07.07.2002 : Number One

We've been working on the next album for about nine or ten months now. more recently, people have started asking us often about the pressures of making another album to follow up "hybrid theory". After a successful album, the only thing we can do is work hard and try to make it something we're happy with, because trying to compete with other peoples' expectations can get messy. So we'll just make something that makes us want to listen. After that, i hope all you guys out there want to listen too.

In the meantime, while we're here writing, we'll wait to see what you think of "reanimation". it's coming out soon, on the 30th, and some tracks are starting to leak out. Overall, its a very challenging album, one that is very complex in structure. You will hear that we had a lot of fun with our collaborators, rewriting our old stuff and writing a lot of new parts. In style, you find that it's a very sample driven album, and also something just for the fans to get to know more about us and the people our band has been influenced by. hope you enjoy it.

Back to writing. I've got to get back into the studio now. in the studio, we will continue working on the songs until the best stuff rises to the top. We started with about 40, and we're down to around 20 now. As songs get better, they push their way to the top of our list until only about 12 or so remain. When that happens, we'll start recording.

POSTED BY MIKE


07.10.2002 : Getting Started

right now, we are working on an album of songs with fake names...whenever we start a song, we put it in my computer and give it a working title, such as "smelly feet" or "ugly head". these working titles are what we call the songs until they get finished lyrics and a real name.

a bit of trivia: some songs never lose their working title. "papercut" was a working title, as was "points of authority". but usually songs get renamed. "in the end" was originally called "untitled", which we liked until d'angelo came out with a song of that name.

but sometimes, some of us never get past the working title. originally, forgotten was called "rhinestone," and no matter how much i ask him not to, brad still calls that song by its old name. haha

POSTED BY MIKE


07.17.2002 : Narrowing Down

as we work on things, we start to narrow down to a smaller of songs. inevitably, when some songs are less interesting, but have a great guitar part or sample, we try to take that part and put it into another song that seems to be coming together better. so we combine similar songs to create a better song.

originally, the chorus to crawling was a bridge from another song. chester and i needed a chorus to put in that song, and he just sang it there with no guitars. after we recorded the vocal track, i wrote the guitar under it. and we took it into the studio and everyone added their magic.

POSTED BY MIKE


07.23.2002 : Word Up!

So I'm sitting in our "pre-production" studio, and I thought I'd give you a glimpse into our strange-and-often-fun-creative-process. Actually, I was planning on procrastinating writing this until Mike "suggested" I do it before I leave. You see, I'm a master at putting things off until I absolutely have to do them. This could be anything from paying taxes to doing laundry. What does this have to with the studio? I'm not sure.

I can tell you, however, that things are going really well. We're currently working during the day with our producer on pre-production. This means that we've written a number of songs (roughly 21) and now we're fixing them up and narrowing them down so that we can go into the studio and begin recording. I think one of our biggest challenges is putting aside some of the songs we've written. Since each song has something cool about it, it's hard to let any of them go. Maybe we'll just release a double album...just kidding.

POSTED BY BG.BD/BR@D


08.23.2002 : In The Studio

we made it to the studio. finally. its very exciting. this part of the process takes a couple of months. we'll take all the ideas and parts we've been working on and put them together and try to capture them.

we start with drums, so i'm overseeing things with don, as rob plays through the music.

rob generally works very fast. he practices very hard so that he can come in and nail his parts in a couple of takes. after this, we'll move on to bass [in a couple of days].

on a side note, we're trying to do some more things to be able to show you guys a little bit of what's going on. hopefully we can do more than just these studio reports...

POSTED BY MIKE


08.27.2002 : Finished Tracking Drums

I just finished recording drums for the new album! I'm sitting here in the studio lounge feeling great about the last five days. Everything went really smooth. We spent the first half of day one listening through all different kinds of drums to find the right ones for the album. Once that was done we went ahead and tracked away. We averaged about 4 songs a day. To get the drums to blend with the vibe/sound in each song, we would make some minor changes to the kit, such as change a crash,or tune a drum a little different . We had a drum tuning specialist in the studo the whole time that was able to get the exact sounds we were looking for.

