Brad Delson Interview with MusicRadar - Discussing Guitar on Linkin Park's New Album One More Light

Discussion in 'News' started by Ree, Apr 3, 2017.

  1. #1
    Ree

    Ree a female witch. LPA Administrator

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    Linkin Park guitarist Brad Delson recently spoke to MusicRadar about the band's new album One More Light. With most press and interviews coming from Mike and Chester so far this was a pretty good interview with some good insight in to Brad's process and guitar work on the new album. You can read the full interview at MusicRadar and some excerpts below.

    Are there any points where you think the change in musical tact particularly complements your guitar work?

    “I love the acoustic work on Sharp Edges. I really like all of the layering of guitars on Invisible as well. There’s also a really unique presentation of the guitar in a way that I don’t think we’ve ever done on a song called Sorry For Now. That was one of the things that we were really excited about - it is wildly different to anything else that we have been doing.”

    You’re seven albums in now; how does the studio-seasoned 2017 Linkin Park approach making a new record?

    “This was a really fun album to create. We created it in a way that was totally upside-down. We had this idea; we wanted to write songs. That might sound ridiculous, because everything we write are songs, but I really mean songs.

    “We’ve made a lot of music throughout our career where the music takes the steering wheel. In that case, the sounds lead us through the journey. On this album we wanted to write songs that had something to say.

    “Another idea we had was to be totally open in terms of our style of working and everything from guest artists to co-producers to co-composers. Anyone interesting that we wanted to meet, we wanted to give an open invitation to coming through, and in that regard it was a very fun record to make.”

    Does a record like One More Light offer you a very different challenge to The Hunting Party? The Hunting Party had guitars right upfront; is it more a case of finding pockets of space for guitar on this album?

    “I wound up putting a lot of guitar on this album. There’s a lot of layers and a lot of different guitars. The guitar work is nuanced and complementary to all of the other elements that we have put in there.

    “I find guitar to be a dominant ingredient in any soup. The minute I put loud heavy guitars into an arrangement, I feel like it is a heavy colour. One of the goals of the production of this album was to do away with any notion of genre. We were looking at ways to juxtapose influences that we have in ways that you haven’t heard before. Building the guitar work into that was a fun challenge.

    “I love the guitar work and tones that our engineer Ethan helped create with me and Mike [Shinoda] throughout this album. Even though you don’t hear guitar in the foreground in a heavy-handed way, there really is a ton of guitar on this album, and I’m really proud of it.”

     
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    Sasuke

    Sasuke Modern Prog enjoyer LPA Super Member

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    Very interesting interview :)
    So "Sharp Edges" could be the new "The Messenger"? just an acoustic song.
    "Sorry for Now" is now the song that I want to hear the most (Blackbear production, Chester rapping, Mike's dream pop vocals & unique presentation of the guitar).

    I think this is also a part of "Sorry for Now"! (I love the vocoder there) the music at the end is very similar to Blackbear :hmm:
     
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    Modern Guitar God

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    Nice to hear that he's a using a Jazzmaster a lot on this album. He seems to be really about vintage and vintage-style Fenders.
     
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    Delicious Dave

    Delicious Dave I'm gonna drive you into your own anus.

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    I can't wait for Sorry For Now
     
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    Derek

    Derek LPAssociation.com Administrator LPA Administrator

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    The hype levels for that song are off the charts for me. I already liked Blackbear quite a bit, and then when I heard the snapchat snippet it only made the anticipation that much greater!
     
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    Delicious Dave

    Delicious Dave I'm gonna drive you into your own anus.

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    Yeah, I absolutely loved that snapchat snippet, now to hear it has some guitar thing that LP never did before and maybe Chester rapping, I can't imagine what the whole song is gonna sound like.
     
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    Fleur de Lys

    Fleur de Lys Well-Known Member

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    It would probably be best to not expect any real rapping from Chester. He said "I think I'm doing like the rap part" which probably means it's gonna be some melodic more rhythmic vocal part. I'm expecting stuff like the verse of WFTE.
     
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    Minus

    Minus ohai LPA Addicted VIP

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    Agreed. It's also super interesting because Jazzmasters have a notoriously bright sound to them. I think it's probably the least "LP" guitar you could probably pick out of the whole popular range of guitars, which is probably the point of Delson using a Jazzmaster in the first place.
     
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    TheZlajaZlo

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    I would be very excited for the album based on this interview IF I haven't heard Heavy and Battle Symphony.
     
