Sichuan Online News (Reporter Li Ting) A year ago, in the "RIP" and surprise of a large number of fans around the world, Chester Bennington, the lead singer of the American rock band "Lincoln Park", committed suicide in his home in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 41. On August 1, Mike Shinda, a member of the "Lincoln Park" orchestra who is about to embark on a solo tour in Chengdu, was interviewed by reporters about death, music and Sichuan in his eyes.
Keyword 1: Death trauma
It is inevitable to talk about Chester Bennington
Almost every time he was interviewed by the media, Mike Shinda inevitably talked about his partner, Chester Bennington, over and over again about the process of grief and getting out of it. Mike Shinda recalls that in the weeks after Chester's death, he closed his doors like he had claustrophobia.
However, on the eighth day, he forced himself into the studio to start making music, and half the time the lights went out and he floated in a surreal feeling. He grabbed his phone and recorded "Place to Start" in the tone of talking to people on the phone, and the most honest lyric was: "Feel like you are living in a story that has been written long ago / Am I a landscape created by someone else?"
Last October, the band's remaining members gave a commemorative performance at the Hollywood Bowl, the band's first and only performance since Chester's death. The performance was difficult, and Shinda wrote another song called "Over Again" in between the performances, using his familiar pop + rap recipe to nail the pull that could not say goodbye into a black word.
For him, Nobuta said, art (including painting, music, etc.) is a useful healing tool. When he was creating, he just sat down, scribbled, and didn't even write songs very seriously, but this kind of meditation helped him to reflect and gave him time to explore his heart and some of the problems that were happening. "For some people who are going through difficult times, even if they are not artists or musicians, I will recommend this treatment to them. Just doing these things is very healing in itself. ”
Keyword 2: music creation
The new album Post Traumatic is like a diary
After slowly returning to professional thinking, Mike Shinda first released a three-single EP "Post Traumatic", which tells about the tension between himself on the verge of collapse and the noisy outside world. On June 15 this year, Shinda handed over a full-length album of 16 songs and launched a performance in China, which was roundabout and sad.
Speaking about the creative process of Post Traumatic, Mike Shinda made an analogy: "Like a diary." "This autobiographical-like album chronicles what happened to Mike Shinda last year. Nobuta says that he tells the whole story with lyrics, some songs make the rhythm and track of the beginning, and some songs start with piano or human voices, and he tries a variety of songs. The aim is to record all the different moments that took place during the year. "Because every day, every moment, I feel very different, so when I was making this album, I tried to finish a song in a day or two."
Shinda said the process of writing this album was very different from when he was in Lincoln Park, when he was doing band music, he often wrote a little, then two or three days later, a week or a month later, and slowly added until the final product came out. This time, in order to avoid the musical ideas that often changed in his fast-paced life last year, he did not "repeatedly revise" the song when composing the song, retaining the most authentic emotions and thoughts at that time.
For example, one of the songs, "Place to start", was actually written by Nobuta when he was on his seventh album "ONE MORE LIGHT" in Lincoln Park, but it has never been completed. When he faced the song again, he found that he liked the soundtrack and words in it. So I just reworked it once, changed the track and lyrics a little bit, as the first song of the whole album, like the beginning of a diary. "Because when I listen to it again, I have a lot of questions and ideas that have been answered, and the way I see things has changed."
Keyword 3: The Edge of Sichuan
He donated the proceeds from the concert to the Wenchuan earthquake-stricken area
In fact, Lincoln Park has not come to China for the first time, has been to Beijing, Shanghai and other places, has a large number of hardcore fans in China, representing some people's rock enlightenment memories. Shinda revealed that before coming to Asia, he opened two shows in Los Angeles, then opened one in a small nightclub in New York, and then went to Philadelphia. Shinda made some differences between the Asian field and the European and American venues, the performance time will be longer, the stage will be larger, and these effects will be presented in Chengdu on the evening of August 16.
But Lincoln Park was associated with Sichuan as early as 2008. Also facing a "traumatic memory", in 2008, Lincoln Park funded the proceeds from concerts in Beijing and Shanghai to the Wenchuan earthquake-stricken areas in Sichuan. Speaking about the matter, McShintian said: "Although it has been ten years, I remember it very clearly. Shinda recalls that the charitable organization that was doing MUSIC FOR RELIEF at that time was established with the intention of helping people affected by natural disasters and bringing them some comfort. Therefore, he hoped that this organization could help and do a small job.
Today, Shinda looks at death more calmly in the face of life, "In fact, Latin culture celebrates death, and they embrace death as a fact. The celebration of death becomes a part of life, and it can be warm. Death is unavoidable, but it is also a mixture of joy and sorrow. I didn't want to run away from it, I preferred to run towards it. Maybe we should discuss this more honestly. Photo courtesy of Yongle Performing Arts