Ep 21: Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park -- On Music, Creativity, Selling 60+ Million Albums

Mike Shinoda is best known as the rapper, principal songwriter, keyboardist, rhythm guitarist and one of the two vocalists of Linkin Park, which has sold more than 60 million albums worldwide and earned two Grammy Awards in the process. Mike has collaborated with everyone from Jay-Z to Depeche Mode, and he's also the lead rapper in his side project Fort Minor, which I'm a huge fan of. As if that's not enough, he's also provided artwork, production and mixing for all the projects that I just mentioned. The man is a beast... but did he start out that way? The answers might surprise you. This episode covers how he got started, advice for beginning musicians (or creatives/artists of any type), navigating "entertainment" and Hollywood, daily rituals, how he writes songs, how he and his band rehearse, and much more. Enjoy! Tim

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tim Ferriss?

  Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen around the world. Thank you for tuning into the Tim Ferriss Show. This episode is going to touch a lot on creativity, productivity, creating an identity for yourself, becoming a category of one, and we will explain what that means. But it's related to art and the art that is your life. So let's start with two quotes. The first is from Pablo Picasso, and it is, "Every child is an artist. The problem is staying an artist when you grow up." And secondly, "If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced." That is Vincent Van Gogh. Because most of you listening, a lot of you listening, will not identify or view yourselves as artists. And perhaps

• 0:45Tim Ferriss?

  after this podcast, you will think differently. But before we get to the guest, an incredible guest, a tip, and this is a pro tip. If you feel anxious, if you have some type of low-grade anxiety, start making your bed. I know this is a crazy recommendation. It might sound ridiculous. There is a gentleman named Danda Pani, and he is a Hindu priest. At one point, I was having a tremendous amount of anxiety, and he suggested, "Start making your bed." At the very least, when you then come back at the end of the day, or even throughout the day, you will have that one piece of your life that you are able to control completely, and it will seem orderly. It will seem as it should be. So this sounds nuts, but believe

• 1:29Tim Ferriss?

  me, the cascading effect can be pretty profound. If you have anxiety, at the very least, perhaps you should consider, "Start making your bed in the morning." Doesn't have to be fancy, it just has to look nice. Okay, moving on. Our guest, ladies and gentlemen, is Mike Shinoda. If you don't know that name, Mike is a musician, record producer, and an artist. He is perhaps best known as the rapper, principal songwriter, keyboardist, rhythm guitarist, it's a long list, and one of the two vocalists of the rock band Linkin Park, if you want to consider it rock band. If you don't know Linkin Park, they've sold more than 60 million albums worldwide and have won two Grammy Awards. Mike is also a solo rapper. If you would call it that, in his side project Fort Minor, which I love to death,

• 2:14Tim Ferriss?

  it's amazing, and the lyrics are incredible. He's also provided artwork, production, and mixing for all of the projects that I just mentioned. And he has collaborated with everyone from Jay-Z to Depeche Mode and everyone in between. It's a really incredible career. The story of how he got started, how they in some ways accidentally became the phenomenon that they are, is fascinating. And there are many different takeaways. We get into not just the broad philosophical underpinnings, but also advice for beginning musicians or artists of any type, parallels between music and publishing, and really any type of creation along those lines, some of his daily rituals, as well as, for instance,

• 2:58Tim Ferriss?

  how he and his band rehearse, how he song writes, all of these things. We really dig into it. So I hope you enjoy it. Certainly visit the sites in the show notes, and you can find all of those, including musicforrelief.org, which is a nonprofit founded by Linkin Park, and I've done work with them. They've raised millions of dollars for survivors of multiple natural disasters around the world. You'll find all these in the show notes. So if you want to see the transcript, the show notes, the links to all the resources that are mentioned, the books and so on, go to fourhourworkweek.com/podcast, all spelled out, fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. And this podcast is supported, as always, by you guys.

• 3:40Tim Ferriss?

  So please, if you enjoy this show, if you'd like me to do more of these shows, they take time, they also take some money, please visit fourhourworkweek.com/books, fourhourworkweek.com/books, where you will find the Tim Ferriss Book Club. These are a handful of books that have had a huge impact on my life, and if you click through, it'll take you to Amazon, and that kicks back a little penny here or there to keep this thing going. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy, and thank you for listening.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question?

• 4:18Speaker 02

  No, we're sitting in a proper time.

• 4:22Speaker 03

  I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.

• 4:32Tim Ferriss?

  Mike Schnota, thanks for coming on the show.

• 4:33Speaker 04

  Hey, thanks for having me, Tim.

• 4:35Tim Ferriss?

  It's been quite a few years since we first met, and I was very amused to see on your Wikipedia page that your bio shot is actually from Blog World Expo when we first met in, I guess, 2008 or so.

• 4:51Tim Ferriss?

  So I'm very glad that I was able to somehow indirectly contribute to your Wikipedia page.

• 4:57Speaker 04

  That's funny. I didn't know that's where it was from. That's amazing. I think that actually is a, like, a replacement of, I had said to the fans at one point that I hated my, the old picture that was there. I was like, you guys, seriously, this is like the worst picture of me. It was from like 2003, and I was in mid-sentence with my eyes half closed. Like, somebody had put it up there as, like, to kind of mess with me, I think, and it was horrible. And so I asked for, I said, somebody, please, like, find a great picture and replace it. And that's what I came up with.

• 5:28Tim Ferriss?

  That's, that's really funny. So actually, I'm gonna put out a call to action to my fans right now. I hate my Wikipedia photo. It is, it was taken of me at La Web, a speaking engagement in Paris, when I had pulled an all-nighter to get there and just look like Al Pacino after a bender. I mean, I look really, really rough. But we were initially put in contact through Aaron Ray, the Red Baron. So I just want to give him a nod and a thank you for that. But I have been continually impressed, as we've gotten to know each other, about how eclectic your skillset is and how you've come to contribute, not only to your own work, but to the work of so many other musicians and also done art installations. When somebody asks you, if they, assuming

• 6:13Tim Ferriss?

  they don't recognize you, what you do, how do you answer that question?

• 6:17Speaker 04

  I usually lie, first of all, because if they don't know what I do, then I tend to like to keep things pretty, you know, mellow and especially, you know, I live in LA and I live like on the border of, I live near Beverly Hills, but I think I'm technically in Beverly Hills, but I'm not also. So I tend to do, like, spend most of my time in more low-key, in the valley and stuff like that, where on the Beverly Hills side, you walk around, if you see paparazzi or you see somebody you recognize from People Magazine, that's not that surprising. But if that happens on the valley side, it's just a little bit more, I think people get a little more attention. So I tend to, I tend to like straight away from that.

