Linkin Park On Collaborations With Daron Malakian (SOAD)

  • Linkin Park On Collaborations With Daron Malakian (SOAD)
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    Linkin Park’s new albumThe Hunting Party has undeniably been a surprise to everyone with the heaviness of the record - in a good way! One of the band’s lead singersChester Bennington recently took some time to talk withFull Metal Jackie to discuss how the band came to this sound, why their collaborations worked and what the original new Linkin Park album was meant to sound like.

    How did having so many styles to work with directly affect The Hunting Party?

    We found ourselves in a unique position to be able to make a really heavy record because we can. Weve set ourselves in this band to really be open-minded to doing anything that we want stylistically. If we want to write a hip-hop track, we can. If we want to write a country song, we can. Folk song that turns into a hip-hop track that turns into a death metal track, we can do that. Theres nothing binding us to a specific style.

    For us, that really helped us create this album because in the beginnings of making this record we were going into the direction that I think most people were expecting us to go. It was more electro, it had a dance-y pop element to it still dark and aggressive but more along the lines of Burn It Down and A Light That Never Comes as opposed to Given Up or One Step Closer. We were working on that stuff. It was interesting to us and it was kind of where we were going, it was comfortable for us.

    At some point,Mike [Shinoda]was just like he realized that not only are we making music thats pretty typical to whats going on right now, its so typical that it almost made the songs not even fun to work on. We got to a point where, theres a lot of bands doing stuff like this, a lot of them are doing it well. Then theres a lot of them that are doing it really sty. Even if we do it well, its still going to get lost in the noise of all the stuff thats very similar, or whatever. This is not exciting to us.

    We want to make something thats heavy. We want to make something thats got visceral energy and palpable, tangible that you can feel and experience, right? Thats kind of how we decided to change gears and go make a really heavy (for us) hard rock record. I think the fact that we had afforded ourselves the freedom creatively to kind of go wherever we wanted, it was easy for us to switch gears and go in that direction. It worked well.

    Talking a little bit about Hybrid Theory, whats the most direct link between The Hunting Party and Hybrid Theory?

    The fact that we kind of went back and started listening to the things that got us into wanting to be in the band when Mike [said], I dont want to work on these songs anymore, I want something thats exciting and I want something that reminds me of stuff that. I want stuff thats going to make me feel like I need to go be in a band.

    So he started going back and referencing all these great bands that he loved Refused, Minor Threat, Gorilla Biscuits. All these great bands that had done something that was real interesting,Helmet. And he started to try and find stuff that was more recent and modern. More current and there is nothing. That was what inspired us and going back him talking to the band and encouraging all of us to go back and look at the records that really molded us and inspired us to become musicians to get inspired.

    We sat down and had a conversation within the band, OK, Brad people dont know how great of a guitar player you are. They know you can play, but they dont know. We want you to write music thats going to inspire the 14-year-old Brad to go pick up a guitar and learn how to play it. I was like, Im going to do that with my vocals. Im going to scream and sing a record that will make kids go, That guy is speaking for me.

    I think thats probably the most direct link. When we were making Hybrid Theory, that was the stuff that was influencing us. We were trying to connect something that was new and different, that made people want to want to come and learn how to, and get into hip-hop or get into electronic music or metal. We wanted to inspire people, weve always wanted to do that with every record. We always go into every record wanting to make an album thats interesting to us, that pushed us creatively and inspires people. This one in particular, we really went back and were like lets go back to the roots of what made us who we are, and lets attack that. Lets go there.

    Daron [Malakian] from System of A Down and Page Hamilton from Helmet are collaborators on the new record. What prompted their involvement?

    That was another thing we did on this album that was different than anything weve done in the past. Several things that were interesting and fun, we produced it ourselves. It was cool that we got to do that. We didnt really set out not to have a producer, we just started writing demos and working and as we were developing the songs and playing them for some of the higher ups at the label, people within the circle of trust, they were all just, You guys are rolling. Keep going. It just never came up, so we continued to make the record on our own, which allowed us to think freely. It allowed us to go from making pop dance music to hard rock. It allowed us to go, you know?

    I want to rap on this part but I dont know if its me. I dont think it should be me rapping, lets get Rakim in here. Then making that happen. This song we wrote, the chorus sounds so cool but it feels like Helmet. We dont want to write a song that sounds like Helmet, but this is cool, why dont we go straight to the source? Why dont we call Page, and see if he would be interested in coming in and working on the song. If he likes it, we can continue working on it and we dont have to feel like it doesnt make sense. The song was telling us, go get Page. If you listen, as an artist and musicians, you need to listen to what the songs are saying.

    We got to the point where we were kind of like, needing some inspiration and we wanted to work with someone else so we did a jam session with Tom Morello for a day, got some great music out of that. We called Daron, he was down to come down and hang out. There was no pressure, it was like, Hey, we want to hire you to come in and write a song with us. It was, Hey we want to be inspired and curious if you wanted to work on something with us. We dont know what that means, if that means come in and listen to our music weve been working on and collaborate on that or write something completely new together. He came in with the song Rebellion.

    The second he started playing that riff, I was like dude thats a badass track. We have to work on that, and within two days we had the whole track written, arranged and it was a matter of coming up with the right lyrics. It was great to be able to do that with all these guys. Even though I cant remember his name, kicking myself for it, we worked with a producer that typically works as a songwriter on the song Final Masquerade. This guy typically writes songs for the biggest pop artists in the world Rihanna, Katy Perry. To work with a guy like that is stepping out of our comfort zone and we ended up writing a great song. It was a lot of fun, we had a lot of opportunities to step out of that, out of our world and invite people in for the first time.



