Friday, February 11, 2005
Projekt Revolution 2008 Tour Preview interview
Mike Shinoda, Sam Endicott, Chris Cornell
From The Crowd had the opportunity to participate in a conference call with Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park, Sam Endicott from The Bravery and Chris Cornell, to discuss this summers Projekt Revolution Tour!
J. Soeder Hello. I’ll start by thanking you guys for not making us schlep to some field in the middle of Tennessee. Destination festivals like Bonnaroo, Coachella and Lollapalooza are obviously all the rage these days and I’m wondering why does it make sense to continue to mount Projekt Revolution as a traveling road show?
M. Shinoda I thought at first you were going to say that you were glad that you didn’t have to schlep halfway across the state in order to do this interview.
J. Soeder I appreciate that too.
C. Cornell But by the magic of telephones.
M. Shinoda Yes, I was like we do a lot of interviews over the phone, I didn’t realize this was so special. The Projekt Revolution tour started, I guess this is the fifth year that we’ve done it and each year we try to do something exciting for the summer. I think originally we were inspired by the great festivals that happened in Europe and the ones that we’ve played overseas. You know they’re a lot of fun and there are a number of different touring festivals that go on in the States that are cool, like I’d love to go see them, but I think that there is definitely a certain niche that we feel that this tour fills, and a lot of our fans seem to agree.
C. Cornell I actually, between Soundgarden and Audioslave, played Lollapalooza three different times on the main stage. And one of the things that I think happens is that in order to keep these kind of tours happening year-after-year and to have sort of a traveling festival somebody has to have their eye on the ball, somebody has to focus on getting an interesting combination of bands together, getting that worked out and doing all the work, which is not that easy to do, which is why some of them come and go. And which is why I think Projekt Revolution is a great one, because Linkin Park is on top of it, they’re excited about it, passionate about it and that’s what it takes to make it great. And if you have that, then it can be great.
Moderator Next we’ll go to the line of Alan Sculley. Please go ahead.
A. Sculley Hello, guys. Again, thanks for your time. I guess I’ll direct this one first to Mike. Like you say, you’ve done several editions now, I’m curious how you think the character and the vibe of this year’s Projekt Revolution will be different from, particularly, the one you had last summer. I’m also curious how you’re going to approach your own set differently, because I’m sure a lot of people who came last summer will come out and see you guys again. So I’ll start there.
M. Shinoda I don’t know what to expect as far as what’s going to be going on backstage with all the different bands. I enjoy the music of the bands that are on the bill, and I’m looking forward to see everybody play. But I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer for you as far as knowing what’s going to happen. But that may be one thing that’s great about this year’s Project Rev, it’s kind of unpredictable. I’m not sure what our set is going to be like. I’m not sure what to expect as far as the whole show.
In fact, just to give you a glimpse into a little bit of the behind the scenes, we have a group called the Street Drum Corps that’s on the bill and Chester has been talking to those guys about actually how and when to play. I’m not sure if we’ll sprinkle them throughout the show or maybe they might play with us a little bit, you know we’re not sure. So that’s just one example, I mean overall if you like the music of the bands on the bill, then that’s where we’ll start. And after that we’ll try to build on that and make something even more exciting than just coming to see the bands play.
A. Sculley I think part of what I was curious about was just whether you feel that the musical mix this time is markedly different from what you had last summer. Obviously, we don’t have the rap element as much as you had in the early years. I think that’s what I was kind of getting at was whether you feel like there’s a different kind of …
M. Shinoda I would say as far as the rap element, it’s not gone forever. I think maybe in the future we’ll have some more hip hop artists back on the bill, but last year and this year just didn’t seem like — we didn’t find the right rap groups to put on the show, there weren’t any that we felt would mix well with everything. And I think for this one, it’s pretty much an all rock bill and there’s a ton of variety this year. I think this is a really diverse bill, as far as rock goes.
C. Cornell If you need me to rap, we can talk about it. We can negotiate.
S. Endicott We can take a guy from each group and make like a sub group and go full hip hop and just pick like seven or eight rap beats and so forth.
C. Cornell Yes, we could bust some flow over the Street Corps.
S. Endicott A freestyle tent, maybe.
C. Cornell A freestyle what?
S. Endicott A freestyle tent, just like …. And like anyone from any one of the bands or from the audience can just show up and freestyle.