• 6:59Speaker 04

  I did grow up, however, doing like the first, probably my first love was actually drawing and painting and I had always thought I was gonna grow up to do that. In fact, we started the band, I started the band as like a hobby after high school and I wasn't even very serious about it until midway through college. And in college, I was studying illustration at Art Center College of Design. It was a very, very serious school. It's a very rigorous curriculum and a lot of the folks from there go on to be really great, you know, designers in auto and graphic design, ad, film, and of course, illustration.

• 7:34Tim Ferriss?

  And you've done your own art installations. I remember seeing a number of them. There's one particular piece that maybe you can remind me the name of. There were two women, there was a figure with a skull head and it seemed to be composed of dollar signs.

• 7:48Speaker 04

  Oh, man, I did a whole series, I'm not sure exactly which one that is, but I did a whole series, a two-part show called Glorious Excess. And it was about, I was mostly inspired by the fact that I felt like I had a weird, a unique perspective on the idea of being a celebrity. We started our, I mean, I started the band as a hobby on the weekends with a friend of mine from high school and we, we never got into it with the intention of becoming a signed band or a popular band or anything like that. It was just like, we love to do this, where this is the kind of music that we want to hear and nobody's really making the specific, you know, combination of elements.

• 8:31Speaker 04

  And all of the things that followed, followed. And I found myself like one day looking at it and going, realizing that, you know, it never really occurred to me there would be people who would like fabricate a whole, I don't know, music career with the intention of becoming famous or becoming like rich.

• 8:50Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 8:50Speaker 04

  Because that wasn't on my radar at all when we started. We started it because we love music. It seemed like that's why you would start a band, right? And then eventually you're, you know, we're at the Grammys, we're at the MTV Awards, and there are people there who clearly are there because they love to be famous, they love to be celebrities and so on, even if they had gotten into it originally because they liked singing or whatever. But now they're clearly there for another reason. And this art show, as you were going back to the art show, I felt like I had, I'm sitting there in the middle of that, like literally just pulling out my phone and taking pictures and video and stuff and seeing this stuff in first person and just simply not relating to it.

• 9:29Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm. It's been a fascinating experience for me to look at different success stories and try to deconstruct the motivations and also their focus on process or outcome, right? And like you said, there's some people who are so focused on becoming famous or becoming rich. And of course, a very small percentage succeed at accomplishing that. And if that's the motivation, it would seem to me at least that they wouldn't actually enjoy the process of creating the music or the books or the art or whatever it is that they choose as a medium. And that's, I always found it sort of a juxtaposition to your experience. It seems like, and I've heard the story, you might be able to confirm or deny this, that you two, the band, started out and at least one of the members decided

• 10:12Tim Ferriss?

  we are going to be the biggest rock band in the world from the very outset. But it doesn't sound like that was, or is, the Linkin Park story. What were the tipping points for you guys? I mean, as the, as the band came together over time and you met people, not just in, in high school, but I guess you met Han at the, when you were studying art. Is that right?

• 10:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right. Well, I'd, I mean, it's a really interesting time to be talking about this kind of thing because we just put out a new album called The Hunting Party. And, and one of the inspirations behind The Hunting Party was rock right now is at a place where it's very indie, alt indie driven. It's like, everything is, if you compare it to 10 years ago or 15 years ago, it's very, it's a lot softer, it's a lot more dancey. There's not a lot of edginess to it or aggression, I feel.

• 11:04Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 11:05Speaker 04

  And so there was a day when I was listening to the radio and I couldn't hear any, find anything to listen to. And I was listening to all my music services. I just had a hard time finding something that I that that kind of filled that void for me. So again, it's like whenever we have that feeling, whenever I get that feeling, that's usually a time when I go into the studio and I start making whatever it is that I feel like I'm missing. And that's what the new album is was inspired by, but it's also what the first album and the original, you know, um, kind of idea of the band was inspired by. Along the way, I think not a lot has changed. We've as far as like the the philosophy of of what we're striving for. And it doesn't, you know, to your point, it doesn't really include like being the biggest because if we wanted to be like the biggest band in the universe, I think we wouldn't make an album like our new one.

• 11:50Speaker 04

  Our new one's very aggressive, very heavy. We knew going into it that we would be potentially hurting our chances at getting on, for example, getting on the radio. Right. And truth be told, the radio is a great way to promote your band and promote your album and so on. So if you know going into it, you're making something that's not going to be effective in promotion, like you're making a decision that is it's a creative decision, not like, for example, a career oriented or or well, maybe it is a career oriented decision, but it's not a money decision, right? Right. So going back, though, I think there were definitely points when we were getting started. We we met, we were all kind of friends from high school for the most part. Um, I knew Brad, I've known Brad, our guitarist, since we were out like 13. He was good friends

• 12:34Speaker 04

  with my best friend, Mark, who was the original singer in our band. Brad's roommate was our became our bass player, Dave. My friend from college became our DJ, Joe. Rob, our drummer, came from neighboring high school. And eventually Mark, our our other singer part, we parted ways because the the singing thing was just, you know, getting on stage like drove him crazy. He was getting like an ulcer. Oh, God. He was so nervous to go on stage. And and it turned out he was actually much more talented at like the behind the scenes stuff. He ended up managing bands. He currently manages bands like Alice in Chains and he managed Deftones and Cypress Hill at one point. So yeah, he's so that was what he was kind of made for. Once we parted ways with Mark, though, we found Chester through a mutual friend. And that was that was a moment where

• 13:16Speaker 04

  I only say that to say this. So he came into the band. We did a whole bunch more, you know, showcases and shows and tried to get signed and eventually got a little bit of interest. We got turned down by every label, indie and major there was. Mm hmm. But eventually we worked our way into Warner Brothers. We kind of convinced them that we could like. Do almost like a demo deal and make some stuff and if they like that they continue on and we we continue on with them.

• 13:39Tim Ferriss?

  Is a demo deal like a spec deal where you?

• 13:42Speaker 04

  Basically, yeah, it's like a spec kind of situation.

• 13:44Tim Ferriss?

  You create it.

• 13:44Speaker 04

  I mean, they'll put you in the studio and depending on how it's going, it's a development thing. It's something that they don't do a lot of anymore because they don't have the budget, I think. Like, everything's so tight now because sales, album sales are so much smaller than they used to be. They tend not to develop artists in this way anymore. But with us, to be honest, there wasn't a lot of, a ton of developing to do. We kind of were developing on our own. And in the midst of it, because of a complicated relationship of like the, the guy that had signed us with his boss and that person with their boss and they were all kind of new. Chester, our singer, was kind of new. So there was a lot of turmoil and they were trying to, they started to get nervous.

