Mike Shinoda Quotes

I do my best to try and just do interviews via email because I`ve had so many experiences where people have kind of minced my words. I just want an accountability on the other person`s end for taking down what I`m saying accurately. I`m careful with my words and to kind of assume that I meant something similar to what I said isn`t really fair.

I am playing every instrument on there, but it`s not really about me. I`m featuring a lot of great MCs that are friends of mine. I want to work with people that I`m friends with, that I get along with. I`m not just going to go out there and grab whoever`s hot at the moment. I want to connect with people I see eye-to-eye with, and make great music. Like I said, it`s not really about me. (about his hiphop sideproject, Fort Minor)

I just helped score this year`s MTV VMA`s. Those beats, and the fact that people are starting to hear Fort Minor music, has gotten me a lot of calls to produce songs for people. I did a track on Lupe Fiasco`s upcoming album, songs for Styles of Beyond, and worked with Chad from The Neptunes on a song for Kenna. On the rock side, I`m about to get started on a remix of U2 and hopefully a song with Sting. I don`t know what will all pan out, but I just go where the path takes me. (about his recent collaborations)

We didn`t get any new rhymes from Jay, and I will say this about it: I respect his retirement. (when asked if Jay-Z is making an appearance in the debut album of Fort Minor)

My bandmates in LP were very excited for me to be able to show the fans what I do individually. I wouldn`t have done this without their complete support. In fact, I picked our guitarist Brad Delson as my A&R guy!

I just don`t want to bring out an album under my name, because then everybody would say ,Oh its that guy from Linkin Park." Besides I attach great importance to my privacy. If there were my name everywhere I would be scared. I`not keen on to be a star and I`m not fancy that paparazzis will follow me." (about why he chose to use the moniker `Fort Minor`)

Black Thought, Kenna, and Common were some of the first artists that I got in contact with about Fort Minor. I remember when I asked Common about doing a song on the record: I started playing for him what I had done so far, and after every song, he said, `I want to be on that one!`

Most of us met a long time ago. Brad and I met in junior high and we met Rob in high school, we met Joe in college.

Fort` is something that`s heavy and militant. `Minor` is taken one of two ways: either meaning small or meaning ... between the two basic chords in music theory, you`ve got major or minor, and minor is described as the darker, sadder chord. The album is about the dynamic when you put all those things together. You`ve got that spectrum.

I feel like hip-hop right now is a lot of keyboard and minimalist stuff, and something I personally wanted to do is bring some of that organic feel back to it, that `90s hip-hop, maybe the Boogie Down Productions or that Native Tongues type of thing or Wu-Tang Clan. So it`s a lot of live instrumentation, but it still bangs like a sample. (about the uniqueness of the hiphop music he makes, like on the Fort Minor album)