the most fun things to do.

Q: Would you ever play some of the LPU songs live?

Live is something that’s interesting, especially for fans who are really really super diehard fans that want us to play crazy stuff like songs from the LPU or songs that are unreleased demos, stuff like that. I think that would work in a really intimate setting with a few people, like if we had 20 people and we played something in a room with them. I don’t know if it would work in an arena or at a show or at a festival where there are thousands of people who may just be casual fans wondering what the hell you’re playing. If the time is right and the moment calls, you’ll never know what we play live.

Q: Do you prefer small intimate audiences or bigger ones?

I think that the smaller the crowd, the more nerve-wracking it is to play. I think I really enjoy playing the big ones the best.

Q: How does it feel now in 2011 to play songs from Hybrid Theory?

I think that a lot of the songs we still play from Hybrid Theory are songs we really enjoy playing. I think that we…I really enjoy watching the crowd explode now as much as it did ten years ago when we played One Step Closer, so that’s pretty cool.

Q: Which was the hardest album out of the four records to make?

I would probably say that Hybrid Theory was probably the hardest to make, because it was the first one. We were still kind figuring things out in terms of our song writing and how things work in the studio and whose input goes where. I think that the process of making Hybrid Theory was probably the most difficult. Things got really easy after that.

Q: Do you still like screaming?

I love to scream. I think that it’s really a lot of fun for me. It sounds great and it’s difficult to do. It’s definitely not the only thing I want to do. I want to try to use my voice in as many ways as possible. I also want to be able to sing for as long as I can, and hopefully when I’m 65 I can still sing Given Up or something, but I don’t know if I’ll be screaming my entire career but I do really enjoy it.

Q: Tell us about doing the "Chicken" before shows.

I do a lot of ritualistic like things before the shows. Some silly things that we do end up becoming things that we do every day, and the Chicken just happened to be one of them. It doesn’t make any sense, and it doesn’t have any significant meeting, it’s just something fun I like to do with Brad and it’s something that gets us in a good mood and sets the challenge for positive fun energy right before I get on stage.

Q: Would you tour with Muse if you had the chance? (Louis' Question)

Absolutely. Muse is a great band, they’re really great live. Really nice guys. I’d like to tour with them.

Q: Would you ever do an acoustic tour?

That’d be fun. I could see Mike and I doing some shows together acoustically. I don’t know if we could do an entire acoustic Linkin Park show, but it’d be fun.

Q: Which musician has inspired you the most?

That’s hard to say. There are so many bands, but I’d have to say probably Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Jane’s Addiction, Ministry, Depeche Mode…those are probably my favorite bands, those are the ones I paid the most attention to.

Q: How has your writing process changed?

I think that my process has changed a lot over the past ten years just because of working with other guys that are actually really great song writers. Mike is a great song writer. Brad is a very good song writer. We’ve had a chance to work with so many different producers and artists and you pick up a lot on the way. For me, I’ve learned that a long time ago I wanted to make a song great. The better it sounded, the better the song was. Right now, I don’t really care what the song sounds like, so long as it’s a good song and it can be played in any way. Those are the kinds of songs I want to put on records.

Q: Will you release the acoustic Dead By Sunrise songs?

I think that’s possible. I would love to put out everything we’ve done for Dead By Sunrise just out there for you guys to have. But I don’t know if that’s possible.

Q: How nervous were you trying out for Linkin Park? (Louis' Question)

I actually wasn’t nervous at all. I actually didn’t really think of it like I was auditioning for them. In my mind, they were really auditioning for me as much as I was auditioning for them. So I knew that they ahd reached out to me through their camp and asked me to submit a tape. I never even knew the band existed. That was something I really didn’t consider…it wasn’t like “God I hope I go into this interview and get the job. I kind of thought I already had the job.” And they just needed to see it and if they didn’t choose me, then they were wrong.

Q: What was the first demo you were sent from the band?

I think it had the original version of Place for my Head. That was the song that I got.

Q: Will you ever play a show with every Linkin Park Song?

That would be fun! I’m down. Try to convince the rest of the band, we’ll start from the beginning and play through the end, to the present.

Q: Is Nu-Metal dead?

I hope so.

Q: Will you ever play Easier to Run live again?

I don’t think so. I don’t think Dave likes that song. So, it’s his fault. That’s why we don’t play it, ‘cause Dave doesn’t like it.

Q: You should play Runaway.

Ha ha, I hate that song.

Q: Would you ever star in a musical?

I love doing theater productions. I could see myself doing a musical as a role for a guy with a lot of tattoos and giant holes in his ears.

Q: What’s your favorite Linkin Park song?

I’d probably say Breaking the Habit and Papercut are probably my favorites.

Q: What was the hardest song to write off of A Thousand Suns? (Louis' Question)

I would say that Blackout was probably the hardest song to write off A Thousand Suns, in my opinion.

Q: Can you arrange a concert of songs that are never or rarely performed?

I think it goes back…there are certain people that it would be really cool for us to play a lot of songs that are rare and we don’t play very often. I don’t think most people would like to see us play songs that they don’t know very well.

