Phoenix talks The Catalyst video

Phoenix talks to MTV about Linkin Park’s new music video The Catalyst which will premiere on August 26 online at MTV.com and VH1.com

Linkin Park have spent much of the past year touting the overall insanity of their upcoming A Thousand Suns album (it’s a “grandiose insanity,” in case you were wondering), and that idea certainly carries over into the first single, an aching slice of synth doomery titled “The Catalyst.” It seems that, every step of the way, the band is trying very hard to move beyond their nu-metal roots.

So it should come as no surprise, too, that the video for “The Catalyst” is a far different animal.

“[Linkin Park DJ] Joe [Hahn] directed it, and Joe likes to create things visually, likes to go for something big,” LP bassist Dave “Phoenix” Farrell told MTV News. “So the look of it is very different. There’s a lot of energy in it, and for me, that’s what makes for a good video. It adds something to the song, and that’s what makes me like this particular video even more.”

Farrell wouldn’t spill any details of the video — which will debut August 26 on MTV.com and VH1.com — but he did hint that it would be in keeping with the artistic theme of Suns (due September 14), which means that Linkin Park fans should gear up for a whole lot of blurry, digitally scarred WTF-ery … sort of like the cover of the album.

“For this record, I think we were able to be in front of the curve for a lot of things. We were working on art, and we’ve been working on it nonstop, because we really wanted to incorporate it in everything,” Farrell said. “And in the case of the album cover, we released it in little pieces, gradually constructing it out of nothing, and fans were seeing all kinds of stuff, they saw people’s faces and everything … none of that was intentionally there.”

So, will the secret of the Thousand Suns cover be revealed in “The Catalyst” video? Probably not. After all, the guys in Linkin Park aren’t even really sure what the image is supposed to be.

“I don’t want to say what I think it is — I don’t know — but I don’t want to ruin it for anyone. It’s a good reference for the record itself,” Farrell said. “I would go so far as to say it’s anything you want it to be.”

“The Catalyst” video premieres at midnight on August 25 (technically that’s the 26th) on MTV.com and VH1.com, and then on MTV, VH1, MTV2, mtvU, MTV Hits, MTV Tr3s and all MTV international territories at 8 p.m. ET/PT on August 26.