• 14:28Speaker 04

  They started imagining scenarios like, well, this band's popular and that band's popular. And they tell us things like, well, you guys need a gimmick. You need, um, we want to dress Joe in a lab coat and a cowboy hat. And Chester, you should like kick a shoe off at every, like, every, every show. Like, it was stupid, stupid record company stuff that almost sounds like something out of a movie, like Spinal Tap.

• 14:49Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 14:50Speaker 04

  But it was absolutely true and, and these were real suggestions. Like, if you went back, I, I imagine that you'd say them to somebody these days and they'd be like, oh, no, I was totally joking. I assure you, they were not joking. We were sitting in the room and they were literally ready to buy Joe a lab coat. And, and like beakers and put them in front of his turntables.

• 15:08Speaker 04

  So, yeah, so, so we got to that point and we were making the album and we were doing what we wanted to do and got about halfway there and they tried to like, you know, run away with the whole thing and change everything. They wanted to turn, you know, basically kick me out of the band. They're talking to Chester and, you know, telling him, you're the star, you need, we need to do it this way. And he's saying, but this is like Mike's band. And he's like, I've only been in the band for a few months. What do you want me to do? Like, this is, I think it's, I think it's great. And then we all talked as a band and basically stood up to these guys and said, "You can either, you know, shelf us," which effectively means they'd be putting us in record label limbo for the rest of our career. We'd never put out a record.

• 15:45Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 15:46Speaker 04

  Or they can just accept that this is who we are and let us make the album we wanted to make.

• 15:51Tim Ferriss?

  That's a ballsy move. I mean, it panned out, but like you said, the worst-case scenario in that particular case isn't that they say no and then you're able to walk off freely with everything that you had. I'd imagine at that point, like you said, you ran the risk of being prevented from doing things elsewhere if you walked. I don't know if you had any sort of contractual obligations at that point, but it's been very challenging for me working with television over the last year and producing episodes, having this division at Turner effectively get shut down and having the content stuck in this limbo space where you can't free it. It's just kind of in a holding pen. It's been super

• 16:32Tim Ferriss?

  challenging. When the record label realized that they had something that could be hot or that was becoming very hot, what were the indications? Did they take the music and present it to a test audience? Did they hear it internally and simply decide as a group that they liked the sound and therefore wanted to put some muscle behind it? What were the indications that got them excited?

• 16:57Speaker 04

  At that time especially, that was, our first album came out at a time when if we played a show, we would put out a mailing list at the merchandise table.

• 17:08Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 17:09Speaker 04

  We'd have a couple of, we'd have a shirt, our EP and some stickers and we'd put out a mailing list. "If you like the band, put your info down and we'll come back and we'll contact you. Maybe we'll send you some stuff. Maybe next time we play, we'll contact you." People didn't even have, 50% of the people signed up with their snail mail address because they didn't have email yet. So as you can imagine, like the MP3 wasn't a problem for record labels yet.

• 17:36Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  We signed at a time when they were operating in a very old-school manner. And it was, so when our album, rather our first single, "One Step Closer," came out, it was, you know, it's like a classic record label kind of attitude, like they... Throw it out there and see if it sticks and if they catch some, you know, some interest in it by the radio stations, then they they go a little harder and they go a little harder. It was that there's no testing per se. They just kind of, the only testing is like, we'll put it, you know, see if we can get the DJs and the programmers to put it on the air and then see who's like, what the response isn't called, whatever. The other thing is though, meanwhile, we were out touring really, really hard, playing maybe five shows a week, sometimes

• 18:21Speaker 04

  six. We were in an RV because we didn't, we would have been in a van. We didn't, we didn't fit in a van because there's six of us with our gear. We have a drum set and a DJ rig that was the size of a refrigerator. So we couldn't fit all of our stuff in a, in a van. And I was driving probably more than half the time. Um, you know, you get off stage, like you played, we may have played like 20 minutes, get off stage, clean up all of our stuff in a hurry, put it all in the trailer and then drive, would be driving, you know, half the night to get to the next venue. It was pretty, pretty rough, but you know, I know that we were boots on the ground, like talking to fans in person and, and, you

• 19:03Speaker 04

  know, managing our own, the presentation of who we are, the introduction, like this is what our band is about. We were doing that face to face with people.

• 19:11Tim Ferriss?

  Right. So you were able to sort of refine not only how you communicate that to fans, but I would imagine that helps you think through a lot of issues as well.

• 19:20Speaker 04

  Absolutely. There was a really funny story. Um, when we first signed the label, we told the guy that was representing us, we told him, hey, you know, can you get as many people as possible from, who might be working on our stuff. So mainly the rock department, but whoever at the label wants to come, we'd like to have a meeting at the, at their, you know, in their building and introduce ourselves. And he said, yeah, okay, I'll set that up. Keep in mind, we were about nineteen and we requested this meeting with whoever, everybody from the label. And they show up and they're roughly, they're like between twenty-five and like forty-five years old with like, you know, probably an average of fifteen to twenty, fifteen years

• 20:05Speaker 04

  of experience in the music industry, okay? And we go in, you know, looking the way we did in our first album, me with probably like red hair and Chester with the tattoos and like piercings in his lip and whatever. And we go in with an outline of what we are going to discuss with them, like, they're gonna come in and we're gonna tell them how to do, how to work our band. We're nineteen, let me tell you what we're about, let me tell you how it goes with Linkin Park.

• 20:36Tim Ferriss?

  The instruction, the instruction manual.

• 20:38Speaker 04

  It was so absurd, I couldn't believe, like in retrospect, I can't believe they didn't just kick us out of the building. I think that it was like humorous to some of them, that this band had the balls to just walk in and like tell them how to do their job. And clearly, we were way out of line, but at the same time, you know, I think they admired the attitude of the group. And by the way, they knew that we were very sincere about this deep connection that we were building with our, with our fans from day one.

• 21:07Tim Ferriss?

  How do you think about putting yourself in the shoes of, say, a new musician now? So you mentioned the, the lab coat shenanigans and people trying to, trying to get you to adopt a shtick. And I've dealt with a lot of large companies in a number of worlds. When large groups of those folks try to have creative meetings, they tend to sort of create a camel, which is, you know, a horse designed by committee, and it just ends up being ridiculous. And a lot of, I would imagine, a lot of people succumb to that and allow things to change to their band or their book or whatever that they really shouldn't. To someone coming up now, sort of like the, the actual Rose getting off the bus and welcome to the jungle, right? Someone who's very sincere about, let's say, their music, but who wants to have a commercially

• 21:51Tim Ferriss?

  viable career, what would, what would your advice to them be in this day and age?