C. Cornell Like if there’s a pimp in the audience, we can get him on stage.
S. Endicott Exactly, someone could just go off.
C. Cornell It’s going to be amazing.
A. Sculley That will work. It will be fun. Alright, thanks again, guys.
Moderator We’ll go to the line of Gary Graff with the Oakland Press. Please go ahead.
G. Graff Hello guys, I’m wondering, each of you and your bands are at kind of a different point in your cycles with currents or your latest albums. Is anybody going to have anything that’s going to be new to perform during the summer? I know, Chris I think you’re working on something now. How is all that going to play out in your individual live sets?
C. Cornell I’m going to try to work in a couple, I’m not sure exactly how many songs, but probably two or three new songs. And I’ll probably have a new single out by the time we go out there. But I’m not having mixed yet or having any idea what singles are or a song choice yet, I’m not sure what that will be. But there is definitely going to be something new.
G. Graff Do you expect to have an album out by the tour?
C. Cornell Not by the tour, no.
G. Graff Okay. Then Sam and Mike, you guys are obviously in different points in your cycles, so anything new or how are you going to approach just repertoire for your sets?
S. Endicott We just put out the second half of our last album, like the Moon half of the Sun and the Moon, and so we’re going to start putting in these new versions, kind of like remixed versions of the songs. So we’ll start busting out a bunch of those on this tour.
M. Shinoda As far as the Linkin Park set goes we’ve been trying to build in as much wiggle room for improvisation and kind of screwing around with existing songs, as much of that as possible, and we’ll continue to do so. We haven’t actually, at this point, figured out what the set for the summer is going to be. But I feel pretty confident saying that we’ll be working more towards that end.
G. Graff Can anybody give us a preview of, I guess maybe the production of your sets for the summer, what kind of staging you’re thinking about or it’s going to look like?
S. Endicott We’re all going to fly in on surfboards, hung from the air.
M. Shinoda For Linkin Park it’s going to be kind of like Reading Rainbow, I think.
S. Endicott We’re going Fraggle Rock.
M. Shinoda Yes, I think all of our sets are going to be kind of in that 80’s kids television kind of thing.
C. Cornell That’s just Panic Attack for me. My heart is starting to speed up right now; my palms are getting sweaty just thinking about that.
M. Shinoda Yes, you got the memo that everybody on the tour is required to have an 80’s kids theme.
C. Cornell Yes, and everyone’s road crew is going to have to talk in a high Teletubbies voice. “Hi, I need a 24 inch cable.” Everybody.
G. Graff Alright. Well thanks so much, guys.
Moderator Next we’ll go to the line of Christina Fuoco with Live Dailey.
C. Fuoco Hello guys. This question is for Sam, you mentioned a little bit about how you were going to start — you said you were going to start playing some of the more remixed songs during your set, is that true?
S. Endicott Yes, we just sort of put out a new album, it’s like a redone version of the last album. So we’re incorporating more of those new versions into the live show.
C. Fuoco Is that what you’ve been doing during your headlining deal as well?
S. Endicott Yes, that’s what we’re doing, we’re touring right now and so we’ve been bringing in some of the new stuff.
C. Fuoco How has it been received?
S. Endicott It’s great. It’s awesome, it’s a wide range of stuff that we have now, ranging from very rock, to very disco-y and then even some more like acoustic, like mellower stuff.
C. Fuoco Great. Thanks.
S. Endicott You got it.
Moderator Next we’ll go to the line of Kevin Johnson with the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Please go ahead.
K. Johnson Mike, you said earlier in the interview that with Projekt Revolution you guys wanted to fill a niche with this tour. And I wonder if you can kind of go back to that point and kind of elaborate, Mike, if you will, on what niche you feel the tour is fulfilling.
M. Shinoda Well obviously, just to mention a couple other tours, this is obviously not an Ozfest; it’s not a Warped Tour. Some of the bands on this bill have played those tours, but I think that really what Projekt Revolution what it started out — when we started this tour, our idea is to showcase groups that were doing something revolutionary, something original, something different, either now or they’re known for that over time. And obviously, that’s something that we’ve always tried to do.
We definitely hope that our fans see in our music something that is new and original, and obviously the other bands on the bill, we try to pick them based on that kind of criteria. There is no arguing that obviously, Chris Cornell has been doing this for longer than we have, he’s got one of the most original voices in rock, original style and has done many different things that I think a lot of young kids look up to and say “That’s really cool, that’s really different and I want to do something like that some day.” And that’s really the spirit of the tour, even if you’re the first band on the bill, we hope that some day fans can look back and say, “Oh, I remember the first time I saw so and so, this is a band that I knew was going to be doing something really great and different in the future.”
