OML Album Process

Background

Linkin Park started to tour in support of The Hunting Party in May 2014 in Europe. This was followed by the Carnivores Tour in August and September, the Circuito Banco do Brasil shows in October, and the European leg of The Hunting Party Tour in November. Their show in Berlin on November 9 was recorded for a live DVD which remains unreleased.

Due to Chester Bennington breaking his ankle in January 2015, the band was forced to cancel the rest of the United States leg of The Hunting Tour after only three shows. During Chester's recovery, the band met at the studio to go through a few new demos they had already written, like "Spirals", "All Our Days", "Hands Itch", and "Last Straw"; and Chester worked with Stone Temple Pilots on new music. Linkin Park also released an acoustic version of "Final Masquerade" through their website to thank the fans for their support.

By the end of March, Chester was fully recovered and went on a tour with Stone Temple Pilots, coming back to Linkin Park in May to play a few festivals around North America.

Fort Minor, Mike Shinoda's side project, officially made its comeback in June, after an almost 10-year hiatus. Mike released a new single, "Welcome", and performed a couple of one man shows as Fort Minor.

The Hunting Party Tour was resumed in July in China. Right before the first show of the tour, the band held a press conference in Shanghai, where Mike played a piece of new music he had been working on during their flight. The band went back to Europe in August for the final leg of the tour. Between the Linkin Park shows in Europe, Mike also performed a few Fort Minor shows. After the tour, Mike had sessions in London with an undisclosed artist, and Chester went back to Stone Temple Pilots for what proved to be the band's last tour with him, as Chester left his position on the band in November. Chester, however, would do a one-off reunion show with the band in March 2016.

In early October, Linkin Park did a mentoring session with Zayed Hassan, the grand prize winner of the Stagelight Monthly Music Contest, at Red Bull Studios in Los Angeles, resulting in the song "Sailing Through The Clouds". After that, the band went back to their studio to work on new material and recorded a collaborative track, "Waiting For Tomorrow", with Martin Garrix in early November. That same month, the band would play their last shows of 2015 before returning once again to the studio.

Writing and Recording

In November, the band started to meet with Jon Green, the singer of the English band The Bonfires, at Larrabee Studios. They would be seen together again on January 14, 2016.

Speaking to LPAssociation in early December 2015, Mike Shinoda said he felt this was going to be an important album for the band, being something completely different from what they had done in the past, and they were going to start opening up the process on social media. They were trying a new approach to their recording process, working on words and melodies first before deciding the style of the songs, and they were looking at a late 2016 release for the album, with a 6 month hit-or-miss. He said the band doesn't really care about trends in music because their recording process takes too long to really grow on a song, and they simply don't care. The band goes to the record label not for what they think about the album, but for them to help get it out to the people.

On December 3, 2015, former Stone Temple Pilots frontman Scott Weiland was found dead on his tour bus. After hearing the news, Chester Bennington tweeted "FUCK!!! I am so sad, angry, heart broken... I hate today." This was followed by "Some good fuckin music was written today. This day, full of shitty fucked up feelings, when, something beautiful pops up in the muck."

On January 27, Rob Bourdon took part in an Q&A with LPU members, where he said the fans were the reason the band was motivated to create something new and they didn't want to rush the process of the new album, regardless of delaying its release, because they wanted it to be as perfect as possible. But they didn't try to guess if the fans would like the new songs because it could obscure their process.

The band started posting live video streams of their studio days up on their Facebook page on January 15, 2016 and a update was sent to their mailing list subscribers on February 9, 2016, where Mike wrote the band didn't know where the songs would end up since they change shapes over and over during the writing process, but they were starting with the most fundamental parts of the songs — the words and vocal melodies — and completely fleshing out those ideas before working out the music. Some songs were just one piano, keyboard, or guitar, and a vocal, and they were going to continue on this path until they felt like they've got more than enough material to begin the "sound" phase. He also mentioned the band had invited some new friends into the studio. A picture posted by Ethan Mates on his Instagram account on February 15 revealed the working title "El Chopo". A second live feed from the studio was done on February 24, showing the band working with English producer Justin Parker. A band meeting was held at Apple Music on February 29.