• 21:55Speaker 04

  I would say, for one thing, you know, there are a lot of similarities, whether you're in, in any creative medium, whether you're an author or filmmaker or musician.

• 22:08Speaker 04

  There are going to be situations that are not the obvious ones where somebody comes in and literally wants to just like turn your thing into a, you know, commercial, obviously like, like watered down, commercial nightmare.

• 22:21Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 22:22Speaker 04

  But they're subtle, it's, it's really more about, those, those are easy to pinpoint and say, okay, that's absurd, like lab coats, lab coat, you know, scientist gimmick is absurd, no way.

• 22:32Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  But it's more about like, I think it's more about the subtle ones, you know? Because even if they're not trying to be manipulative, a lot of times your partners, their priorities and their, their goals are not completely aligned with yours, you know? And that doesn't mean they're bad. We had, it's taken us a long time to learn that, you know, as a band, because, you know, record labels get such a bad reputation as it is, just being sleazy, you know, corrupt organizations, and, you know, they, to some degree, they deserve that, and to some degree, they don't. You know, not everybody at a label is trying to scam all the artists.

• 23:09Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 23:10Speaker 04

  And sometimes they're doing what they genuinely think is best, and they just don't, it's not in line with what the artist thinks is best. So, that's, those are the things to look out for, because it can be very convincing, and it can be very subtle, and it could not, you know, be a grade A mistake, it could be like a minor level mistake, that over time, you know, 10 of those adds up to something catastrophic. So, for example, in a situation like, I think, we talked before about that with books, where an editor, like subtly, you'll, you'll be writing something, an editor might subtly change a few words, and then another pass, they subtly change a few more words, and change a few, and all of a sudden, you're looking at it, and you might go back and compare it

• 23:52Speaker 04

  to the, the draft before they ever got their hands on it, and you go, whoa, they completely changed the tone

• 23:58Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:58Speaker 04

  of my chapter, or my story, or what my point was, and so on, and it happens over time, and at that point, you've kind of committed to a thing, so that's

• 24:06Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, and not to digress too far, but the, I just brings to mind some of the lyrics from one of your Fort Minor songs, which is, you know, only doing print interviews via email. And that's not, of course, the, that's not verbatim, but I'm paraphrasing.

• 24:23Speaker 04

  Right.

• 24:23Tim Ferriss?

  Because the, dealing with journalists, it's amazing how just a single word replacement can change the entire tone. It can take you from saying something that could be interpreted as profound to completely absurd and stupid with, with one replacement. So yeah, you really have to have a fine tuned radar.

• 24:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, context is everything. I, I love to do print. I love to type my print interviews if it's possible. Luckily these days, I feel like with social media being as powerful as it is, you know, for you and I, you know, if we're in a situation where somebody prints something that they've edited or changed substantially, we can go out there to the fans and say, hey, you guys, this was not correct. And this is how it actually went down. This is how I feel, which has to happen once in a while. But, you know, it's, again, it's like, I don't feel like necessarily the people are being deceitful. It's just realizing that like, everybody's got their own agenda.

• 25:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 25:22Speaker 04

  And they have to, a magazine is not doing it, but like, even a music magazine is not interviewing you because they love music. Right? They, that's not necessarily, that's not their, their day to day is we need ad dollars, we need click through, like whatever it is that's going to get us that. And if you say, if you have a 40 word sentence that chopped down to seven is really titillating and interesting and will definitely make people click, but it has nothing to do with anything you ever, you said in your interview, it's just clickbait, they'll absolutely go for that.

• 25:54Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 25:55Speaker 04

  Because that's what their, that's what their business is built on.

• 25:57Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah. It's important when I'm talking to people just getting ready, or there's, they have something taking off. Usually it's a book. Coaching them on how to approach this stuff. But on the creative side of things, how has your songwriting process changed over time, if it has? And it, was it different, or is it different for, say, Linkin Park versus Fort Minor?

• 26:19Speaker 04

  Well, our, our process is, at the end of the day, it's pretty democratic, but it's rooted in individual inspiration and craftsmanship. So.

• 26:30Speaker 04

  When a song starts, usually, I usually start most of the songs. It will, sometimes it will be a very fleshed out bed of music. Sometimes it'll just be a chord progression on piano or guitar with some vocals on it. Those two things are very different from one another.

• 26:45Tim Ferriss?

  Could you explain, just as a non-musician, I'd love to hear why those are so different?

• 26:49Speaker 04

  So, first of all, just from the outside, if you don't know anything about recording music, it bears, you know, mentioning that there's lots of ways to make music and a lot of different genres. I'd say, first of all, a lot of different genres have different approaches kind of built in that are not similar to one another. So, for example, a producer in a rock, for a rock band, is a person that comes in. The rock band is writing all of the music and the lyrics. The producer's kind of helping them make decisions and help sculpt the sound of the album. And they all work together, but the musicians in the band are really making the song and the producer's kind of their coach.

• 27:26Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 27:27Speaker 04

  In hip-hop, a producer does the whole track, all of the music, probably makes the hook, the chorus, makes basically everything except for the rap verses. The rapper comes in and raps on it, and then the producer will make all the mixing and finishing choices as well. So, they do a lot more

• 27:43Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 27:44Speaker 04

  in that genre than rock. When we make an album, it generally takes about nine months from start to finish to make the album. In contrast, when we were making this most, when we were making The Hunting Party, next door to us was a world-renowned pop singer's session. And this person came in, their producers were there for a few days before they showed up. And this person showed up on day one, and they were there for about 15 minutes. On day two, they showed up for less than 15 minutes. And on day three, they neglected to show up at all, and the song was actually done. And I was talking to their people going like, "How is this even possible?" And they're like, "Oh, you know, it's like, we do this, we do that." And I'm just like, "This is crazy."

• 28:26Speaker 04

  You know, I don't even, as an art, as a songwriter, an artist, like, I definitely relate more to the producers on that track than the person who sings it, but... I don't, I don't even know if I'd be able to call myself an artist personally, if I was the one just showing up for, you know, say 25 minutes and the song was done. But also because that's, you know, my interest and my skill set and whatever, that's what I love to do. So with all that said, you know, I want to master as many versions of making a song as I can. So every time we go into the studio, I try different approaches. I've tried approaches that come from, you know, folk writing and rock and pop and hip hop and whatever. Like whatever, if it's something I haven't tried before that sounds interesting, I might take that approach.

• 29:10Tim Ferriss?

  And with, with say hip hop specifically, and again, I don't know any of these people personally, but you've collaborated with say Jay-Z and I'm curious in your particular approach, but much like the sort of U2 story, I've heard that Jay-Z is very famous for improvising. And at one point, just to appease some record executive, pretended to be taking notes, but was actually improvising lyrics in the studio. What is your approach with say hip hop specifically? How much of your time is spent writing beforehand versus improvising in the studio? And what does your writing process look like?

• 29:45Speaker 04

  So if it's on the shorter end, if a song just kind of like, let's say a song appears and it's just magically great and in a matter of a couple of weeks, it goes from the first notes played to something that just sounds awesome. Usually in those cases, it's because the melody and the melody of the music and the vocals have kind of arrived at the same time or similar time. In a rap song, my, off of the Fort Minor album, the song Where'd You Go? Came up that way. It was like I was playing the piano part. I sang the chorus. I said, that's, that's what the song is. I put a drum beat to it. I wrote the lyrics to it and it was done. It was really just a couple of weeks. Similarly, on a Linkin Park song called Breaking the Habit,

• 30:30Speaker 04

  that one was, I had like a beat looping and then I was playing keyboard over it. And it was like a string thing and I added some, I was singing vocals over it. And the whole chorus was there. The melody of the verse was there. And that was like within an hour, I knew there was something to that song. There are other songs that we've done where it takes a lot of work. I mean, over the course of nine months, they might, you know, Come closer to sounding done and then be, start to get boring or, you know, start to materialize and then fall apart once you add something. There was a, the new, our newest, we're about to put out a single called Final Masquerade. And Final Masquerade is a song that, early on, the chorus, the chords of the song,

• 31:14Speaker 04

  like the piano chords of the song, and the vocal were there from an early point. And I, and I knew, listening to the chorus of the song and the progression in the verse, that song is gonna be really good. I really liked it. At the time, though, we were deciding the arrangement of the song, which means like, what other, what do the other instruments play? What other instruments are on it? And one of the main things that was a make or break element was the drum pattern. At the time when I wrote it, there were no drums. And so I kept, I kept putting different things over. I put programmed loops, I'd write live loops. I kept trying all these things on it, faster and slower tempos and all this stuff. And it just, every time I put something on, I could just tell it was kinda ruining the song.

• 31:59Speaker 04

  It just wasn't very good. It was like a B or a B plus. And I knew the song had potential to be really great. So, it did take us a long time to just stumble upon the right thing. And it was the time when I was in the studio with our drummer, Rob, and I had already kinda picked a tempo and I'd said, what if we do like a halftime, kind of, almost like a more of a hip hop or classic rock, like groove, drum loop type of thing? And I don't remember what the reference points might have been or whatever, but the main thing was that, we just, you know, Rob, I said, just play, and as you play, I'm gonna like, give you, you know, suggestions about where the hits might be or whatever. And it immediately started coming together. It was like, within a few minutes, you could tell, like, this is, this is the best groove for this song.

• 32:42Speaker 04

  It's totally making the song better.

• 32:45Tim Ferriss?

  What activities outside of music have had the greatest positive impact on your music? They're not directly musically related. And that's, I'll leave that broad, but I'm just, any activities, books, inspirations?

• 32:59Speaker 04

  Well, you know, I mean, you know, from our conversations that I love experimenting with, you know, new toys, new technology. I love reading. I tend not to read a lot of fiction. I've read your books. I love books like The Tipping Point and Blink, et cetera, as well. One book that I read that speaks to this, the answer to this question, is a book called Category of One by Joe Callaway, and it's about, you know, finding ways to make what you do stand out.

• 33:31Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, got it.

• 33:32Speaker 04

  It's a really nice, it's a really nice book. There's a lot of great information in there. And one of the things that he stresses is to benchmark what you do, not against your immediate peers or your immediate competition even in your category, but compare it to things that have nothing to do with your thing. It doesn't, if you're a music maker, there's no reason you shouldn't say, "Well, can I get great ideas from people who make cars?" People who make shoes, people who make apps, people who make, you know, cooking utensils, whatever it may be. You could have a great idea based on something that's so foreign to your thing. So with that said, like, I've been getting into things that really excite me, but I don't know what,

• 34:17Speaker 04

  how they might, you know, inform what I do. It may be musical, it may be kind of like the visual aspect of how we present our music, but I love 3D printing. And I most recently got into, I just got-

• 34:29Tim Ferriss?

  You said free printing?

• 34:30Speaker 04

  3D.

• 34:31Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, 3D printing, got it.

• 34:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, 3D printing.

• 34:33Tim Ferriss?

  Fascinating stuff, yeah.

• 34:35Speaker 04

  And I most recently, my wife actually got me, for our anniversary, she got me like a camera, camera drone, quadcopter. It's by DJI, it's called a Phantom Vision Plus. And I've been playing with that lately. And that one's actually really, the connection for me is just really easy. It's like, I love, first of all, it's just really relaxing to do, but second, I'm filming stuff with this drone and I film like, I'll film our rehearsals or I'll film stuff as we travel and stuff. And that stuff is just really, it's just fun to do.

• 35:06Tim Ferriss?

  You've constantly experimented with technology. That's part of the reason that we bonded and I thought that Blog Rolled Expo would be fun when we initially met. One thing that is constantly on my mind is related to sort of routines and habits of people who are highly effective. And you are, I guess, right now as we speak, getting ready to, is it rehearse or record?

• 35:27Speaker 04

  We're rehearsing right now. We are going out on a US tour with 30 Seconds to Mars and AFI. It's called the Carnivores Tour and we'll be out from August to September, about six weeks.

• 35:39Tim Ferriss?

  Got it. So as we speak, it's about noon where you are. What have you found for yourself? What can you do to facilitate flow or sort of peak performance for yourself? Whether that's timing-wise, routines or rituals that you have? What have you discovered personally?

• 35:58Speaker 04

  One thing that I, and I believe that, by the way, kudos to you, because one of the ideas from, I think it was from the Four Hour Work Week, that occurred to me, I don't know if it was because it was literally in the book or just the book kind of inspired this thought, just in a broad sense, looking at the things that you do every day that actually are making you better, whatever that might mean, and the things that you need versus the things you don't really need. That could be in your, the way you handle your emails, it could be the things that you choose to read up on, on your computer or iPad or whatever, before you, you know, when you're not working, your workflow during, while you're working, or even

• 36:42Speaker 04

  like the things you choose to do when you're not. Like, is it making you, the way you eat, is that affecting how you, you know, feel during the day to do your work or your creative stuff or have fun and all of that? I mean, I find that for myself personally, I don't watch, I barely watch any TV. I watch almost no TV. I do love movies. I love going out to movies. I find it a more like inspiring and rewarding experience than television. For some reason, a lot of TV, you know, barring the like more series-based stuff, like I love Netflix as well and I love like House of Cards, for the same reason I love going to films, you know? And I stay away from, I'm not getting anything out of

• 37:26Speaker 04

  Cooking shows and like singing competitions and crap like that, like this, especially the the reality shows, like really, I feel like I've totally wasted my, my time at the end of watching one or two of those. So that's like something for me that I just like, I started just removing from my, my schedule.

