Mike Shinoda
Mike Shinoda
Michael Kenji "Mike" Shinodais an American musician, rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, graphic designer, manager and film composer. He co-founded Linkin Park in 1996 and is the band's rhythm guitarist, songwriter, keyboardist, and co-vocalist. Shinoda later created a hip hop-driven side project, Fort Minor, in 2004. He served as a producer for tracks and albums by Lupe Fiasco, Styles of Beyond, and The X-Ecutioners...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth11 February 1977
CityAgora Hills, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Right now, when it comes to making an album, we really want to give our fans just Linkin Park. We don't want to water it down with anything else or confuse it with anything else. Meteora is just us and that's where our focus has been. So hopefully the fans can enjoy that.
I'd call it an organic hip-hop style, musically. Back in the late '80s and early '90s, people sampled a lot, and because of that these records had a feel. They weren't recorded in a computer with a click track. . . . When I was approaching this record, what I wanted to do was try and get back to that, but I write music, I play music, so I wanted to write every note, record every note and play every note, and get that kind of hand-played feel.
I would have never done this record if I didn't have the blessing of the rest of the guys, ... We're not, like, on hiatus. We're working. We're very serious about our records, and I know the guys are at home right now writing. Hopefully we are looking at next year for a record.
Since this record is coming out on Machine Shop, our label, I could pick anyone I wanted to work on it, so I chose Brad as our A&R guy, which is hilarious because ... Brad's not a label guy, he's my friend, ... I've known him since I was like 13 years old and he can come in and say, 'Hey, that song, it's good, but trash this part of it and do this differently,' and I will actually listen to him.
He did a very different video for me, ... It's really clean and there's these crazy light effects. As you're shooting the video, it's like there's nothing there, so you had to imagine what's going to happen. I was very critical. I had to apologize many times for making him go back and change things a lot, but he was a good sport about it and we basically spent an extra two weeks on it. Basically from my face to the album artwork to crazy shapes that fly through the air, they're all transparent, three-dimensional light shapes that flow through the air and carry the song.
Most of the musicians that I know almost to the man everybody uses Apple computers. They've thought of the steps that you're going to think of when you're trying to create your thing. And that's where the tools get invented to make better art.
The thing is, there are so many different ways to make music these days with virtual instruments, software applications, physical instruments, and computer programs.
Little pieces of advice like that can provide us with months' worth of entertainment.
We have people in the band who don't drink or do drugs... some of us like to go sightseeing.
I'd rather get up early and go out and do something than stay up late and screw up my body.
We learned pretty early on in this band that you can't have snobbery in music.
Usually I spend my holidays with my family.
In high school I was making beats for my friends and for myself and rapping over them.
But I obviously wouldn't have done the album unless the other guys gave their blessing.