K. Johnson And Mike, when you say it’s obviously not a Warped Tour and obviously not an Ozfest, can you just tell me what you mean when you say that it’s obvious that it’s not either of those things?
M. Shinoda Well I see Warp Tour as being a more kind of a screamo-emo-punk thing. And I see Oz Fest as being a more metal tour. And those words I wouldn’t use to describe this tour. I think although there are elements of those things in some of the bands on the bill, consistently over time Projekt Rev has showcased a lot of variety. And to be totally blunt, I think this is the kind of music that our band listens to, that’s why we reach out to these bands in the first place to put these bills together. You know at one time we had Snoop Dog and Korn on the bill, and that was what we and it kind of goes without saying that a lot of our fans were listening to.
Also, actually I want to mention it’s not all about Linkin Park fans. On this tour, there are a lot of bands on the tour, and we like the fact that people may be coming who aren’t familiar with Linkin Park, who aren’t familiar with The Bravery or Chris Cornell and they come for other bands and then they get to see everybody. To come from the beginning to the end of the show you get a lot of different sounds and you get a lot of different experiences, and that’s what makes it fun.
K. Johnson Thank you, Mike.
M. Shinoda Actually, I do want to mention one other thing, just from a behind the scenes kind of perspective. And I hope, Chris and Sam, I hope you guys have this experience too. Last year we heard a lot about how well the tour was put together from a production standpoint, and that’s not on us. I mean I can say that, because that’s the team of professionals who work behind the scenes in the production office and those guys have been really great about making sure everybody is comfortable and really running a clean operation, which is not always what you hear. If you guys have played some of those other festivals, you know what a cost rip off they can be.
C. Cornell Yes, it can be great or not great.
M. Shinoda Say again.
C. Cornell It can be great or not great. I think when you look at just the different brands and compare it to other festival tours, it’s kind of the least genre oriented. Like Lollapalooza originally came out that way, it wasn’t genre oriented at all; the whole idea of the tour was mix it up as much as possible. And that’s the point. I think a tour like Ozfest is pretty specific in terms of the kind of music that gets represented, and that’s the difference.
But yes, the way that things happen behind the scenes too, just in terms of pulling off a production like that, boggles my mind, because my brain doesn’t work that way. And I think when it goes off great it will also open up opportunities for the different bands that are out on this tour to kind of interact, play on each others stages, do songs together, screw around or whatever, that kind of thing. When that happens that’s always good. When it turns into we didn’t really know each other in the beginning of the tour but now it’s like a family and we’re all doing different songs with each other on stage, that’s something that these tours can kind of open up and things that you don’t expect to happen. It’s great for fans and the bands alike.
K. Johnson Alright, thank you.
Moderator Next we’ll go to the line of Scott Mervis with Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Please go ahead.
S. Mervis I guess this is sort of like two follow-up questions on things that were already talked about. The first one, as it looked like in the past you had some overlap with Oz Fest, but now it looks like the Rock Star Mayhem Tour is the one that you’re going to be out around the same time of. And I’m wondering if you see competition for fans with that tour.
M. Shinoda Well I suppose in any situation where these tours cross paths that’s a concern on that end. But if you’re a fan of the bands that are playing you’re going to go to the show, that’s how I look at it. I mean for me when I was growing up going to shows like Lollapalooza or just going to different tours of bands, when bands were playing in town, it wouldn’t matter if they were playing days apart, if I liked the band and I could afford the tickets, then I would do that.
And as far as being able to afford tickets, we’ve been making efforts to make sure the fans who want to come see the show are able to. We try to keep the ticket prices down to the best of our ability. And in fact we just let our fan club know, the LP Underground, that for the duration of the presale anybody who is in the LP Underground fan club will get their ticket service charge free, because our band is actually going to pay for the service charge on all their tickets during the presale. And I believe, if I’m not mistaken, we just extended that program. That’s a savings of roughly like $8 to $11 per fan, so we’re just doing our best to make sure that the fans who want to come see the show can.
S. Mervis Okay, and the other one, if I could just ask the other follow-up question was does it say anything about music trends right now that there weren’t any rap groups that really were appropriate to work with or not necessarily appropriate, but that didn’t really work out for the tour?