A third live feed happened on March 7 and showed the band working with Conner Youngblood. That same month, Mike, Phoenix, and Joe went to the AMG Driving Academy in Sweden to meet with Mercedes and, on next day, March 11, visited the Warner Bros. office in Hamburg, Germany, likely to show them some new music. A second update was sent to their mailing list subscribers on March 22 and was accompanied by pictures of the band working with Jon Green and Justin Parker. On the text, the band announced they had a new studio headquarters located in a low-key area on the northeast side of Los Angeles, in The Valley. The vocals and foundational songwriting was coming together in the main room, along with Mike's beats and Brad's guitar. There used to be a lounge next to the main room which Joe turned into a second studio, so they were multi-tasking. Joe also brought a lot of his sonic toys and keyboards to the hangout room. As for the songs, they were still in the early stages of the album, still focusing on the words and melodies, not sounds or style of the song. The new studio mentioned in the update was Sphere Studios. That same month, two titles were added to Linkin Park's song catalog at BMI, "Ricochet" and "What Are You Worth". Both credited the Californian producer Brian Howes as their sole composer and songwriter.

On March 31, Brad, Joe and Mike hosted a poker tournament fundraiser for Linkin Park's Music For Relief charity in Los Angeles. There, Brad gave an interview to Front Row Live Entertainment, where he said they wanted to release the new album before they start touring, their goal was still to release an album by the end of 2016, they were collaborating in the studio with a wide variety of artists, and the band haven't gotten to the stage where they want to narrow down their songs yet. He also talked to Billboard and revealed the idea of writing the melodies and lyrics first was something producer Rick Rubin had always told them to do years past and they never listened because they started always track first. He also noted that no producer was yet confirmed for the album and there were very strong consistent themes in what they were writing. Two videos were uploaded to Linkin Park's Facebook page showing Chester and Mike recording vocals.

A picture posted by Ethan Mates on Facebook on April 7 showed a folder titled "LP ALBUM 7 MAIN" containing 64 items, the visible ones dating from November 9, 2015 to April 7, 2016. Among them, were "Lost My Moment", "Conn-District 108", "Till The Walls Come Down", "Nobody Can Save Me J Green 2", "Invisible - MS with Justin Parker", and "Keep Saying I'm Sorry". The picture was immediately removed. The next day, Mike invited New Zealander DJ Zane Lowe into the studio to listen to the band's new material. A new live feed from the studio was done on April 12. Mike said the band had started recording "some keeper vocals" and gave the fans a tour of the studio. That same day, Mike also posted a video on his Snapchat account saying they were going to record a bridge that was really high. Another video was uploaded to Facebook on April 15 showing Chester choosing which microphone he would use. Josh Newell, who has been working as ProTools editor and engineer for the band since A Thousand Suns, was seen setting up the microphones for Chester. On April 19, a new video was posted to Linkin Park's Facebook page showing a conversation between Chester and Brad. It's unknown if it was a lyrical discussion or if it was completely unrelated to the album. On April 21, both Ethan Mates and Linkin Park posted videos from the studio on their Instagram accounts. Ethan Mates's video contained a piece of new music while Linkin Park's video featured an instrumental which can also be heard in the 2003 LPTV episode "The Art Of Meteora". The description of this last video said a new update from the studio would be sent to email subscribers on the next day. On the email, Mike said the band had just started narrowing down to some of their favorite songs, and they were starting to put their first final vocals on them. They have really poured their hearts into the words and melodies, making the songs really personal and revealing. With a lot of material to choose from, they clearly had an album in there and decided to get votes from all six of the members to see which songs would make it. After getting the vocals right, keyboards/samples and drums were high on the list. A new live feed from the studio was done on April 25. Rob was shown playing drum pads and Mike talked about the Record Store Day vinyls for The Rising Tied and Road To Revolution: Live At Milton Keynes released on April 16, addressing the issue with Road To Revolution: Live At Milton Keynes which was advertised on the cover as being explicit but contained censored audio on the disc. He said it was a mistake on Warner's part and the record label was doing what they could to rectify this situation. As for the album, he said they were still hoping to have it released by the end of the year. The album still didn't have a title yet but it was very high on the list of things to do. A new video was posted to Facebook on April 26, showing Chester taking a break from working on the album. On April 28, Joe Hahn posted on his Instagram account a picture of Jon Green with a songboard behind him. The picture was immediately removed from his account and The Bonfires later uploaded a blurred version of the picture to their account. Among the titles on the board were "Out Of Reach", "Sleepwalking", "Hands & Knees", "Spiderweb", "This Sin Is My Home", "Can We Go Back", "Staring Back", "Lost My Horizon", "Talking To Myself", "Fire Escape", "Can We Go Back II/The Future", "Rival I Can't Outrun", "Locked Outside", and "Heavy". On April 29, Rob and Phoenix and professional surfers Koa Smith and Koa Rothman, visited Magdalena Bay in Mexico's Baja Peninsula to see firsthand the Mangroves conservation project Music for Relief launched a year before.

