Bravo Magazine (Germany)
All scans from Karine
Translated by Kamo

BRAVO: "Meteora", your new album is a direct hit - but playing less than 37 minutes is maybe a bit short...
BRAD DELSON: For us quality counts more than quantity! We wanted to avoid lengths and compromises at all costs and therefore create an album, which takes hold of the listener from the first to the last second. We are perfectionists. For the single "Somewhere I belong" Chester and Mike wrote 40 different chorus until we were finally satisfied.
MIKE SHINODA: We had 30 finished songs, from which 12 came on the album at the end. It wasn`t about the quality of the songs, it was about, how they matched up together. To me every song is a little movie, on which the tenseness builds up and raises the climax.

BRAVO: Are you the boss of the band?
MIKE: There is no boss in Linkin Park. Together we are like a monster with six heads! Everyone of us has the right to object. If someone of us doesn`t like what`s up, it is not going to happen. You even don`t have to reason. It`s easy like that! On the other hand everybody feels responsible for the other and the whole band. I am sometimes a kind of moderator, I conciliate between opposite point of views and try to get the best out of everyone. One time Joe called me "the glue" .

BRAVO: What tasks do the other band members have?
DJ JOE HAHN: The interests found each other really well in our group. Mike and I know each other from art college; we are interested in painting and graphics. Together we created the designs for our cds. I direct our videos, because filming is my passion. I quit my studies after two semesters and began to design monster figures for hollywood movies.

BRAVO: Brad, what is your "side job" in Linkin Park?
BRAD: I take care of business issues with Rob. He studied business administrations. I know the music business, because I worked as an intern in a big record label. Phoenix is taking care of our website at www.linkinpark.com and keeps in touch with our fans.

BRAVO: That leaves Chester.
MIKE: Chester designs clothes and writes totally cool lyrics. He has the finest senses for new themes, feelings and vibrations in the atmosphere.

BRAVO: Did you come up with the secret service ideas to save your new "Meteora"-songs from the internet piracy?
CHESTER BENNINGTON: No, a crazy campaign like that can only be invented by superbrains like Brad and Phoenix. I had my trouble to get through their sally port in the studio. But it worked. I think, "Meteora" is the first CD in rock history, that didn`t seep into the internet before publication.

BRAVO: Theme-change! Did you really have a miserable childhood?
CHESTER: I am a divorced-child like other hundred thousands kids, too. Actually I have no reason to complain.

BRAVO: When did you parents divorce?
CHESTER: I was eleven, the youngest of four children. My dad was a policist and quiet strict. Nevertheless I was really attached to him. When he left us, there was noone else to take care of me. That's why I became a delinquent teenager. I even had to spend a night in jail, because of drug possesion. The absolute horror!

BRAVO: Did you quit taking drugs now?
CHESTER: When you're on drugs you couldn`t keep up with all the energy of Linkin Park. We are no partyanimals. We experience ecstacy only onstage. After the show we become the most boring band in the whole world.

Please note that Bravo is a tabloid magazine, they are known to rehash past interviews, twist the words around and even make up their own stories and interviews sometimes. -- Jas

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