Phoenix has recently conducted an interview with MTV which you can read below: Linkin Park Say New Single 'The Catalyst' Is 'A Risk, But Worth It' 'We wanted a track that represented where the album was going to be and how it was going to work,' says bassist Phoenix Farrell. Last week, gamers everywhere thrilled to the new trailer for the upcoming "Medal of Honor," which was directed by Linkin Park's Joseph Hahn and features the band's brand-new single, "The Catalyst." And while the trailer no doubt had "MOH" fanatics going crazy, it may have left LP fans feeling a bit confused. Because "The Catalyst" is undoubtedly unlike any song the band has ever released. A moody, synth-heavy, decidedly doomy rumination on the broken times in which we live, it seems to back up the group's claims that their new album, A Thousand Suns, will be a drastic departure from anything they've done in the past. And that, according to LP bassist Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, was precisely the point. "We wanted a track that represented where the album was going to be and how it was going to work, and this was really the track to do that. ... It's a risk, but [it's] worth it," he told MTV News earlier this week. "We've known [the album is] going to be different, and if fans were expecting Hybrid Theory or Meteora, they're going to be surprised. It's going to take people some time to figure it out and know what to do with it." Farrell wouldn't go into greater detail about just how the new album, due September 14, will differ from Linkin Park's previous efforts, but any fan with a pair of ears should be able to tell based on "The Catalyst" alone. The songs are bigger, deeper, decidedly weirder. And while Farrell didn't exactly back up frontman Chester Bennington's earlier claims that A Thousand Suns is a full-blown "concept" album, he didn't really deny them either. "I've never liked the title 'concept record,' to me that holds up the idea of Tommy or The Wall. And I love those records, but this is not that," he said. "There are a couple threads that run throughout it, but, for us, the only concept is that it's not intended to be a collection of individual songs. It's constructed in a way and thought of in terms of 'How will it flow?' I would love ... in this day and age, for our fans just once to sit down and listen to it from front to back. We want it to work as an experience." And to that end, Farrell said the band always wanted to tie "The Catalyst" into a video game of some sort. The way they see it, it only adds another layer to the experience. So when the "Medal of Honor" folks approached them, they leapt at the opportunity. Though, sadly, working with Electronic Arts — the publisher and developer of the "MOH" series — hasn't improved their gaming skills any. But you can't really blame LP for that. After all, they've been working on A Thousand Suns for a long time now. "I loved the old 'Medal of Honor' games, but since we've been working on the new album — and really, since I had kids — I've kind of hung it up for a while," Farrell laughed. "It sucks because now I have a younger brother who's 15 and when we play against each other, it's not even competitive. It's ridiculous. And it pisses me off. He's laughing and sh--. He's killing me with his knife." Source: MTV via Green Ranger
Nice interview. I hope this is the album where Phoenix really shows what he can do as a bass player. His work on Meteora and Minutes to Midnight wasn't really anything special.
Or not. This is going to be a love/hate album from LP. It will divide the fanbase and it might cause LP to lose a lot of fans. I love the risk they are taking but hopefully the album will be good. I can't say that I'm totally blown away by The Catalyst. It's a good song and its different but I don't play it every day. I listen to it once or twice every couple of days. The song may grow more once we hear in context of the whole album.
agreed i like the catalyst and i cant wait for the album but i can honestly say i've listened to limp bizkit's walking away more
What means this part :"where the album was going to be"? I means that the album sound like the single, or something like /their album where it is going/?
Not like ATS will if what they're saying is true. WID was different because fans were sort of expecting something like songs off of Meteora, but that song was just pure guitar driven rock song. So, once fans realized what LP was trying to do it wasn't so different at all from what they usually listen to on their radio. But ATS is clearly a departure from traditional rock songs so it will cause more controversy than any other LP record has.
Even though Mike has already stated that there will be harder rock songs on ATS, but apparently you don't care about what Mike says.
Eh? I wasn't talking about "harder rock songs" in my post. I was just responding to the poster who said that all LP albums have divided the fanbase. I think ATS will divide the fanbase even more than any other previous record. My post had nothing to do with heavier rock songs. Please read before posting something. Peace.
Mike didn't say that. He said there'll be some heavy songs. Chester said it'll be "heavy without the metal"
and ironically, there's still some screaming in it....so how do you incorporate screaming without making a song metal? By adding electronic sounds to it and redefining a sound so much that there's no genre for it.