Mike Shinoda promises "something special" while urging Linkin Park fans to keep calm as the 20th anniversary of Hybrid Theory approaches…
Mike Shinoda has told an audience of Kerrang! readers that he and his Linkin Park bandmates have been putting the work in to create something special for the twentieth anniversary of Hybrid Theory in October.
Speaking as part of a Kerrang! Face-To-Face video, Mike revealed that they've been working closely with key people from throughout Linkin Park's history to celebrate the 20 years since they arrived back in October 2000.
"We've done our best to go to a lot of people who are family, in a sense, and say, 'What do you think we should do? What would be a good celebration of Hybrid Theory?' and try our best to do a bunch of those ideas," he says.
Read this: The inside story of Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory
"I would urge the fanbase to just let it happen," he continues. "The Linkin Park fanbase is always one of the most creative and active fanbases out there. So always, the problem for me is that if I'm not allowed to divulge information because I want it to be a surprise, then the creative fanbase starts jumping out and imagining things. They come up with their own great ideas – and then once in a while those great ideas are better than our ideas!"
In a candid moment, Mike reveals that his current pandemic-induced routine of Twitch streams – and the Dropped Frames series they have produced – has created a small but special forum which is helping him to cope with the disruption to life in 2020.
"These releases [Dropped Frames] are not intended to be for everybody; these streams are not intended to be for everybody," he says. "The joke in the chat is that they're going to be on the Billboard 200. They're not. That's not what this is. I think we know that. It's tough, when you've got something like Linkin Park on your resume, for that idea of commercial success to not enter the question.
"But to me it really is about quality of connection and not quantity right now. I really am enjoying having a tight community on Twitch. If it grows and gets bigger, that's fine – as long as it stays at the quality of communication and the tone of things. I feel like that's what we need, because with social distancing and quarantining and whatever, our emotional and social needs as people has changed. I don't even think we know how much they've changed, or what's going on. But my gut says this is something that these fans and I are hungry for. I'm really pleased to have been able to stumble into it and for it to be happening."
Watch the full interview below:
