(photo: Jim Rinaldi)
Long in the making, Linkin Park will release Minutes To Midnight, their first album since 2003's Meteora, on May 15. Co-produced by band member Mike Shinoda and Rick Rubin, the first single off Minutes To Midnight is "What I've Done," and will arrive on April 2.
"We have put more into the new album than anything we have ever done before," says bassist Dave "Phoenix" Farrell.
The band spent over 14 months in the studio and wrote more than 100 song demos leading up to Minutes To Midnight. Vocalist/producer Mike Shinoda says the record is "a breakthrough in the development of the band's sound. We wrote in new ways, and used instruments and equipment we hadn't experimented with before, from vintage guitars and amps to mellotron to Rick's original 808 drum machine he used on the Beastie Boys' first record.
We tried to question every step in our songwriting process." Rubin adds, "They really are reinventing themselves, it doesn't sound like Rap/Rock. There's very strong songwriting.
It's very melodic...
a progressive record."
Singer Chester Bennington tells MTV.com that the album title refers to the Doomsday Clock, "which was created by these scientists at the University of Chicago after the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan to end World War II.
After WWII, when the Soviet Union tested their first bomb, the Doomsday Clock was set. It basically has hands from the 45-minute mark until midnight ..
. and at 45 past the hour, it means the world is relatively stable, but since we have this [nuclear] power, we're always just 15 minutes away from the end of the world," he continued. "And when the U.
S. and the Soviet Union were involved in their nuclear standoff in the 1960s, the clock was set at three minutes to midnight. And it's moved back and forth about 18 times since its inception.
Right now we're at [five] minutes until midnight."
Bennington adds that "What I've Done" is "in a way, it's us saying goodbye to how we used to be. The lyrics in the first verse are 'In this farewell, there is no blood, there is no alibi,' and right away, you'll notice that the band sounds different: The drums are much more raw, the guitars are more raw and the vocals aren't tripled.
It's just us out there ...
and that's how Rick wanted it. Basically he told us, 'If it sounds like it could've been on the first two records, then we're not going to work on it.' "
The band will launch LPTV on their official Web site, an ongoing series of previously unreleased footage of the group leading up to the making of the new album.
Linkin Park will headline the second day of the Bamboozle Festival in New Jersey on May 6, then head out on a June tour of Europe. In April, they will announce a massive North American summer tour that Shinoda says will have "an unmissable lineup. I know that's not a word, but this tour is worth making up words for.
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