    Read more at Loudwire


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Linkin Park’s new albumThe Hunting Party has undeniably been a surprise to everyone with the heaviness of the record - in a good way! One of the band’s lead singersChester Bennington recently took some time to talk withFull Metal Jackie to discuss how the band came to this sound, why their collaborations worked and what the original new Linkin Park album was meant to sound like.

How did having so many styles to work with directly affect The Hunting Party?

We found ourselves in a unique position to be able to make a really heavy record because we can. Weve set ourselves in this band to really be open-minded to doing anything that we want stylistically. If we want to write a hip-hop track, we can. If we want to write a country song, we can. Folk song that turns into a hip-hop track that turns into a death metal track, we can do that. Theres nothing binding us to a specific style.

For us, that really helped us create this album because in the beginnings of making this record we were going into the direction that I think most people were expecting us to go. It was more electro, it had a dance-y pop element to it still dark and aggressive but more along the lines of Burn It Down and A Light That Never Comes as opposed to Given Up or One Step Closer. We were working on that stuff. It was interesting to us and it was kind of where we were going, it was comfortable for us.

At some point,Mike [Shinoda]was just like he realized that not only are we making music thats pretty typical to whats going on right now, its so typical that it almost made the songs not even fun to work on. We got to a point where, theres a lot of bands doing stuff like this, a lot of them are doing it well. Then theres a lot of them that are doing it really sty. Even if we do it well, its still going to get lost in the noise of all the stuff thats very similar, or whatever. This is not exciting to us.

We want to make something thats heavy. We want to make something thats got visceral energy and palpable, tangible that you can feel and experience, right? Thats kind of how we decided to change gears and go make a really heavy (for us) hard rock record. I think the fact that we had afforded ourselves the freedom creatively to kind of go wherever we wanted, it was easy for us to switch gears and go in that direction. It worked well.

Talking a little bit about Hybrid Theory, whats the most direct link between The Hunting Party and Hybrid Theory?

The fact that we kind of went back and started listening to the things that got us into wanting to be in the band when Mike [said], I dont want to work on these songs anymore, I want something thats exciting and I want something that reminds me of stuff that. I want stuff thats going to make me feel like I need to go be in a band.

So he started going back and referencing all these great bands that he loved Refused, Minor Threat, Gorilla Biscuits. All these great bands that had done something that was real interesting,Helmet. And he started to try and find stuff that was more recent and modern. More current and there is nothing. That was what inspired us and going back him talking to the band and encouraging all of us to go back and look at the records that really molded us and inspired us to become musicians to get inspired.

We sat down and had a conversation within the band, OK, Brad people dont know how great of a guitar player you are. They know you can play, but they dont know. We want you to write music thats going to inspire the 14-year-old Brad to go pick up a guitar and learn how to play it. I was like, Im going to do that with my vocals. Im going to scream and sing a record that will make kids go, That guy is speaking for me.

I think thats probably the most direct link. When we were making Hybrid Theory, that was the stuff that was influencing us. We were trying to connect something that was new and different, that made people want to want to come and learn how to, and get into hip-hop or get into electronic music or metal. We wanted to inspire people, weve always wanted to do that with every record. We always go into every record wanting to make an album thats interesting to us, that pushed us creatively and inspires people. This one in particular, we really went back and were like lets go back to the roots of what made us who we are, and lets attack that. Lets go there.

Daron [Malakian] from System of A Down and Page Hamilton from Helmet are collaborators on the new record. What prompted their involvement?

That was another thing we did on this album that was different than anything weve done in the past. Several things that were interesting and fun, we produced it ourselves. It was cool that we got to do that. We didnt really set out not to have a producer, we just started writing demos and working and as we were developing the songs and playing them for some of the higher ups at the label, people within the circle of trust, they were all just, You guys are rolling. Keep going. It just never came up, so we continued to make the record on our own, which allowed us to think freely. It allowed us to go from making pop dance music to hard rock. It allowed us to go, you know?

I want to rap on this part but I dont know if its me. I dont think it should be me rapping, lets get Rakim in here. Then making that happen. This song we wrote, the chorus sounds so cool but it feels like Helmet. We dont want to write a song that sounds like Helmet, but this is cool, why dont we go straight to the source? Why dont we call Page, and see if he would be interested in coming in and working on the song. If he likes it, we can continue working on it and we dont have to feel like it doesnt make sense. The song was telling us, go get Page. If you listen, as an artist and musicians, you need to listen to what the songs are saying.

We got to the point where we were kind of like, needing some inspiration and we wanted to work with someone else so we did a jam session with Tom Morello for a day, got some great music out of that. We called Daron, he was down to come down and hang out. There was no pressure, it was like, Hey, we want to hire you to come in and write a song with us. It was, Hey we want to be inspired and curious if you wanted to work on something with us. We dont know what that means, if that means come in and listen to our music weve been working on and collaborate on that or write something completely new together. He came in with the song Rebellion.

The second he started playing that riff, I was like dude thats a badass track. We have to work on that, and within two days we had the whole track written, arranged and it was a matter of coming up with the right lyrics. It was great to be able to do that with all these guys. Even though I cant remember his name, kicking myself for it, we worked with a producer that typically works as a songwriter on the song Final Masquerade. This guy typically writes songs for the biggest pop artists in the world Rihanna, Katy Perry. To work with a guy like that is stepping out of our comfort zone and we ended up writing a great song. It was a lot of fun, we had a lot of opportunities to step out of that, out of our world and invite people in for the first time.



Read more at Loudwire


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