• 37:45Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely.

• 37:46Speaker 04

  Well, another thing that I always tell my wife, that she's really, she's really working on, and I, I think a lot of us have a tendency to like, want to respond to every email.

• 37:56Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 37:56Speaker 04

  And expect responses from every email. And that's just unnecessary, I feel. Everyone I work with, all my friends know that given the opportunity to not respond to an email, I will take it. I will delete it. If the answer is yes, cool, I would sooner delete the email.

• 38:15Tim Ferriss?

  If your answer is gonna be yes, cool.

• 38:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, if it's gonna be okay, or I hear you, or whatever. Let's assume I got this email and we're good. I don't, unless I have something to say, you know.

• 38:26Tim Ferriss?

  Right substantive, substantive response.

• 38:28Speaker 04

  If it's substantive, I will respond. If it is substantive, I will usually spend, if it, if I really feel like I have something to offer, my emails will be, you know, they tend to be a little longer. They tend to have a lot of information in them. So you'll either get no email or you'll get something a little longer.

• 38:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I, I do that because I, I don't like to have like 150 emails in my inbox. And I also don't think, like every time you send an email out, I mean, I've seen, you know, we've all seen threads where you've got five people on the, on the email and all of them are responding, okay, cool. Yeah, great. See you then. It's like, I don't want 15 emails saying, okay, cool.

• 39:07Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's stressful. It's very stressful. Now, the, the rehearsal itself that you're gonna be going into, what have you arrived at as your format for rehearsing? What does that look like? What's the template?

• 39:21Speaker 04

  Every band will be, every artist is totally different when it comes to rehearsing. I've heard that some groups just get together and they just jam and just play whatever. What do you guys do? Artists is the opposite. We, as you could probably imagine, um, we actually, because we have six guys in the band and everybody's pretty much got, you know, families and other stuff going on. We set up rehearsals in a way that you, we start with just the most basic people who are needed on certain tracks. So let's say we're, right now, we're practicing up two new songs for this upcoming tour that we haven't played in front of people before. And we'll start those, the first day of rehearsal would be with just maybe our guitarist and I

• 40:05Speaker 04

  and our bassist and our drummer. It might just be the four of us. And then, then we'll add Joe, our DJ, and then we'll add Chester. There's no reason for Chester to come in and sing if the music's not tight. Right. So Chester gets a day or even two days off from rehearsal because of that. It's, it's rougher on, you know, especially like the instrumentalists, it's more time, but in the big picture, it's all a wash because, you know, while Chester isn't in here rehearsing on these days, he's always, he and I are always requested when it comes to interviews. Right. You know what I mean? So, so there's a balance, a nice balance of things. You know, whenever somebody's not totally needed for something, we, we kind of remove them from the situation. And, um, also just to, just for, for anybody, for the techie people listening,

• 40:49Speaker 04

  one of the things we do that to make those rehearsals extra focused, we actually have everything tracked out, all of the instrumentals from the studio recordings in the computer. And we play, we'll unmute anybody who's not there. So if Chester's not here, his voice will actually still be coming through the speakers because it's coming off the, out of the computer. So we use those strictly as practice tracks and then of course, we don't use them live. But we have those around so that we know, you know, and we can reference them too. Like, oh, hey, you know, Brad, I think that this note, this transition between the verse and the chorus is actually these notes. And we can listen to the album version and say, oh yeah, that is what I played. Um, and then, you know.

• 41:32Speaker 04

  Mike is wrong, or Mike is right, or whatever it may be. And yeah, so that's, that's actually a part of our, not only our, our, the way we rehearse, but the way we, we just operate on stage. As technology has gotten, as music, performance technology has gotten more advanced, it's actually allowed us to be a better live band.

• 41:53Tim Ferriss?

  That's cool. Yeah, exactly. Where technology can augment and not necessarily replace performances. I think that's something that's often overlooked. Just for my own personal curiosity, what software do you use for that type of tracking?

• 42:08Speaker 04

  We use a ton of different things on stage. The main thing that I was talking about, about like the performance stuff is in Ableton Live. Ableton's great because you can actually, let's say, if you imagine like in your iTunes library or whatever, you've got a track and you can play it, fast forwarding, wind. Ableton, you actually can throw it in, you can slow it down, speed it up, pitch it, if you wanted to modulate the pitch. You can mash it up with other things and so on. So, you know, if we, on some of the tracks, like we have a song called Guilty All The Same, and when we first started playing it, we wanted to practice it slower, so that we could get tight and then move, get it faster and faster. So we, we actually just turned, turned the tempo down a little bit in the computer, played back slowly.

• 42:52Speaker 04

  And, and you know, 10 years ago, this would have been impossible, or it would have at least taken hours for the computer to process that information, and then you could do it. Now you do it like on the fly.

• 43:04Tim Ferriss?

  Right, instantaneously.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  You could do it, in fact, you could do it as you're playing. If you wanted to hit a certain spot and then slow down, you can do that. You can loop spots, you know, if you want to practice one spot over and over. We actually have a part during the set. We do run some stuff, some backing tracks when we play. We try to be careful about that because we always want to be a live band first. It's not a scenario where I think everybody, when they hear stuff like that, it's like you're wondering, are there vocals in the track and whatever? We try and stay away from all that. Generally, it's like percussive stuff and like beat loops and things like that. Again, 10 years ago, if we were doing that, if we were playing a song on stage and we had that running, if you got offbeat, you'd be screwed. If you wanted to extend a part, you couldn't do it. If you wanted to slow down, you couldn't do it. Now, we can do all of those things on the fly.

• 43:50Speaker 04

  If I walk, if I, you know, decide, hey, let's get to this guitar solo, let's play, let's have Brad play twice as long, let's have him play five times as long. Any night of the week, any show, we can do that.

• 43:59Tim Ferriss?

  The Ableton rings a bell, and I could be mistaken, and I'll double check this for people in the show notes, but I think that is also the software that Ira Glass, host of This American Life, uses when he's doing live speeches because he wants to recreate the feeling of one of his shows. And so he'll have an iPad up, and he'll actually call up different types of quotes and so forth. Very cool.