For me the toughest time to get though is all of the practice leading up to recording. Once I had most of the ideas down for drum patterns and fills, its just hours of practice. I spent about 10 hours a day for a month to prepare for these 5 days in the studio. For the most part I'm finished in the studio unless a song changes in the making, which is very possible. It looks like Brad is going to start guitar when we return from the VMA's.

POSTED BY ROB


10.10.2002 : Recording Vocals

we're done with drums and bass...guitars are about 90% finished, scratching is about 50% there. and chester and i are working on the vocals every day. we've had some days where the words just seem to flow out of us, and other days where we can't write more than a few lines. it can be a really slow process, but i know we need to take our time to make things sound right. by the way, thanks for the encouragement and good words on the message boards here and on LPU.com. people always start posts to us with "you're never going to read this, but..." we do read them, so thanks for writing. anyway, back to work. chester and i are working on our 11th song today (out of 15). there will be 12 tracks on the album. and i want them all to be great.

POSTED BY MIKE


10.14.2002 : Recording Vocals Part 2

It is now mid-October, and I am excited to see the progress that has been made on the new album. Rob, Brad and I are predominantly done with our respective recordings, and it is now in the hands of Chester, Mike, and Chairman Hahn. For the record, and for all of you who were placing bets on the message board, I did complete my portion of the recording using the least amount of time... approximately four days. But Brad and Rob did post respectable finish times themselves.

All joking aside, I can't wait until the album is done and can be heard by all of you. In addition, it will only be a few months until these "studio reports" become "tour journals" again. So be ready for us to be in your town again sometime soon. Thanks again to all of you diehard fans out there... your support is more meaningful than you may ever know.

POSTED BY PHOENIX


10.23.2002

hi guys. you're not going to believe this, but i talked my friend into posting here in the studio reports section. here you go...

Howdy folks! It's Chazzy Chaz. We're almost done recording vocals, and it's super swell. Mike and I have been putting in alot of hours in the studio and it's paying off. Working with Don's been alot of fun, I'm glad we decided to do this record with him as well. Yesterday I met Scott Stapp and he was a nice guy. I've actually run into alot of my friends from other bands down here, which has been a nice little treat. Tomorrow is the two year anniversary of Hybrid Theory. It's amazing how much has changed in the last two years. We owe it all of our fans, and we'll show you all how greatful we are by making this next record great! So I'm going back to work... BYE!

POSTED BY MIKE AND SPECIAL GUEST


10.29.2002 : photo shoot / common questions

we just did some photos for the next album...i bet you'll be seeing some of them in a couple of places soon...we shot in a haunted hotel in koreatown. it was scary.

i'm starting to get questions about the new album. here are a couple of answers to common questions:

1. the next album is scheduled for release in march 2003
2. we are working with (producer) don gilmore and (mixer) andy wallace again. it's going great. we are writing tons and tons of material, in an attempt to only put the very best on the album.
3. we are in the studio about 10-12 hours a day, six days a week. not everyone is here at once. people come and go. for the past month, since we've been concentrating on vocals, chester and i have been here every day.
4. we are not planning to have any guests on the album at this point.
5. the new album sounds more like hybrid theory than reanimation. i think the samples are cooler, and the guitars are nice and heavy. and some of the stuff rob is playing is very exciting too.
6. we started with a lot of songs and are on our way to narrowing down to twelve. all of the tracks that we don't finish are basically trashed. they stay in their unfinished state until they get deleted and replaced by better music on my computer.
7. NONE of the band members post or chat elsewhere, on other sites. we are not I.M.ing, or emailing people. the only correct LP info is here and on LPunderground.com.

for answers to more questions, see phoenix's post in the "linkin park" scetion of the message boards. back to work--bye

POSTED BY MIKE


12.08.2002 : Mixing

the recording process is just about finished, so we're gearing up for the next part of the album-making process: mixing. we're getting together with andy wallace again, who mixed hybrid theory. anyway, we also cut the number of songs down to thirteen, and we'll be cutting one more, i think. and everything sounds just right -- so far so good.

03.LP.03

POSTED BY MIKE