M. Shinoda Well I can let the other guys speak on that too if they want to say anything about what they think about the trends in music. But as far as my tastes go I really enjoy hip hop groups or hip hop leaning groups that kind of push the envelope, groups like Lupe Fiasco, Gnarls Barkley, and Kanye, these folks are out on the road doing their own things. I think if there had been a place for those guys on this tour maybe that would have worked out. But with other schedules and other commitments going on, hopefully we’ll be able to do a show with some of those guys at a later time, but that’s not going to be this year.
C. Cornell Yes, one of the things that I’ve seen happen on these different festival tours, when you’re trying to put together a diverse group, it’s just sometimes hard to get who you want or hard to get it to all come together. You might have two or three or four different ideas of a band that could fill a particular slot or type of music and it just doesn’t come together, because they’re working on an album or they’re already committed to another tour or they want to do their own thing, that kind of thing. So often it’s not necessarily so much just what’s popular right now or what are the trends, but it’s just like who’s doing what and it just didn’t happen.
M. Shinoda Yes, Chester and I talked about Linkin Park touring with Pennywise and touring with Rise Against, I don’t know how many times it has come up where both sides of the conversation, their management and our management, their agent and our agent all want to do the tour, but timing doesn’t work out. And it’s like, “Okay, well at some point we’re going to get it done.” And that’s just how it works.
S. Endicott Could I say that for me the important thing about a tour, a traveling festival like this, is that there is a lot of diversity. You’re not seeing the same exact kind of band over and over and over again, but instead you’re seeing a wide range of style. And I think that although there may not be, specifically a rap group involved this year, I think that there is a wide range going on this year. And so I think it’s really good for that reason.
M. Shinoda Agreed.
C. Cornell Yes, me too.
S. Endicott So I think they’ve done a very good job of diversifying.
S. Mervis Okay. Thanks.
Moderator Next we’ll go to the line of Patrick Douglas with Great Falls Tribune. Please go ahead.
P. Douglas Hello fellows. This one is for Chris. This kind of reminds me a lot of kind of European style festivals with the diversity that you guys have already been talking about, and you’ve been on the three Lollapalooza’s and you’ve experienced this kind of deal before. Tell me a little bit about how you were approached to do this project and how excited you are to be able to play to a diverse audience, because those audience members, like you guys were talking about earlier, are there to see numerous different styles of bands and you almost get to perform to not only your fans but other people’s fans.
C. Cornell For me it’s kind of ideal, because being a solo artist after all this time and having two bands, three bands really that I released records with as well as a lot of solo material, it’s a lot of diversity. And I noticed in the last year playing festivals worked really well for me because I can mix it up and do some of the heavier rock that I’ve ever written, as well as turn around and do songs where I’m just singing and playing acoustic guitar.
I did, I think, six or seven shows with Linkin Park in Australia, when they did their Australian tour this last year, and it just was great. It was a different audience, it wasn’t my audience, and I had to go out basically and do what I do and earn the respect of these people every night. And it was really a great, refreshing feeling, it wasn’t preaching to the choir. So the idea of putting the two together, where it’s a festival and also I’m getting to tour with Linkin Park, I think was just something that really appealed to me. And once we did those shows in Australia I was already asking my management about trying to hook up for a full length tour, because Australian tours are usually pretty short. This one is kind of a normal length one.
To me, for what I do personally, it’s important to be able to mix it up and have an audience put up with that. If it’s my own show they might put up with more, but I think for a guy to be able to mix it up as much as I do, this type of tour is ideal.
M. Shinoda And I have to say, just from a fan perspective, that watching Chris’ set, knowing all his music, it’s really enjoyable for me to see him play all these songs, put all these songs together with a band that’s capable of representing all the different types of sounds that he’s made over the years, whether it’s a Soundgarden song, or an Audioslave song or a solo song. It’s almost like a greatest hits set, which is great. It’s a lot of fun to watch.
C. Cornell Yes, and it can be different every night, a different version of greatest hits.
P. Douglas And Mike, kind of elaborate on that a little bit too, as far as how excited you are to be bringing someone like Chris Cornell out there and knowing his history, because you’ve no doubt been a fan of his for years.
