Rob: What’s up, scholars?
I’m Rob from Genius.
We’re here at Racer’s Edge with Mike and Chester from Linkin Park.
We’re going to race a little go-karts.
Rob: So I lost.
I know that man.
Chester: We both did.
Speedy Gonzales over here.
Rob: You've done this before.
Mike: Yeah, it's not fair to just bring you in having not tried this before.
Chester: I actually did a high performance driving course.
There was other dudes who actually raced for a living in my class and I smoked them, and
I was like “I'm a racecar driver.
Yes!”
And my wife was like, “No way.”
Rob: When you guys came out, the first album, Hybrid Theory, was really that, it was this
amalgamation this bringing together of different genres and different musical styles into one
thing.
What was something that inspired you early on and where you drew your inspiration from?
Mike: Since the beginning of the band, we all listen to different types of music.
Myself, I grew up playing piano from when I was like five.
And then I transitioned eventually to making beats and rapping over them.
Chester: I loved rock music, that's what everybody was doing.
But I was also super into The Smiths and The Cure and Depeche Mode and all that kind of
stuff.
I've been singing my whole life.
I think I came out screaming, you know what I mean?
I was born with a broken, I was so big, my nose was broken so I think that's where I
developed my screaming skills.
I found some tapes at one point, I think I was about 13-years-old.
I put them in the tape player and it was me singing Foreigner songs.
So I must've been like two years old or whatever, but I was singing Hot Blooded.
I think that was the original inspiration for me to sing.
Rapping NWA verses and Rob Base was one of my favorites.
Rob: I feel like now we're in this digital playlist era where it's just putting together
a bunch of songs that you like and that's what music is.
Almost in a genre less era the boundaries are definitely now broken down now, and I
think you guys fought for that early.
Mike: When our first album came out, there was a trend to mix rap and rock.
We didn't go, “Oh this is going to get us signed.”
It was just like “No, this is the music we're making.”
Chester: Clive mother fucking Davis came and sat down with us and told us, “This is a
new thing.
What you guys are doing is great.
We already signed a band that sounds kind of like, is in this thing, and it's uncharted
territory.
We don't really know where to put it and where to market it and we don't want to try to figure
that out with two things that are similar at the same time.”
Mike: It's like a mixed family.
You weren't rock enough for the rock kids, you weren't hip hop enough for the hip hop
kids, and so you're sitting in the middle, sorry.
Rob: Except the rock kids and the hip hop kids loved it to the tune of 10 million records
sold.
Plus I don't know how many times you guys went diamond.
Mike: When we did it, it was for me, I always wanted it to feel like I'm not trespassing.
Chester: I think even in that world, I would sing however I felt, whatever I was pulling
from, I kind of sound like that singer.
It wasn't until I got into Linkin Park that Mike was like "Stop singing like, this guy,
or stop singing like that guy.
Be you."
Mike: And we said, he said at one point, I don't know what that means.
And I said I don't either so let's figure it out because just like any of us, you have
to find your voice. So it's the biggest record on the planet that year.
Britney Spears came out that year, I thought she had the, I just assumed, because she was
such a pop phenomenon, we bigger than her stuff, like whatever.
And followed it up with Meteora.
That also just number one everywhere and we stopped after that record and looked at each
other and went, “Oh my God.
Our entire lives just changed.”
Chester: We worked with Don Gilmore on the first two records.
He's a great producer and he pushed us in ways that I don't think anybody else could
have.
But the one underlying thing that I think a lot of people don't know, but Mike was in
there like every step along the way, in there like pushing the envelope on things and …
Mike: Well because Don didn't understand hip hop at all.
So he knew rock really well.
Chester: So Mike was in there like co-producing that record and then the reason things sounded
the way that they sound is because of this guy primarily and Brad.
The only producer we could imagine ourselves in our wildest dreams to work with is Rick
Rubin.
Mike: We reached out to Rick and said, we'd like you to produce our next record. This
is our third album.
Chester: As long as it doesn't sound like the last two records.
Mike: We wanted to be a big departure from the first album and second album, and we want
to take risks and make it really different and we don't want it to be that sound at all,
and he said great.
That's the answer I was hoping to hear from you guys.
Let’s talk about.
And so we did the next three albums with Rick.
Chester: He's made all the records we all love the most.
Rick’s style also and his vibe in the way he works is very like, open creative kind
of guy.
Mike: I was in there, maybe 10 times more than that than Rick because he would only
show up once every one or two weeks.
The next album that came out after that we didn't work with Rick.
Rob: Well, you guys have a new album coming.
One more light.
And one of things that I wanted to explore with you here at Genius is your process for
this album.
Mike: We actually flipped it backwards.
We started with a concept. We started with the lyrics and came in each day and said what
do you want to write about?
The stuff that's coming out is not stylistic choices. It's not genre choices.
A lot of fans when they hear and talk about co-writers and whatever for some people yeah
that changes the sound of the music.
Like you write with somebody who does Caribbean beats mixed with EDM and they come in, you
write with, I don't know, DJ Snake.
Comes in and he does DJ Snake on your track.
That is what's going to happen.
But if you write with Justin Parker, or you write with Ed White or you write with Julia,
they come in and what I would do is I would just work with one of them, and I would write
a song.
And we would write words and melodies and piano, and then I will take that and start
to make it sound like something.
Rob: Like Linkin Park?
Chester: Me and Mike would go out and he can play a keyboard and I can sing acapella and
you get the song.
Rob: I have a scary question for you guys, and I want to get into breaking down the actual
title, One More Light.
There's a finality to it, right?
I'm like are they trying to tell us something, is this the last light?
Mike: Last light, the last album.
Chester: We're giving up, guys.
This is it.
Mike: Lucky number seven.
So it's the first time we've named an album after a song.
And it was because we lost a friend. The woman that was a friend of ours and has worked on
our albums for a long time passed away.
The hook is
And the punch line is
Chester: The lyrics are an example of what life is which is a series of events that are
challenging.
The perspective was we're going to turn these ordeals into adventures.
It just turned out that “One More Light” even though it was a difficult song, and kind
of the most emotionally heavy song, also had the most uplifting title in my opinion.
The cake doesn't really rely on how good the frosting is.
You know what I'm saying?
And I still like cupcakes that have decent cupcake, but really good frosting.
You take the frosting off, I want that yummy moist tasty cupcake that can last, that stands
on it's own, I feel like that's what we have with this record.
Rob: Linkin Park, really good cake.
Chester: That's a tasty cupcake.
Rob: That's one tasty cupcake.
I appreciate your time and your energy.