Linkin Parkare one of those bands that never stop! The guys revealed the first single called ‘Guilty All The Same’ a couple of weeks ago and have just told us via Noisey that their new album is going to be called ’The Hunting Party’!That awesome photo above will be the album cover, and you can expect it mid-June (June 17 for the US, still waiting on an Australian date!).Guilty All The Same seemed like the band was going back in a heavier direction and hopefully it sets a tone for the rest of the album because it was an awesome track.
Linkin Park’sMike Shinodacaught up withNoisey to talk about the new record and his take on the state of rock music at the moment. I only included a couple of questions below but if you’re keen to check out the whole interview just click here.
What do you think of the current state of rock music?
Theres so much music out there; theres so much stuff that sounds like Haim or CHVRCHES or Vampire Weekend that Im full. The thing Im hungry for is not that. I turn on the rock station in L.A. and it sounds like Disney commercial music. And Im confused by that. The dude from Foster the People was literally a jingle writer. No disrespect, but for me to make that stuff was kind of out of the question. I stepped back and said, Whats the thing I want to hear that nobody else is making, and whats the thing that we are uniquely positioned to make? We threw out our old demos, and I talked to the guys and basically asked them to get in touch with who their 15-year-old self was. Not to make songs for 15-year-olds out there nowthere are a lot of people out there wholl make music because itll be popular with teenagers, but thats not what were doing. I told our guitarist Brad, If the kid you were at 15 heard what you made today, would he be proud of you? Or would he say, That guys kind of a pussy.? Because he was listening to fucking Metallica and heavier at that point. I said, Write a song thatll make that kid play guitar. So thats what we ended up doing. We wanted to impress our inner teenager. When I was that age I was listening to Public Enemy and N.W.A. and Rakim. And when I did get into rock, it was Metallica and Alice in Chainz. The Nu-Metal thing and the alternative rock thing spawned from people learning from those bands, but those bands never made radio rock.
If youd asked me this five years ago, I was obsessed with indie rock. A lot of the artists were coming from a place that was, this is my scene, and this is my shit, and thats why Im making it. But now its become pop. Its not indie, its major label.
To me, Linkin Park has always existed as an example of what a mainstream rock band can do to push the envelope.
Thats so nice, thank you so much. I hope youre not just saying that because you know thats what I wanted to hear.
Honestly I thought youd get mad at me for saying you were mainstream. People are weird about that.
Were at peace with the fact that not just we can go to many countries and play shows and people come, but also with the fact that thats how were seen. I would have fought that early on when we were getting bigger, like No, I dont want to be seen as a pop group, fuck that. But I do think theres a difference between being accessible and mainstream and being pop or whatever you want to call that. Its more about intention, whether youre talking about aesthetics or how you lay out a set or what your video looks like or whatever. Our threshold for trying to push it and do something thats interesting to us and also challenging the fans is pretty high. Two records ago when we putA Thousand Sunsout, we knew that it was going to be a totally polarizing album. Before we even let anyone hear it, we were like, Fuck, are we 100% sure that we want to alienate this many people? Because some people were going to be like, Thats it, Ive had it, fuck this band, theyre not making music for me anymore because all I want to hear is heavy guitars and there isnt a guitar to be found on this record. Theyre singing about the worlds ills and theres a bunch of electronic bleeps and blips, fuck these guys.
I heard a great quote by Nas around that time. He said that every once and a while he likes to make a project to shake off his pop fans. To intentionally get rid of them. If youre a casual Nas listener, hes going to let you know at a certain point that youre not welcome to his party. I love that, I thought that was so cool.