M. Shinoda Absolutely. For those who know the history of my band, before Chester — well when I first started the band with a friend of mine, his name is Mark, Mark, we’ve been friends since we were like 13 years old, and he turned me on to rock music forever ago. I was listening to mostly rap music at that time and eventually it was like, “Hey, check out this stuff, check out Alice in Chains and check out Soundgarden and check out these bands,” and I remember getting Bad Motor Finger. I really was not listening to almost any rock at that point, but albums like that album was just something that was so universal and had such a great sound that it kind of — those were the exceptions to the rule for me. So it’s exciting to hear. I love hearing those songs, I love hearing those songs live.
P. Douglas Thank you, guys.
Moderator We’ll go to Jay Lustig with The Star Ledger next. Please go ahead.
J. Lustig Hello. How are you doing? With tours like Projekt Revolution and things like Bonnaroo and Coachella, obviously these multi-band shows are really starting to dominate the summer and in a lot of ways that really started with the early Lollapalooza tours. So I’d like to ask Chris what it was like to play on those early tours with Soundgarden. I thought maybe Chris and Sam could comment on what it felt like maybe to attend those shows or at least know they were going on. I mean did it really feel back then that something revolutionary was going on?
C. Cornell Where I seemed to notice it all starting was a tour called Gathering of the Tribes, which the singer Ian Astbury from the Cult started. And it was three shows only and Soundgarden played them. It was very diverse and it was basically the prototype and I don’t remember what the bill was, but it was pretty nuts, it was like Soundgarden and the Cramps and Joan Baez, and I can’t remember everyone but there were two or three shows.
And the following year was when Perry started Lollapalooza, and Soundgarden didn’t play the first one, but I went to the first one. And then Soundgarden played the second Lollapalooza, which was with Ministry and Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Jesus and Mary Chain and Ice Cube and a band called Lush, and it was one of those moments where we kind — a lot of us knew each other anyway, but just going out on the road, if we didn’t know each other, there was just that kind of dynamic where everyone just sort of got along. There were a couple of people that just didn’t really want to be part of the program and have a good time, but it didn’t bother anybody else.
And that to me was kind of where I sort of saw, oh this is like a European festival except for it’s the same bands all the time. And we started playing on each other’s songs and it just became like the most fun kind of tour that I could see having. And I think a lot of it has to do with the bands out there. I think I’ve played shows with The Bravery, with Sam’s band before, where we haven’t actually talked to each other because it’s like a radio festival, and I’d come in, play the show and then had to leave. So that didn’t give me an opportunity to see you guys …
S. Endicott Yes, that happens all the time, you don’t even know what bands you’re playing with.
C. Cornell Yes, I’ve seen The Bravery on numerous festival shows on cable, because I live in France and I have British cable, and so every festival in every country does like a live showing in the middle of the night of those different shows. So I’m psyched to go out and see that every night.
S. Endicott I can say for me, I was pretty young when Lollapalooza was happening and it was really kind of a formative thing for me. It was a really big deal. And I feel like Lollapalooza changed the face of music, because I remember going early on and thinking how can you have a rock band and then like a rap band and then an industrial band right next to each other? That’s just crazy, you can’t do that. And all these different fans showing up and mingling. I think that is taken for granted now. I think it’s very normal that you have a bunch of different styles of band play together. But back then it was like it blew my mind, it was like unheard of.
Also, I remember hearing the term “alternative” for like the first time. The only thing that these groups have in common is that they’re alternative, whatever that meant.
C. Cornell Yes, there was a time when it wasn’t a genre; it just meant an alternative to the garbage commercial rock music.
S. Endicott Exactly and now that term alternative means like mainstream music, like an alternative rock station plays whatever is the current sort of mainstream rock. So it just shows you how Lollapalooza created a complete shift in the musical landscape or whatever.
J. Lustig Alright, thank you.
M. Shinoda Chris, I like the fact that you mentioned that Lollapalooza tour that you guys did with, I’m looking it up on line because it caught my interest. I think just thinking back on it that was probably one of those tours that this tour is in part is inspired by, because at least for me, that was one of my favorite concerts I’ve been to.
C. Cornell It was an amazing combination of bands. We were on our second major label album, so it was like our fourth album. Pearl Jam was on their first album, but it had blown up. But when they signed up for the tour they were sort of unknown, so they played second. So the place was pretty much packed by the time it was noon and there was 20,000 people or whatever.
And for me it was formative, because I was still young in my career and I’m going out there and I’m having a big ego and I want it all to be about me, and I want the world of rock to check out what I’m doing, and I’m on a tour with Pearl Jam and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Ministry and Ice Cube. And it’s like, guess what, it’s not going to be all about me. In fact I’m way down on the list and I’m going to have to like suck it up and learn about what I do and learn about the craft, and learn about just enjoying playing music and just getting involved in it on that end.
