In June 2018, Linkin Park vocalist/MC Mike Shinoda released his solo debut album, Post Traumatic. The record was Shinoda’s first bit of new music since the July 2017 passing of Linkin Park’s lead singer, Chester Bennington.
A collection of raw, deeply personal recordings mostly recorded at his home studio, the record was a moment of much-needed catharsis for Shinoda and his band‘s global fan base, too, as the shock of Bennington’s death was still overwhelming.
Sometime in 2018, writer Steve Rosen interviewed Mike Shinoda, for a reflective conversation mostly geared around the Post Traumatic record. The interview originally ran at Ultimate-Guitar.com, but Rosen is now sharing the full audio interview for anyone who might be interested.
The conversation touches on Post Traumatic, Shinoda’s songwriting and recording process — and which parts of key Linkin Park songs happened to take place in his home studio — and more.
Offering some perspective on his head space while writing Post Traumatic, Shinoda offers up this bit of context in the conversation:
“I approached it like a diary. My priority wasn’t to impress anybody, my priority was to capture the most realistic, truest version of whatever I was feeling that day. One of the things that drove the process was … there was a catharsis in writing stuff, for sure, and I did want to write things that were good, but … one of the things that struck me in the middle was that when I was going through things at that time, my outlook on things and my emotions would change really often and dramatically. It was more than mood swings, it was perspective, philosophy … I was just really turning things over in my head.”
Though their conversation remained lost and unpublished … until now. As Rosen has been doing recently on his YouTube channel, he’s uploaded the entirety of the interview for all to hear … so do so below.
Visit Rosen’s YouTube page for more of his “lost” interviews, including Eddie Van Halen, John Frusciante and more … and be sure to visit his Behind The Curtain column, which is updated monthly here on Rock Cellar.