On May 14, Chester and Mike met with Mike Baczor of the band Her0 to collaborate on a song for his debut album. On May 18, Chester and Phoenix went to Vancouver, Canada to meet with Mercedes-Benz. A new live feed from the studio was done on May 19. According to Mike, the band was in a new studio recording drums. The song they were recording had chords and words but didn't have any music yet, they were going to build it around the drums, which were going to be cut up and used as drum loops. A video of Rob playing drums was also uploaded to Mike's Instagram account. On May 20, a new video was uploaded to the band's Facebook page showing them back at their studio having a listening session. On May 23, the band announced a collaborative song recorded with The Lonely Island, called "Things In My Jeep", would be on the soundtrack of the Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping film, which was released on June 3. A new update from the studio was sent to e-mail subscribers on May 24. This time, instead of writing, the band sent a short video where Mike can be seen talking about the new songs. "As we go, you're gonna hear them start to have a lot of layers, and maybe too many," he said. Two clips of new music were posted by Mike Shinoda on Snapchat on May 26. The first clip was an instrumental while the second was a clip of him rapping over a sample of "Piece Of My Heart" by Big Brother And The Holding Company. On May 27, a series of videos were posted on Linkin Park's Snapchat account following Joe around Los Angeles while driving a new Mercedes for the AMG Driving Performance Magazine. On May 30, the Los Angeles artist Jensen Karp premiered a new Hot Karl (Karp's rap name) song featuring Mike Shinoda during his Get Up On This podcast. The song, called "Like Riding A Bike", was the same previewed by Mike a few days prior on Snapchat.

On June 1, Mike Shinoda posted a video on his Snapchat account showing the tempos and keys on Linkin Park's songboard. On June 3, the Los Angeles singer/songwriter Blackbear tweeted he was in the studio with Linkin Park. On June 5, Front Row Live Entertainment posted an interview Robert Herrera did with Phoenix. He said he was hoping for a single release in the end of 2016 or beginning of 2017. Anyone who they've enjoyed the work of in the past or who is interested in seeing what they're doing and how they work, they've invited them in and hung out in the studio, whether it meant hanging out and eating lunch in the studio or doing some music and writing together. On June 8, the band thanked Zane Lowe for dropping by the studio, also saying they were working hard on making new songs ready for Apple Music's Beats 1 Radio. On June 11, Mike Shinoda posted on Instagram a photo of himself with Quincy Jones. On June 28, a fifth studio update was sent to e-mail subscribers. This update was actually an e-mail Mike had sent to the rest of the band on June 17, saying the foundations of the songs were there and he wanted to get into experimentation mode and record more live instruments. A 360° studio tour video with Mike was also included in the update. In the video he said, "We’ve got basically like vocals and chords, like words and melodies and chords on a lot of our favorites and we’ve narrowed it down recently to like under 20 hopefully;" and hints that the new album would most likely be released in 2017. While he says guitars haven't really been worked on yet in the recording process, the band wanted this to be their best album yet and was taking a lot of time crafting the songs. By June 26, the band had moved to a new studio. On June 29, Chester and Joe went to Shanghai, China, to meet with Mercedes-AMG and did a surprise performance at the Mercedes-AMG C63 Coupe China Launch Ceremony on the following day.