And that part of it where there was the camaraderie is what I’m looking forward to on this tour coming up, because I think it’s always an opportunity and it’s always a possibility. That ’92 tour is one of the most memorable periods of my life because of that and that can happen again.
S. Endicott I remember, I saw that tour and I remember Body Count had this song Cop Killer and I remember Soundgarden and Ice T both played Cop Killer. I thought it was awesome.
C. Cornell Yes. Ice T did Cop Killer with Body Count and he came on stage with us.
L. Taylor Can we go to the next question?
Moderator Yes, we’ll go to Andy Herman with Metromix.
A. Herman Hello guys. This is a question for Chris, and since we were just talking about Ice Cube back in the day, I know that on your new album you’re working with Timbaland.
L. Taylor Can we keep all questions tour related?
A. Herman Well I guess I’ll ask it this way then, maybe I don’t know with Timbaland you’re taking your music in a more hip hop direction and maybe Mike is going to give you some emceeing tips on this tour.
C. Cornell I don’t know. I’m always down for tips.
M. Shinoda I’ve hung out with Timb as well, not with Chris, but we did that thing on MTV with him (VMAs). I’ve met him a few times and he’s a real character. Maybe Chris, do you think there’s any chance that he would be coming out to one of the shows or possibly getting on stage with you?
C. Cornell I hope so. That would be great. You never know.
M. Shinoda He’s a riot, that guy.
A. Herman You guys were just talking about there not being any hip hop on this tour, but maybe there will be after all.
C. Cornell Yes, you never know. That’s like trying to keep an open mind, like a cool attitude towards it, who knows. We could make anything happen.
A. Herman Yes. Just one other real quick question. I know that one of the co-sponsors of this tour is Major League Baseball and I was just wondering if you guys are fans of any particular teams this year or if you’re baseball fans in general, maybe not.
M. Shinoda I always feel like that’s a lose/lose question, because if I say anything, some of our fans are going to be like FU man.
C. Cornell You can get into some trouble just wearing the wrong jersey on stage or even wearing a jersey on stage, even if it’s the team that is the town that you’re in, somehow that can be a mistake. I’m not sure why, but you want to be careful how you answer that.
A. Herman Alright. Thanks, guys.
Moderator Next we’ll go to Roxy Myzal with United Stations.
R. Myzal Hello, gentlemen. I wanted to ask, let’s see, let’s start with Mike. I really think it’s cool that you guys continue to give back the way you are with all of your concert tours, and especially this one where you’re going to give money back to Music for Relief in support of the victims around the world. So I would like you to talk about that a little bit and what this tour will be supplying.
M. Shinoda Well just to be clear, in case anybody is unaware of the organization, Music for Relief began after the Tsunami in Southeast Asia and then we continued to do work in Katrina, a few other events like the wild fires in California, I mean the organization does what its name implies. Essentially with these tours, ever since, over a year ago now we’ve been trying to make our tours a little more green. We’ve also been trying to donate money from the tours to different organizations that we think are helping out. So with American Forests, for example, we’ve had this longstanding relationship where basically for every ticket sold to a Linkin Park concert, which includes this one, basically every ticket, a dollar is donated to American Forest and trees are planted for those dollars. Hundreds of thousands of trees have been planted, it’s been a great program and we hope to keep doing that. In addition to that we’re running a majority of the bus and truck fleet on bio-diesel and doing things like donating the leftover catering to homeless shelters and other organizations that can use it.
There are a lot of things the bands can do. Basically, if you want any more information about Music for Relief, when you come to the show you can go to the Music for Relief booth or you can just go to musicforrelief.org and check out all the things that MFR is doing.
R. Myzal Cool. On to the digital package, how was the response to your last arena tour and what extras will you do maybe this time that you didn’t do last time in the digital package?
M. Shinoda I love when people ask how the tour was, because am I ever going to say, “The tour was okay, it kind of sucked.”
C. Cornell Oh, you mean the sucky tour, it was great.
R. Myzal No, no, no. I wasn’t asking about that. I was asking how the response was to the digital package.
M. Shinoda You’re talking about the digital souvenir package, right?
R. Myzal Right. Sorry.
M. Shinoda The digital souvenir package is — I mean basically when you buy tickets online, you can opt in for it. And then after you go see the show in your e-mail inbox there will be a link and you download the MP3’s of the show, of the Linkin Park set, that you saw. Fans love it. I mean if you go to our Web site and you check out the message board we have a whole section dedicated to the fans who want to talk to each other about swapping those files and sharing their experiences of the show.
