AltWire has published a new exclusive interview with Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda. Among other things, Shinoda speaks about Fort Minor's past, present and future, the creative process behind the new Fort Minor track "Welcome", and his opinion about the current state of hip-hop.
Just an FYI for whomever reads it, this article was designed to be viewed on a PC. There are certain design elements that sort of 'break' when it's viewed on a mobile device. I kind of knew that would be the case, but I chose aesthetics over 100% across the board compatibility. Hope everyone enjoys!
Thank You Derek for your effort. Its a pretty cool interview and good to know, that the chapter "Fort Minor" isnt usally closed right now
Yeah, the yellow text overlaps a part of Mike's answer on my laptop, which is slightly annoying. But overall the the design looks great. Anyway, good interview!
Weird...it wasn't supposed to break on laptops. It works fine in Firefox, but doesn't seem to want to work in Chrome. Hmm, I may unfortunately have to sacrifice the design in order to make it work on all computers. I'd hate to do that because I put a lot of work into it, but it is what it is. C'est la vie. *EDIT* It's been fixed. Look now.
Read it on mobile then saw your message comment lol, wasn't article breaking by any means tho. Good interview Derek! I always enjoy reading yours!
Thank you! Try reading it now though, as sexy as the yellow text was...we removed it for compatibility. Should have no issues viewing it on mobile now!
Congrats on scoring the interview. For me though it's just one more avenue to annoy me there's no confirmation of an album. I know Mike doesn't owe me anything, but at this point as a fan i'm just getting really cheesed off with the excessive amount of PR, promotional campaigning, interviews and merchandising for one solitary song. If this is it I feel like it could have been done with just slightly less of this absurd fanfare.
To be fair though, this is the first song Shinoda has recorded for solo purposes and released in a decade. Things like that don't exactly just float by with zero fanfare or little excitement. One solo song and all this hubbub certainly does seem excessive, but it wouldn't be the first time an artist promoted a single track this heavily. It's happened before and Mike is hardly the first offender. I will say though that I am hopeful Mike reconsiders his stance on not making an album at this moment. With the (mostly) positive reception to "Welcome" and the massive fan demand for Fort Minor to make a full return, I'm pretty sure the fanbase would jump at buying the album if it came out. I mean The Rising Tied album still sold 400k worldwide, despite people sleeping on it at first.
I think "Welcome" is more or less a way of Mike slowly opening the doors towards future Fort Minor material, him testing the waters. The reception so far has been positive for both the song and the music video, so it'll definitely give him something to consider. He said it perfectly himself, "It's nice to feel like I'm leaving the doors open for inspiration, and that I can deliver that to the fans in real time". I think any ideas Mike has for FM will be spontaneous, if comes to him and feels right, then he'll make something out of it. I honestly expect more randomly dropped singles like this than a full album, but we'll see. If LP goes on a well-deserved hiatus, then I think it's safe to assume Mike will dabble with FM a little more.
Yes I had said in a previous post I felt like Mike might be testing the waters. I get the spirit of what you're saying we can't expect creative people to force things out but that won't stop me being dissapointed as a fan if nothing else materializes. Derek, the only problem I have with that is Mike and LP have always been good businessmen, knowing how to stage manage their PR to a tee. This one however seems oversold and I didn't expect that from Mike. Unless of course he is trying to give it wide coverage to see just what the demand for a fuller return is.
I've probably said this before in another thread, I don't remember, but I like how Shinoda has delivered so much content here for fans to consume. A free song (and in lossless + clean edits if you want), 360-degree interactive music video, new merch, original art pieces and vinyls for sale, live performances ... all cool. Very experiential and engaging. The approach is different and fresh in multiple ways for us as fans and as music consumers. Like Feenix, what I have a problem with is the build-up that lead up to the reveal. I now honesly feel that the whole campaign to drum up excitement was excessive and misleading. Absolutely no-one would ever have believed while the hype was building that it was all for one song, with no other Fort Minor songs on the way. Even now, people are struggling to completely believe it and, to me, that's quite understandable. It could've been handled better to get across that, yes, it is a big deal (first FM song in a decade) but it's also still a relatively small offering as opposed to an album coming.
Even if Mike doesn't feel like doing another complete Fort Minor album at the moment, ''Welcome'' is still a great song, IMO. I think the music video and the mural and the exclusive vinyl are all really great.