On July 7, a new video from the studio was uploaded to the band's Facebook page. On July 14, a video of Rob tracking drums was posted on Linkin Park's Facebook page. On the same day, Mike posted on Twitter, "Our album would have been done like this month, but all the ProTools crashes have set us back like 6-9 months." On July 18, a second video of Rob tracking drums was posted. On July 21, Phoenix & Rob attended a photo exhibit at the Bo Bridges Gallery to raise awareness and funds for Music For Relief’s Ocean Protection Program. On July 28, the sixth update from the studio was sent to email subscribers. This time, Mike and Brad sat down to record an in-depth conversation about the album's progress in the form of a podcast. They explained the band had moved to a new studio because they wanted more space and said the album might have a theme, but they still needed to figure it out. The album still had no title. Mike believed that the album is totally different from all their previous releases and wanted to use more live drums instead of programed beats during the recording process. Brad added that the band no longer had a stablished sound and the lyrics on the album felt more intimate. All the collaborators on the album until that point were just songwriters. Between 26th and 31st of July, the Total 24 Hours Of Spa took place in Belgium. A silver-and-red Mercedes-AMG GT3 designed by Linkin Park was unveiled during the event. Joe, Phoenix, and Chester went to Belgium to present the car for Black-Falcon (the Mercedes-AMG team) and traveled to Germany for the F1 German Grand Prix right after. When asked about the design process of the car and who was in charge, it became evident that Joe took the lead at the drawing board.

On August 5, Blackbear was back in the studio with Linkin Park and a new video (this time with sound) was posted showing Brad playing acoustic guitar. American singer-songwriter and record producer Andrew Goldstein was also in the studio with them. Mike wrote on his Instagram, "Making beautiful music with these gentlemen today." Blackbear later posted a video recorded at Linkin Park's studio on his Snapchat account in which a clip of a new song could be heard. On August 8, the band posted a photo of Brad and Mike in the studio with Takahiro "Taka" Moriuchi of the Japanese band One Ok Rock. Mike collaborated with him in the song "One Way Ticket". On August 10, Rob Bourdon attended the special event for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hosted by Brett Ratner and David Raymond at a Private Residence in Los Angeles, California. A live feed on Facebook happened on August 15. After 6 minutes, Mike said he wanted to answer a few questions from fans but would be shutting it down if no good question was asked. People kept asking him when Linkin Park would go to their country/state/city. On August 19, the band was visited by Kyle Lambert, who created artwork for the Netflix series Stranger Things. A small clip featuring guitars from a new demo was posted by Mike on Snapchat on August 23.

On September 6, Joe Hahn posted a picture of Brad playing acoustic guitar on Instagram. Behind him, the band's song board could be seen with a few new titles, "Battle Symphony", "One More Light", "Good Goodbye", "Halfway Right" and "Friendly Fire"; as well as known titles such as "Heavy", "Invisible" and "Out Of Reach". On September 9, the band started tracking bass. In a September 15 interview to Billboard, The Chainsmokers (American DJ duo) revealed they were asked to work with Linkin Park. On September 21, someone from LPHQ posted a video on Instagram where a joint Linkin Park and Blackbear cap could be seen, indicating the two artists have been collaborating in more than just music. Printouts with Tohji Yamamoto's (Japanese designer) trademark were also visible. On September 22, Mike posted a video on his Intagram story showing how he samples a recording of cowbells and makes other sounds from it. He wrote, "Just made a cool song / sound. Visit my Instagram story feed to hear it and see how i made it!" The title "Painted Me Wrong 2.7" could be seen during the video.

