KISW Radio Linkin Park Takeover / Interview

With the release of A Thousand Suns tomorrow, KISW 99.9FM were taken over by Linkin Park today. This featured a really in depth 60 minute interview with Chester & Brad which you can listen to in it's entirety below.

Listen To KISW Interview With Chester & Brad - Here​

Topics & Highlights include:
- The title of the record and how it came about.
- Brad talking about his lack of guitar playing on ATS.
- Incorporating some new ATS tracks into the set by removing some older LP tracks that "have been on the cuff for a while".
- Wanting to record music more often, instead of taking long intervals to tour. Chester stating that it's just the nature of the business today.
- Brad & Chester talk about NoBraiN's Catalyst remix appearing on the Best Buy edition of ATS, and his work on the When They Come For Me outro.
- Brad talks about incorporating a number of tracks into EA games coming out, including The Catalyst in Medal of Honor.
- Chester jokes about the bands songs being featured in movie soundtracks.
[jump][/jump]
- Waiting For The End // Mike & Chester wrote lyrics. Original idea came from another track they were trying to work with for a long time. "What would Paul Mccartney do with this melody?" Chester asked himself. The song feels remorseful without regret. Optimistic perspective despite it feeling negative. Talking about the idea of dreaming in life, putting yourself in that position.
- Wretches & Kings // Brad talks about the opening speech in the song. They like it because of it's emotional content. Mario Savio's wife allowed them to use the clip.
- Chester states if you take the albums speeches from their original context, and put them into the context of the album, they work. Looking beyond what they were originally specified to.
- Blackout // Wasn't the most difficult for Chester to sing. Chester said his voice is used to that so it makes it not very difficult to scream. Chester says he can't rap, but said this allowed him to get into that vibe a little bit.
- Robot Boy // Brad describes it as an evolution of unconventional electronics. Chester says it was one of the earliest songs to come out of the process. Helped put them in the frame of mind to create ATS. Chester said it stemmed from concept album discussion despite not being one, referencing Sgt. Pepper as a reference point. The title "Robot Boy" came from the working title. Other working titles were "Please Don't Eat My Cow" & "Song Number 1 Version A".
- The Messenger was the hardest for him to sing. Chester says it haunts him, because his voice cracked numerous times.
- Brad reiterates it's a concept album without a concept. It's a concept album about an album.
- Burning In The Skies // Brad describes it as the most traditional. Brad loves how the content into the first tracks bleeds into the lyrics in BITS. Brad also mentions how they didn't use a heavy song as the intro track on purpose as they wanted to move away from that, and prove they can impact the listener differently instead of using hard guitars.
- Iridescent // One of Brad's favourites. It's been heard in about ten different variations, and the melody always stuck with him.

- Chester says Mike's voice is good enough to classify Mike as a vocalist and not just an emcee. "There are two lead singers..." which he then corrects himself as... "there's two vocalists in this band".
- Chester refers to an interview where the woman asked why does his voice sound so different on "this song", in which Chester replied "Because it's Mike".
- All nine songs are not filler. Over two years, these are the tracks that Linkin Park & Rick Rubin thought worked the best.
- This change in sound is not in spite of the fans, but for the fans. As they're smart enough to share this music with LP and take the journey with them.


Source: KISW Radio

 

Is there anything new on there or the same stuff we have heard in other interviews? I'll check this out when I have some free time.

 

It's mostly the same. I'm just compiling a highlight list as we speak. It's kinda funny though. Good listen.