Q: Have you ever forgotten lyrics to the songs?

I forget lyrics all of the times. Sometimes I’m surprised I sing some of the songs right, because I can’t think of the songs. But to somehow kind of just say shit, they come in some way.

Q: What was so difficult about writing Blackout? (Louis' Question)

One of the difficult things was trying to…I did the scat…it’s kind of an original melody without words, just kind of spewing sounds. I had this whacky scat that was really difficult to put words to. I think that was really hard. We also wrote the song in three movements, so trying to make that work, make the transitions make sense, and also make the song aggressive without being obvious and using obvious tricks was difficult.

Q: Will your next album be tricky like the last album was...in the way that it changed your style so dramatically?

I hope so. I think that so long as we’re making music that we think is original and that is interesting to us, we’ll be happy.

Q: Will you ever consider letting fans pick your setlist?

Probably not.

Q: Is there going to be a new single?

I don’t think there’s going to be a new single. I’m not sure.

Q: How do you deal with injuries on tour?

I don’t know. Each one’s different, but I get injured all of the time and usually people don’t notice when you twist an ankle or pull something in your neck or something like that, but I think that usually we just play through them. The best way to get through any kind of injury is to take care of it obviously, but also to work through it. We just play on.

Q: Are you sad about the people who don’t like the change in your music?

I think at one time I probably was, back during the Hybrid Theory or Meteora days. I would take it very personally when people didn’t like our music, and now I just don’t care. I know that the songs we put on our records are songs that I personally feel very confident in, and feel very proud of. At the time, I believe each record we put out is the best record we could make at the time. As time goes on, I think we’re much better song writers now than we were when we wrote Hybrid Theory. There were really great moments on Hybrid Theory that were awesome, and moments that I don’t like. I think that happens as you go on in your career as a musician. You’re going to like some songs that you’ve written and not like other songs that you’ve written. But I think that the most important thing for us is really just kind of not worrying about what other people think, and just worry about making the music we enjoy making.

Q: Will there be other games like 8-Bit Rebellion?

We’ve got some things in mind, so I wouldn’t be surprised if we have some more stuff coming out for you guys.

Q: Are Joe’s videos hard to make?

Some of the stuff we do in Joe’s videos is hard. I know that Mike really doesn’t like snakes and he had to hold one for 5 hours. I've had to sing underwater and have my face mashed in warm milk, be held upside down, dropped into a burning bed, that stuff is never fun. Just kidding, it’s actually really fun. Sometimes they’re difficult to make. When I’m sitting in my underwear for 6 hours in the rain until 4 o’clock in the morning, that sucked. Ha ha.

Q: What do you think about Amy Winehouse?

I think she was a very talented singer, and I think that it sucks that she died. Bummer.

Q: Favorite music video?

Best music video ever made is “Give It Away” by Red Hot Chili Peppers. That was the best video ever.

Q: When did you start playing music and singing?

I started singing when I was really, really young. I’ve always kinda sung my whole life. I started playing music when I was about thirteen. I was in my first band around that time, and by the time I was sixteen I had made a record.

Q: How was your experience in Grey Daze?

It was mixed, we had a lot of great times and we had a lot of fun. We played a lot of great shows, but we also had a lot of turbulent times as well and as a lot of member changes so it was kind of a pain in the ass.

Q: Spongebob or Patrick?

Definitely Spongebob. I think Spongebob has life figured out.

Q: Will you play other instruments in the future?

I think for me, I started playing instruments so late that it wasn’t something I ever really excelled at. I’m not really comfortable playing guitar and singing life. I can do it, but I’m not like a prodigy at the guitar or the piano or anything. I don’t know how much of the musicianship you’ll see out of me.

Q: Who are you closest to in the band? (Louis' Question)

I think we’re all pretty close, but I definitely think because we always travel together, Mike and Dave I’m probably closer to than others. I think because Mike and I work so much together, we’re always writing together and always touring together, traveling together, interviewing together, we are together the most so we’re probably the closest. We also talk about things more than with the other guys because we write lyrics together.

Q: Do you and Mike ever fight?

I don’t think we’ve ever really fought in the band. I think we’ve been super lucky with the fact that we all get along. I would say that the relationships with myself and the other guys in the band are really very harpy relationships, we don’t really yell at each other and we don’t really argue.

Q: What do you think of gay marriage being legalized nationally?

I think people should go to marry whoever they want. I don’t understand what the big deal is.

Q: What about the song with Travis Barker?

I actually never did one. Travis is awesome, I’d love to do something with Travis if we have the right amount of time and the right piece of music to do something together, that would be great. As of right now, we haven’t done anything.

Q: When you will release your Nine Inch Nails cover of "Head Like a Hole?"

That’s a good question. I’d love to get my hands on a copy of that, ‘cause it’s awesome.

 

Best. Response. Ever.

 

I did! Ha ha, and that's not even all of the questions. There were a lot of silly ones I left out.

 

Thanks Louis, that was a great read!

 

He's made it very clear in the past, yes. Particularly when he said last year that the band would never perform the song live again.