On October 4, Mike posted to Snapchat a video of himself testing a new Maschine Jam. On October 7, Phoenix went to Scotland to take part on the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, a golf tournament on the PGA European Tour. British magazine The Courier interviewed him at the Carnoustie Golf Links where he said Linkin Park was hoping to release new music at the start of 2017 and the album between March and April. On October 11, Mike posted on Snapchat a few clips of him recording a new song. On October 13, Andrew Goldstein and Blackbear were back to the studio with Linkin Park. A video of Brad recording guitars was posted on Mike's Snapchat story. On October 20, the seventh studio update happened in the form of a live chat with Mike Shinoda on his Facebook page. He said Phoenix apologized for hinting at a specific month that the album would be out as they did not have a definite date and mentioned that there were several hip hop oriented tracks in consideration for the new Linkin Park album. Mike also had some ideas and seeds for future Fort Minor songs, but he would be focusing on the Linkin Park album first. By the end of the month, the band started to announce their first shows for 2017.

On November 14, the eighth studio update happened in the form of a live feed on Linkin Park's Facebook page. Mike confirmed he worked with Justin Parker in London after he performed as Fort Minor there in 2015 and said Parker taught him a different approach to songwriting: to write without any sound in mind and, instead, write with meaning in mind. Mike then went on to say Jon Green really related well with Chester and revealed two previously unknown collaborators on the album: British musician, songwriter and producer Eg White and Nashville songwriter, producer and engineer Emily Wright. The band spoke about how they wanted an album that was honest and raw and that genre didn't really matter, with Chester saying how personal and important this album was to him. Mike mentioned he wrote a song specifically for his kids for the first time. Rob said he was very impressed by the vocals and Brad said the fans would be impressed by how different the album sounds. The album was just about wrapped up and the band were touching up the record. The LP Underground Sixteen album was released on November 21 containing a few early instrumental demos from the sessions of the new album.

On December 1, Linkin Park accepted the Global Activist Award from International Medical Corps for their support via Music For Relief. During the ceremony, Mike gave an interview saying fans could expect new music in the beginning of the year. Starting on that same day, Chester did a series of shows with the all-star rock 'n' roll collective Kings Of Chaos in Las Vegas. On the second night, he gave an interview to the Las Vegas Review-Journal saying Linkin Park had begun mixing the album and they would be mixing for a long time because they had "a ton of songs." The band worked with many other artists and writers on the album because they were curious about how others work and they wanted to expand on their education. As for the vocals, he said many of them were done with a piano or a simple guitar chord progression. Then they built the track around the vocals and created all the sounds that they wanted to replace the guitars and piano. According to him, the album is planned for the first quarter of 2017, before summer. On December 9, 2016, American singer Kiiara tweeted she had a 7 hour session with Linkin Park. On December 16, Warren Willis, Joe's DJ tech, said the seventh Linkin Park album was done and they were moving out of the studio. In the December issue of the Kerrang! magazine, Mike said they were in the mixing stage and had not decided on a title yet. He said the band had been writing and recording mostly in Los Angeles but also had a few sessions in London and Canada. New collaborators announced for the new album were American producer Andrew Dawson, Portuguese DJ RAC (who had previously worked on a remix of "Burn It Down"), and Canadian musician Corrin Roddick (from Purity Ring).

On January 4, the band went back to work. On January 6, Mike did a live transmission on YouTube from the Agenda lifestyle fashion trade show in Long Beach, California. He said the band was wrapping up the new music and it wouldn't take long to come out, stating the fans were going to be surprised as to what it sounds like. They have at least one featured artist on the new album, which was self-produced by Mike and Brad. Mike had been working 50 hours a week on new Linkin Park music and at that moment they were working on new shirts, hoodies, and other new merch for the Linkin Park album. On January 10, the band did a photoshoot for the album with James Minchin III. On January 12, Melissa Fox, a photographer from Moscow, Russia who was temporarily working in Los Angeles, ran into the band and confirmed that they were shooting a music video at the 4th Street Bridge. It will feature drone footage by BMX rider Alfredo Mancuso. On January 14, Mike, Joe and Chester went to the Mercedes-Benz Advanced Design Studio in Carlsbad to work with car designer Gorden Wagener. On January 22, Mike tweeted that the album isn't political. On January 26, Chester tweeted that the new record is his favorite to date and he can't wait to share it with the fans. On January 29, he listened to all the tracks together for the first time. On January 30, Chester was seen at Apple and Joe was seen at Frecuencia Rock, a Californian radio station. On January 31, ads were placed on Casting Networks Los Angeles looking for doubles of Kiiara and Chester Benington for a "Linkin Park ft. Kiiara" music video, indicating their collaboration would be released as a single. The description of the video reads "interesting characters meet in a therapy session!"

