April 2, 2007
Folhateen

Translated by Ariel

The release of the most anticipated rock record of the year is close. To be more precise, 60.480 minutes between midnight today and May 14th's midnight, when 'Minutes to Midnight', Linkin Park's third record, is set to arrive at the stores.

The band doesn't sound like rap-rock anymore, at least on most of the tracks in the new record (the 'transition' single, "What I've Done", set to be released today, "Given Up" and "Bleed It Out" are the exceptions).

More melodic, the album grabs our attention with elaborated lyrics and some ballads, like "In Between", about cheating, and "Valentine's Day". On the songs about politics, the main one is "The Little Things Give You Away", one of the best songs on the CD, about the Katrina hurricane and the destruction of New Orleans.

In an exclusive interview to Folhateen, in Los Angeles, the vocalist Chester Bennington talked about the partnership with the producer Rick Rubin, about the changes on the sound and their concert in Brazil, that took place almost three years ago.

Folha: Are you excited that "Minutes to Midnight" will finally be released?
Chester: It was a very long process. We put so much energy on it. But it wasn't that easy. There was a lot of work. We tried to overcome ourselves in many aspects, but it's not like we were crazy for everything to end soon (laughs).

Folha: How do you explain the development of the band's sound?
Chester: We got into the studio with the conscient decision that we wanted to make the compositions in a different way. We wanted to show Linkin Park's essence in a new package. "Re-inventing the wheels" was a good part of the process.

Folha: What did Rick Rubin bring to Linkin Park's sound?
Chester: To be honest, he said: "Do not take the way you think Linkin Park should sound, the songs that you think you should write. There's nothing like that". In the beginning of the process, we were writing a lot of songs that could be part of our previous records, and he told us to put all of that aside".

Folha: What changed?
Chester: Before, everything was presented the same way. This time around, Mike [Shinoda] is singing a lot more. It may seem like he's not on the record, but he's doing a lot of the harmonics. He also sings a couple of songs alone. We're presenting ourselves in a different way. We've had a hair cut, clothing changes and, here it is, here is a new thing.

Folha: What about the instruments and styles? What is different? What have you done for the very first time?
Chester: We've minimized things. Experimented many guitar sounds and styles, tried many drum kits, played banjo and xylophones, a lot of crazy stuff.

Folha: What kind of subjects are you guys approaching to now?
Chester: We're older and we react in other ways now. Even the hate in this record is not necessarily the same kind of hate.

Folha: You've got some politics songs now.
Chester: We wanted to have a political point of view, but it was important that it didn't have a determined agenda. It couldn't be a song that would tell you how to think or what is right or wrong. It was something that we noticed we were testifying and thought we could tell.

Folha: "The Little Things Give You Away" is about Katrina.
Chester: It was inspired in a trip to New Orleans to do voluntary work. I talked to some people about their experiences after the hurricane and just wrote about it, on their perspective. I think it's a pretty track and tough at the same time.

Folha: It's been almost three years since you were in Brazil. How was that experience?
Chester: Incredible. It's still the largest show we've done. We did the Live8 to 800 thousand people, but everyone was there for the festival. It wasn't our show. In Brazil, I was chocked when I got onto the stage. Fantastic!