• 44:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's pretty amazing stuff. That's not the only thing we use. I mean, just so that it's clear, like, when I have a keyboard rig, and mine is software-based, I'm using a bunch of stuff by Native Instruments, I'm using stuff by other makers. Joe is actually running his completely off of a Windows tablet, believe it or not. His whole rig with the turntables and everything is actually, the brain of that is actually a Windows tablet. It's a Surface.

• 44:47Tim Ferriss?

  Wow, that's so cool. I love it. I tell you what, I want to be cognizant of your time, and I know you have to practice, so I'd love to just do perhaps a couple of rapid-fire questions, if that works for you, and then I'll let you get to making your music. So the first question is, you mentioned movies. What are some of your favorite movies of all time? And that could include documentaries, non-documentaries, totally up to you.

• 45:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, I love, I think, growing up, I was really into the, like, some darker stuff, but usually kind of plot-driven. I always loved the Godfather movies. I loved The Usual Suspects. I loved Fight Club and Seven.

• 45:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  I actually saw Fight Club the other day, and I haven't seen it in a number of years, and it's still such a great, like, the story, the writing is just so great. Yeah, and then on the other side, like, being an illustrator, I was into anime, like, I loved Akira, and I actually love a bunch of the Disney films. Wally is awesome. I mean, one thing that always struck me about that is it's like, you've got a movie that's more than half, basically, just score and visuals with no dialogue.

• 45:52Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, it's amazing.

• 45:53Speaker 04

  Incredible, an incredible feat.

• 45:55Tim Ferriss?

  I've been researching screenplays recently and working on them myself. And one of the recommendations I heard was you should be able to turn off the sound and follow the movie. Of course, Wally is a perfect example of that. So even in a foreign film, you should be able to follow the plot or a lot of the major plot points, turning off the sound. Pixar's amazing with stories. I'm actually hoping to have the president of Pixar on this podcast as well to dig into the stories because I think it's so systematic and amazing how they approach that. Have you seen Ninja Scroll before?

• 46:23Speaker 04

  I have.

• 46:24Tim Ferriss?

  I used to be so into Ninja Scroll. Let's just decide.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  Ninja Scroll's amazing, yeah. We actually, I think that our DJ, Joe, who he's, Joe has directed most of our videos. And he actually just directed a movie called Mall, which is coming out soon on, I think Paragon was the company that picked it up. And he just debuted it this last week, so it's coming pretty, hopefully pretty soon.

• 46:45Tim Ferriss?

  M A U, M A U L?

• 46:47Speaker 04

  No, it's M A L L.

• 46:48Tim Ferriss?

  M A L L.

• 46:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's about a bunch of suburban kids. They're all kind of dysfunctional to some degree. It's a very, it's, it's an indie film in every respect and it's, these kids are very awkward, all for different reasons. And basically they're at the mall doing their thing and there's a, there's another kid who comes in and opens fire in the mall and shooting people and stuff. So it's a really interesting, you know, uncomfortable and interesting film. I had a lot of fun, you know, doing, we did some score to it. But actually going back to the Ninja Scroll thing and all that, Joe is Princess Mononoke.

• 47:24Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, fantastic film.

• 47:25Speaker 04

  Ninja Scroll, like he, a lot of those types of movies, those movies in particular actually have worked their way into some of his work in the past.

• 47:32Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, no kidding.

• 47:33Speaker 04

  In fact, I, in fact, like Princess Mononoke is one of the, one of the main inspirations behind our video for In the End.

• 47:39Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, that's amazing. I didn't know that. Princess Mononoke is, for those people wondering, you should watch every movie made by Miyazaki Hayao, or I guess in English, Hayao Miyazaki. And if you ever go to Tokyo, go to the Ghibli Museum, which is the Ghibli Studios Museum in the middle of Inokashira Park, which is just amazing.

• 47:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:00Tim Ferriss?

  What is your favorite book or the book that you've given most as a gift to other people?

• 48:06Speaker 04

  Given most as a gift? Wow. I think when The Tipping Point came out, I gave that book to a lot of people. I know that Category of One was another one that was really, that I did pass around a lot. Or most of the guys in the band read Blink as well.

• 48:22Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, some fascinating, especially The Tipping Point really kind of put him on the map as an independent book writer.

• 48:29Speaker 04

  And I do talk about, I do talk about Four Hour Work Week quite a bit, Tim.

• 48:34Tim Ferriss?

  Well, I appreciate that. So thank you for that.

• 48:37Speaker 04

  And I would also feel remiss if I didn't mention my wife's book, by the way.

• 48:41Tim Ferriss?

  Of course.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  Which is, although I'm not a big fiction reader, she wrote an amazing book called Learning Not to Drown, which is about a young girl whose brother is in and out of prison. It was inspired by my wife's actual, you know, family growing up, but it is fiction. It's not a memoir. It's about this girl whose brother's, you know, actions effectively like devour her entire, you know, social and family life. And she's forced to make decisions about who she is and what she's going to do, you know, as she finishes high school and leaves the nest. Did you read, did she give one to you?

• 49:17Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, no, no, she did. And I read fiction before bed as a way of turning off my problem solving machine in my head that tends to keep me awake. So I'd recommend people check it out for sure. And I'll link to that in the show notes as well.

• 49:31Speaker 04

  Oh, great. Thank you.

• 49:32Tim Ferriss?

  So people can get a direct link. When you hear the word successful, who's the first person who comes to mind?

• 49:38Speaker 04

  Successful? Gosh. I think of Rick Rubin for some reason. I think that there's something about Rick that, we've worked with Rick on a number of albums. And he taught me a lot about songwriting and producing, but also, you know, just life lessons. He grew up practicing transcendental meditation. And although I haven't really, I've went to this woman, this teacher that he recommended, and I tried it out a little bit. And it stuck and it didn't stick. Like, some people do it every day. I do not. But meditation and just like focusing inward and turning off all the noise.

• 50:22Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:23Speaker 04

  Is something I do believe in, like especially if you're finding that you're tightly wound at any moment or in general.

• 50:31Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:31Speaker 04

  You know, it's a nice way to just get yourself focused and I feel like I make better decisions and I'm more effective.

• 50:37Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely.

• 50:38Speaker 04

  When I'm I have a clear head and I'm fresher.

• 50:41Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, you know, it's, I don't think I've ever mentioned this before, but Rick, for those people who don't know, incredible music producer, you're gonna look up his discography on Wikipedia, but first came across his name actually on the Notes Inside a Slayer album when I was just a little youngster. But he's also, for those people who've seen the 99 Problems video, he's the guy with the big beard in the car. Rick is actually one of two people responsible for getting me involved in meditation regularly in the last few years. Chase Jarvis, a very world-class photographer and Rick are both the people kind of responsible for introing me to meditation and TM in particular. Very cool. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

• 51:24Speaker 04

  I guess the first thing that comes to mind, something that I work on, is not expecting other people to do things the way I would do them.