For us, and you can kind of get a sense with the other bands as well, that for us and this whole tour it’s kind of about like let’s just see where it goes. We’re keeping our minds open to what happens every night, we try to make the set — more and more often we make it flow and feel, we feel out what the crowd wants us to do, we kind of jam a little bit. And with all that said, you know each show is a little bit different, sometimes a lot different. And that just makes for a better experience for the fans and it’s one that now, with that digital souvenir package that they can actually take home.
R. Myzal Great. Chris can I ask you, who is going to be in your touring band?
C. Cornell The same group that I’ve been touring with over the last eight months, since I went solo again and started touring for Carry On. They’re a group of people that I’m trying to keep with me as my band. So I’m not changing anything.
R. Myzal Okay. Thank you very much. And last, but not least, if Mike could answer this one. I know when you guys were here in the city at Madison Square Garden, Brad and Phoenix were mentioning that you were making a trip right after that down to the gulf coast on the Music for Relief bandwagon, as it were, to work with Habitat for Humanity. Can you tell us a little bit about what you guys did down there?
M. Shinoda We’ve had an ongoing interest in what’s going on in Louisiana, in New Orleans, and I’ve done a couple of trips down there with different groups, one of them being — well in general just representing Music for Relief. And one of our interests down there is with Habitat for Humanity, they’re just such a great organization and they’re building a bunch of homes down there.
They’ve got this whole new neighborhood called the Musician’s Corner, where they have built these homes for basically musicians who were displaced by the hurricane and they’re now created an actual community where they can all come and live. And people that fit their — I forget actually how it works for somebody to be able to be considered for one of these homes, but it includes not being able afford a home yourself and you have to be self-sufficient. They actually have some crazy tests that you have to pass to be able to do it and this whole community service program, which is actually all really great.
And we went down there and we funded Music for Relief and the fans who donated funded two homes so far. And hopefully we’ll be able to do more. But we went down there and built on those homes, took hammers and did what we could for the day. But it’s tough work and it’s a lot of fun.
Moderator We’ll move on to Chad Childers with Westward One. Please go ahead.
C. Childers Hello guys, quick question for you. I know you’ve talked about planning the show and you guys are all on the main stage, but you have a great Revolution stage lineup as well. Can each of you talk about an artist on the revolution stage that you’re really excited to see and check out.
C. Cornell I actually don’t know who is on the revolution stage.
S. Endicott Hawthorne Heights is playing, right?
M. Shinoda Yes, it’s Atreyu, Hawthorne Heights, 10 Years, Armor for Sleep and Street Drum Corps.
S. Endicott We actually played with Hawthorne Heights a couple of nights ago at the Bamboozle Festival. And it’s really cool, their guitarist has the best guitar rock moves I’ve seen in a long time.
M. Shinoda And Street Drum Corps is just like improvisational rhythm, describe what they do, because that I have seen.
M. Shinoda You know, originally when we saw them — when I was doing Fort Minor shows, we played with Street Drum Corps and Chester came to that show, he saw them play and that’s kind of where he first got interested in them and that’s why they ended up on this tour. When we described them to the rest of the band I think we called them a Punk Rock Blue Man Group. It’s almost like Stomp.
C. Cornell Yes, like they take cigarette cellophane and do like a rhythmic piece out of it and like anything that you can make a rhythm out of kind of thing.
M. Shinoda Right, but it’s obviously a lot less Broadway. It’s way more street than any of those Blue Man Group or Stomp or anything like that. These guys are little punks, which is great. I love their attitude and their look is just so cool.
I do also, just to mention, I think all the groups on the Revolution stage are really great. Last year we had Medina Lake open the show, and I’ve never seen so many people show up so early for a show. The Revolution stage area was packed when the doors, as soon as the doors opened, it was like a flood of people came in from the very beginning.
So the good news is that the fans love the lineup and they want to come out early and I think that that’s going to happen again this year with Armor for Sleep opening up. At the same time it makes it a little trickier for the people who play later, because now all the fans have been there since 11 o’clock, they’re tired and we have to work extra hard to get them into the set and keep them excited, which we are happy to do.
C. Childers Very good. Thank you, guys.
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