Linkin Park: ‘Our new record is far more personal’

Mike Shinoda also explains why the band have called their new album 'Living Things'

Linkin Park have spoken about the lyrical inspiration for their new album ‘Living Things’ and co-frontman Mike Shinoda has revealed that it is a “far more personal” record than their previous efforts and shies away from political and social issues.

The album is due for release on June 25 in the UK and June 26 in the US. It is the follow-up to the band’s 2010 fourth album ‘A Thousand Suns’ and has once again been produced by Rick Rubin. You can hear the album’s lead-off single, ‘Burn It Down’, by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking.

Speaking to NME about ‘Living Things’, co-frontman Mike Shinoda replied to a question about what had inspired the album’s lyrics by revealing that they were about the band’s own lives and that was why they had chosen the title ‘Living Things’.

Asked about the album’s lyrics, Shinoda said: “We chose the album title ‘Living Things’ because it’s more of a record about people. It’s more about personal interactions. On the last few records we’ve had an interest in global issues and social issues and those things are still around, there are certainly traces of them, but this record is far more personal.”

The singer also said that the album has a variety of moods, but that the anger that was a feature of the band’s early work remains part of their repertoire.

Asked if the record had any angry lyrical moments, he replied: “I’ll let the listener decide that. I see it as a very three-dimensional record. There are definitely moments of cathartic screaming, there are other parts where it’s more about the lyrics and melody and there’s rapping on it. There’s a nice balance of all the vocal styles we do.”

Shinoda went on to say that the band’s new record actually reminded him of the group’s formative days, when they were still called ‘Hybrid Theory’ and hadn’t become Linkin Park yet.

Speaking about the record’s influences, he said: “One thing that occurred to me when we were finishing up with the record, was the connection to the first record. To me, it’s not about getting back to ‘Hybrid Theory’ the record, it’s about getting back to Hybrid Theory the band because that was descriptive of the music we make.”

He continued: “It’s getting back to that and modernising that is what we did over the course of making this record. Now, we listen to even more styles of music and our tastes go even deeper than they did before. So now there’s more stuff we can do than ever.”

Linkin Park will tour the US this summer as part of a co-headline trek with Incubus. They will also play a small number of European dates in late May and early June.

You can watch the band’s video for their previous single ‘Iridescent’ by scrolling down to the bottom of the page and clicking.