• 51:34Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 51:35Speaker 04

  Or, you know, not holding like my opinion and my way of doing things, even like for you, for you and I, being people that try, like spend a lot of time trying to be very effective and by the way, balancing that with things that we love to do as a part of being well-rounded and whatever. And you know, sometimes you hear things from other people and you go, well, why are they, that's so stupid, why would they do it that way? It's like so backwards and whatever and you feel like you want to tell them. I mean, it would get to be very preachy, it's not, I feel like my, to do right by my friends and family and whatever, that it's good to just remember that everybody just kind of, you know, to give everybody room to do their own thing, their own way.

• 52:20Speaker 04

  And what I choose to do is, is my decision.

• 52:23Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, for sure. That's something that I'm.

• 52:25Speaker 04

  It's a hard one, right?

• 52:26Tim Ferriss?

  It's a tough one.

• 52:27Speaker 04

  I still, I still do that. I find like, and one of the things, this is actually a funny one that my friends and I talk about, is like, first of all, just like simple, simple things like expecting people to work harder on stuff.

• 52:37Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:38Speaker 04

  Because I would, like that's, that's not, that's not very nice. The other thing that's funny is spelling.

• 52:44Tim Ferriss?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:45Speaker 04

  In emails. When I guess, like I said, I'm gonna, if I'm gonna write an email, I'm going to probably, unless it's like benign, I'm gonna write, I'm gonna like write it, I'm gonna edit it, I'm gonna look at it, and there's spell check and all this stuff. And when I get emails where people are just clearly, you know, punching numbers on a phone, or punching letters on a phone, and it's, it's a mess, there's a part of my brain, maybe it's because my mom was a stenographer. There's a part of me, then my brain, that's just like, ugh, like what an idiot.

• 53:14Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah.

• 53:14Speaker 04

  And I go, no, that's not nice.

• 53:18Tim Ferriss?

  Yeah, it's, it's so true, it's, it's a real pet peeve of mine as well. So to all those folks who are emailing people you want to get a response from, take the time, because not everyone's sensitive to it, but I'm very sensitive to it. And I suppose that's just a byproduct of, of writing and editing all the time. But yeah, take the extra 10 seconds to look at anything that's under, underlined as a misspelling.

• 53:42Tim Ferriss?

  What is your most frequently played music right now on, on your phone or otherwise? Not, that you haven't recorded yourself?

• 53:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, I, I don't listen to my stuff a lot unless I'm like, you know, practicing something or trying to, you know, we have some activity that requires getting into our stuff. I am listening, there's two playlists I have, and they're both actually in my, I'm on Spotify and on Beats under my name, so if you want to check out some of the stuff I'm listening to, there's a lot more than this. One batch of music that I'm listening a lot to is, is some heavier rock stuff, which, you know, Tim, you're a fan of.

• 54:16Tim Ferriss?

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:16Speaker 04

  The, uh, there's not a lot, I feel like right now, you know, this was part of the inspiration for our new album, was that there is not a lot of super exciting, brand new, cutting edge, aggressive music out there. And I do have a playlist of some stuff, which includes a band that Frank Turner, who's like a folk singer, did a hardcore band called Mongol Horde. Which is amazing, such a good album. Uh, it came out a few months ago. Uh, there's a band called Doom Riders, there's a band called Royal Blood. Judging by the name, you'd think these things are like really, really heavy metal stuff, and they're not. There's, there's a lot of melody, um, in some of the songs, and it's just, you know, really great, you know, energetic music.

• 55:00Tim Ferriss?

  Awesome. All right, last question. If you could go back in time and give some advice to your 20-year-old self, what would it be?

• 55:08Speaker 04

  20-year-old self? How old am I? Buy Apple? I don't know. There's probably, aside from anything, like cheat the system.

• 55:23Tim Ferriss?

  Back to the future style.

• 55:25Speaker 04

  Right, yeah. There's definitely, over the course of our, I think it comes back to some, one of the things that we talked about earlier, which is just, you know, it's so important to stick with your gut. And if some voice inside you tells you that something is the right thing to do, the right way to go about something, or the right thing to make, pay attention, you know? I've gotten to know Todd Wagner a little bit. And he told me that when he started investing in a company or a group of people, he always asks them, two of the questions he always asks are, would you be willing to quit your job for this idea? And would you be willing to put all of your own money behind this idea? And those are questions designed to say, like, do you really

• 56:10Speaker 04

  believe in yourself? Do you believe in your thing enough? Is this an idea for you? Or is this an idea because you think someone else will like it?

• 56:17Tim Ferriss?

  Right.

• 56:18Speaker 04

  And if you believe in it to the point where you put yourself on the line, then that's a good measure of how important it is to you and how much you believe in it.

• 56:26Tim Ferriss?

  Definitely. It's so true. I mean, just for those people listening, at least for me also, if you scratch your own itch and create something for yourself, the thing that you've been looking for, you'll always have an audience of one. And that's more than I can say for a lot of folks who kind of focus on the outcome and miss that. Because you'll have to live with whatever you put out, if you put something out. Mike, this has been a blast. Where can people find out more about you, what you're up to, and so on?

• 56:56Speaker 04

  Lincoln Park is obviously on lincolnpark.com. It's L-I-N-K-I-N-P-A-R-K.com. Any social media, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, whatever, we are available under the same name. I am Mike Shinoda.com. And you can find me under that name on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook as well.

• 57:15Tim Ferriss?

  Beautiful. Mike, I'll let you get to your music. But keep putting out great stuff, and look forward to hanging again soon, hopefully, next time I'm in down south in LA.

• 57:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, thanks, man.

• 57:25Tim Ferriss?

  Cool. Awesome. Thanks, buddy. I'll let you get to it. I really appreciate it.

• 57:33Speaker 05

  If you want more of The Tim Ferriss Show, you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or go to fourhourblog.com.

• 57:38Speaker 02

  F-O-U-R-H-O-U-R-B-L-O-G dot com.

• 57:42Speaker 05

  Where you'll find an award-winning blog, tons of audio and video interview stories with people like Warren Buffett and Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park, the books, plus much, much more. Follow Tim on Twitter. It's twitter.com/TFerriss.

• 57:55Speaker 02

  That's T-F-E-R-R-I-S-S.

• 57:57Speaker 05

  Or on Facebook at facebook.com/TimFerriss. Until next time, thanks for listening.