On February 1, Mike and Chester were seen presenting new music during an iHeart Radio / Warner Bros. conference at the iHeartRadio Theater in Burbank, California.

Composition

It's confirmed that Linkin Park have collaborated with the following people on songs for the album:

• Justin Parker
• Jon Green
• Conner Youngblood
• Blackbear
• Andrew Goldstein
• Eg White
• Emily Wright
• Andrew Dawson
• RAC
• Corrin Roddick
• Kiiara

Below is a list of known working titles:

• Spirals
• All Our Days
• Hands Itch
• El Chopo
• Lost My Moment
• District 108 (feat. Conner Youngblood)
• Till The Walls Come Down
• Nobody Can Save Me (feat. Jon Green)
• Invisible (Mike Shinoda with Justin Parker)
• Keep Saying I'm Sorry
• Ricochet (Brian Howes)
• What Are You Worth (Brian Howes)
• Out Of Reach
• Sleepwalking
• Hands & Knees
• Spiderweb
• Can We Go Back
• This Sin Is My Home
• Staring Back
• Lost My Horizon
• Talking To Myself
• Fire Escape
• Can We Go Back II/The Future
• Rival I Can't Outrun
• Locked Outside
• Heavy
• Battle Symphony
• One More Light
• Friendly Fire
• Good Goodbye
• Halfway Right
• Painted Me Wrong

Releases

Personnel

Live Performance

Promotion

On February 1, 2017, the Linkin Park Global Ambassadors was launched with the objective of spreading Linkin Park news and connecting fans around the world. Three pictures were posted to Linkin Park's Instagram account on the following day: a completely black screen representing a TV turned off; a picture of Rob edited to resemble static on a TV; and a picture with TV color bars and Linkin Park's logo on the 13th bar, indicating the TV is tuned and something would be coming soon. The third picture was also uploaded to Instagram by the Linkin Park Global Ambassadors and many other people related to the band such as Joe Hahn, Mike Shinoda, Chester Bennington, Phoenix, Lorenzo Errico, Adam Ruehmer, Jim Digby, Christian Tachiera, Tobias Fance, Frank Maddocks, Tal Cooperman, and Warner Bros. Records' official account.

Starting on February 3, the band started releasing a series of 8 videos on their official website showing fans their process of creating songs for the album. The first video was a clip of Mike Shinoda playing piano while singing "Holding on. Why is everything so heavy. Holding On. There's so much we can carry" which was posted on linkinpark.com/o. With the release of each new video, a new letter was added to the URL.

The second video was released on February 6, featuring the band discussing the nature of the record. It was posted on linkinpark.com/on.

The third video was released on February 8, featuring the band working on lyrics for "Heavy" with Emily Wright. It was posted on linkinpark.com/one.

The fourth video was released on February 9, featuring Mike talking about trying "riskier" things on the album, whether it means a very strange idea or the poppiest thing that comes to mind. It was posted on linkinpark.com/onem.

The fifth video was released on February 10, featuring Rob Bourdon recording drums for "Heavy". It was posted on linkinpark.com/onemo.

Reception

Trivia

• At some point, in the period leading up to the album, Mike Shinoda helped Austin Carlile writing music for Of Mice & Men.

External Links

LPTV

• Studio Sounds (Good Problems)
• 360 Studio Tour with Mike
• A Message From Chester: Studio Update #7
• Studio Views
• Studio Moments: Bongo Band Jam
• Piano
• Honesty
• Lyrics
• Risks
• Drum Idea
• Female Vocal Idea
• Chester Vocals