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    BTorio

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    I'm very excited for the album, but not gonna be hyped about the guitar work after Battle Symphony. Heavy had nice, subtle guitar, but battle symphony's guitars could be easily be replaced with synths imo. It's one of the most bland-sounding instrumentals LP has ever made to my ears. I get it's a different use of guitars than usual (kind of), but it doesn't matter if it doesn't add anything different to me. Not that I don't enjoy singing along, there's just nothing interesting to hear under the vocals for me.
     
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    hybrid1988

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    Same here. I was listening to ATS and was thinking about how much the guitar was used for layered sound as opposed to just being upfront. It's not something I really appreciated until much later.

    Hoping we get some cool spacey sounds on that song and this album in general. Judging from the Snapchat clip, it might have that vibe to it. Basically, I really want LP to create some crazy psychedelic electronic sounds.
     
  12. #12
    Jack_Farrell

    Jack_Farrell KTTK is Chester suicide-diving off a cliff naked

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    I hope they fucking play Sorry For Now live but I don't know. First show of the world tour is in 33 days in Argentina, brand new setlist with 5 songs and all.
     
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    Astat

    Astat LPA Super Member LPA Super Member

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    Given what they've been doing with the promo shows, it's probably safe to assume the 5 songs they'll be playing are Heavy, Battle Symphony, Invisible, Talking to Myself, and One More Light.

    As for guitar stuff, I see this album being a lot like A Thousand Suns/Living Things in that the guitar tends to either play a secondary (or even tertiary) role in the mix, or be effected to the point that it may not be immediately obvious that it's a guitar. But I'm inclined to trust Brad's assessment that these songs have a lot of guitar in them even if it may not seem obvious at first. They've already proven that with Battle Symphony. /shameless plug

    The Jazzmaster isn't really that unusual either, Brad used a Jaguar for some clean stuff on Minutes to Midnight, and they had several guitars of that body style (a Jazzmaster, a Mustang, and an old Teisco del Rey Spectrum) in the studio during The Hunting Party too, even though they didn't get used much.
     
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    Xero-G

    Xero-G Reborn LP Fan, and plan to stay that way.

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    While I appreciated that Brad gave an interview instead of Mike or Chester this time, I can't say that I'm all that excited for even the guitar direction of this album. I really thought Brad would build on the improvements he made during THP. It looks as though the guitar sound will be more subdued, or in the background, as Brad confirmed guitars won't really be in the foreground this time. Hearing how prominent and varied the guitar work was in THP excited me so much for LP's direction with instrumentals. I suppose it was wrong to think LP would build off of that instead of doing another musical 180, but we shall see.
     
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    ciao_fiv

    ciao_fiv We Are Still Humanz

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    It was said that Blackbear was a musical contribution to this track! I'm nt gonna listen to the snippet but this has me excited. I love Blackbear, if the song sounds at all like one of his I'm ready.
     
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    Non-Pattern

    Non-Pattern You’re about as sharp as a bowling ball

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    That's a fair statement, although it doesn't hurt to put in a bit of faith when it comes to Brad's statements. I have said it before but I can trust Brad's words more than Mike's/Chester's when it comes to the promotion and description of the album. He's articulate without giving away too much, and doesn't use high-flowery words to (over)hype it.
     
  17. #17
    One More Rob

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    Agreed.Mike and Chester are also not really sure what to say sometimes like. First OML interview comes out: "This album will sound like the first single and heavy is the core song of this record" Second OML interview. "This album is very varied and its difficult to pick out a core song." Third interview: "OML is the core song of the album, which is why we decided to name the album after it"

    Sure he did not say any of this verbatim but that was always the (IMO) clear message he was trying to give with these quotes.
     
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    minuteforce

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    You're all wrong. It's gonna sound like a Sum 41 album.
     
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    Sasuke

    Sasuke Modern Prog enjoyer LPA Super Member

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    They had linked this interview on their Facebook page. and you can guess all the comments there. :sheldon:
    Hybrid Theory & Meteora had the most bland & generic guitar work I've head in my live. just sayin' nu-metal fans :rolleyes:
     
  20. #20
    Derek

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    I have a lot of respect for a guitarist that finds it's more important to organically include his guitar work in a song and contribute to it's texture and atmosphere, than one that feels he needs to SHRED SHRED SHRED over a song and be excessively prominent in every track because 'I'm the lead guitarist!'. Brad may not be the best guitarist out there, but he's repeatedly shown himself as being more focused on a track's overall sound than him being the main element, and I have respect for that. I'd say Brad doesn't get enough kudos, as I've met quite a few cocky or egotistical guitar players in my life.
     
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