CMJ MFR Article

Friday, February 11, 2005

  Music For Relief $25,000 Richer

 July 2008

In the end it does matter for Linkin Park. Cheesey puns aside, the band's non-profit organization, Music For Relief, does some great things for natural disaster victims. Yesterday the organization was just given a $25,000 check from MLB (Major League Baseball) Authentic Collection and Champs Sports to help fund their efforts.

In a press conference at Champs Sports in Times Square, the band received the donation to aid in their mission of providing aid to victims and raising awareness and education about preventing future disasters. Linkin Park founded Music For Relief in 2005 after an infamous tsunami devestated South Asia in December of the previous year. "We wanted to find a way to be directly involved in the relief efforts there," said David "Phoenix" Farrell. "We really thought this would be something we could expand and we wanted to ideally get into involvement with other bands, fans of other bands, etc."

Since then, bands like Otep, Tears for Fears and Placebo have joined more than 70 other artists in raising over $2.5 million and actively volunteering in relief missions after the Southeast Asian tsunami, hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Southern California wildfires, Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh and the recent cyclone in Myanmar. The organization has aided additional projects with Habitat for Humanity and has planted over 350,000 trees to help reduce global warming.

The bands on the 2007 Projekt Revolution tour donated art pieces to a book called Revolution Unseen, with contributions from Brian Molko of Placebo and Lyn Z of Mindless Self Indulgence, among others. All of the book's proceeds go to Music for Relief. "We hope to build on that; we hope more bands get involved, more groups, more artists," said Shinoda.

With Habitat for Humanity, Music For Relief was able to fund two different houses in New Orleans for needy families, one of which they were able to meet personally. "I mean it's just such a great feeling to do it," said Mike Shinoda. "Anybody can take part in that. You can go out and find a habitat build in your area and schedule to go for an afternoon and try it out."

The band's green mission has carried over into their Projekt Revolution tour, where Music For Relief booths are set up for fans, and artists are encouraged to be more eco-friendly. "We have made some changes in the past to make the tours greener," said Shinoda. "We're running the whole bus and truck fleet on bio-deisel, we're donating the leftovers from catering. We try to get organic food and local food so it's not being shipped halfway across the world. And then after everybody's done eating we're actually making deals with different venues and sponsors and whatnot to make sure as much of that stuff as possible is being recycled."

MLB got involved with Music For Relief in 2004, and has worked on three tours with Linkin Park since. "Back after Katrina the guys asked if we would help contribute some sports equipment to help rebuild some of the schools and get some of the education programs going. When it was all done, I got a handwritten letter from these guys, and in addition to that I got a whole pack of Polaroids of these guys working out there," said Steve Armus from MLB. "We're very proud to be associated with them."

"When we started Music For Relief, one of the things that I really enjoyed about it is the idea of it being a kind of connector hub," said Shinoda. "We've got a lot of friends in music in our communities, and we're in a position to put people together, and we've been doing that since day one."

The organization's next project will be a relief effort following the recent earthquakes in China, due to take place in October. Those interested can find information on how to get involved on Music For Relief's website, www.musicforrelief.org.

"My mindset is that, and of Music For Relief's as well, if you're not part of the solution then you're part of the problem," said Phoenix. "I just want to be doing something. As far as the music community, I feel that that is such a passionate and strong force potentially, and to give people an opportunity to just... If you have that energy and you have that desire to try and get involved and help people, then this is one outlet that hopefully you'll be able to connect with."



thanks to lptimes.com