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95.5 WBRU transcript
Robin Swen at 95.5 wbru, providence
RS = Robin Swen
M = Mike
PH = phoenix
Mike and phoenix walk in,
Mike has this huge hat on which hides his
BLUE hair.
They are very - we're not hugely famous, just average joe types
- and say hi.
Mike comes around the table to shake my hand and flashes
that too cute smile and they sit. Already plotting mischief i can see.
I ask them if they want to talk about anything special and phoenix
says, very straight faced, "politics" .
(coming out of crazytown butterfly)
RS : crazytown on 95.5 wbru ( heavy breathing into the mic) - and that
breathing into the mic is the boys of LINKIN PARK. I can hear the
screaming
out there, ( mike makes a girly screaming noise "put your clothes back
on, you're disgusting and revolting!" - in a girly voice). You guys
wanna introduce yourselves?
Mike: Hi I'm jermiane, from linkin park
Phoenix: I'm skee-lo
RS: skee-lo from Linkin park?, what's up guys
Mike: (laughing) his name is Phoenix
Ph: his name's Mike
RS : concert tonight, ya'll psyched?
Mike: yes, it's gonna be good
RS: people are outside killing each for tickets to your concert.
Mike :
really? do they know that orgy an disturbed aren't gonna
be there? (note - reference to when they played WBRU show last december
with orgy and disturbed)
RS: yes they do
Mike:
and they still wanna come huh? weird
RS:
and in my hand i have the final two tickets to the
concert, (Mike - "dun dun dun!!!") and i think i could probably get someone
to
come here and do something insane to get these tickets. anything, cause the
people out there are Nut-ty.
Mike &Phoenix:
we'll think about it, yah, we'll get back to you after
this commercial message. ( insert conserative voice - over type voice)
RS :
alright, so we're gonna have some questions for the guys after
this, it's one step closer, BRU
**********ONE STEP CLOSER ****
RS:
Linkin Park on 95.5 wbru and linkin park in the studio...
Mike:
What's up (again, in freaky psuedo-chick voice)
RS :
down at linkinpark.com your fans, (Mike and Phoenix :
"YYEEEAAHHH!!!")
Mike:
first of all i have to say on the air that this is the
best idea i've heard of a way to come up with questions to interview us
with.
Phoenix: from Linkinpark.com
mike:
you, robin , got on the website, our message board, and
started a strain that says ( he quotes the message board thing i
posted which was LP questions you want answered.)
(then we have chit chat about how the UK people had questions and
phoenix says "Oh, but the UK people can't hear us", and i talk about how
they can listen on wbru.com. then they talk about how they are soo
behind in the tech revolution.)
RS :
my favorite question is... you guys got famous pretty quick, and
you're meeting all these famous people, does it freak you out?
Phoenix :
YES!, we were recently doing shows with deftones, we're going
to be playing with them in europe for a while, and that's a band that
we've looked up to for quite a number of years. we've gotten to talk
with them a couple of times. that's always kinda - a little bit
nerve-racking
as well as guys from incubus and other bands. Rod Stewart was at our
practice studio, right before we left on this tour, and that was kinda
funny.
RS:
did you wet yourself when you met them?
Mike:
because we love rod stewart so much, dave means, uh, phoenix
means, oh gosh darnit. (collective laughter) Rod Stewart and me, Phoenix and
rod stewart.
RS:
he is pretty sexy
(going back to the website questions)
Mike :
I'm gonna find a good one. ..........How did the band get
started? I'm gonna start with that one.
Phoenix :
okay, easy one i've handled that one before. want me to
answer it?
(in the studio mike and phoenix give each other this - why do we
let you out of the cage? look, and laugh. This, though simple, is
extemely funny. There's this moment of silence and Phoenix realizes he
should
talk .... quick)
Mike-and-Brad-met-in-junior-high
mike: how old were we when we met?
Phoenix:
7th or 8th grade? (mike :we were 13) it gets changed. then,
rob had played with brad with bands in high school. joe went to artcenter
in pasadena with mike. I went to UCLA with brad and chester we met through
a mutual friend. and we started playing, roughly, 5 years ago.
Mike: (reading from the printout of the message board thread) what are
some of the musical influences that helped shape our band?
Phoenix:
uuuh ( clearly too slow cause mike whips in with...)
mike : deftones, roots, nine inch nails, jurassic five, apex twin.
okay. how did we get started... we answered that question, but actually, the
funny thing is that um we've been talking about lately a little more
than we used to, is that, when we started, we would play a show a
month, maybe less. we would never play. so like we weren't even involved in
the LA music scene. like we were sitting in our stupid little rooms and
writing music all the time. and so all of a sudden we started playing
a couple shows and nobody knew who we were. it was a joke, dude. it was
great.
RS: but when you started playing you were under a different name,
right?
Mike: yeah, when phoenix was in the original form of this band, it was
called Xero with an" X", X-E-R-O. and then we changed it to Hybrid
Theory when chester joined. actually changed it to Linkin Park after we had
finished recording the album, really late in the game. our street team
was up to like 400 kids maybe. so we were kinda bummed, like we were
thinking we're not gonna be able to get the word out to all these
people that we're changing the name but luckily it worked out.
RS: so tell us about the album. we've all heard one step closer but
your next single is crawling right?
Phoenix : crawling we thought would be a good second song because,
following one step closer, it has a bit of a different range and a different
feel, the album covers a lot of our influences musically , so it was a good
second song to show some of the diversity on the album.
Mike: (in a prim and proper voice) It shows a different, a different
color of the emotional spectrum
( at this point mike ackowledges that he was being weird and makes a
farting noise into the mike and several other gases erupt from various
orifices. laughter included )
***************CRAWLING*****
RS : it's crawling from linkin park on 95.5 wbru and the boys have
finally decided how they are going to give away the final two tickets to the
show (then we discuss the contest. mike says " it is a contest
and you can play it"- in this ren from ren and stimpy voice.
mike gave it away by asking people to name two songs off of the hybrid
theory ep - then phoenix jumps in and adds that they also have to know
the artwork - collective moans in providence - this is after they
explain that they made only a thousand copies and it's really rare. Phoenix
says he's doing this because you always download the songs from
NAPST-euingtytg. (he was going to say Napster but stopped)
Phoenix : you can download the songs from Napst---e...r
Mike:
not anymore
Phoenix : but you can still download the songs from other places
Mike: or you can go and find out on the message board but that will take
time.
( more ticket giveaway stuff)
RS:
do you guys like napster at all?
Phoenix: YES
Mike: , napster's cool, i like it
RS: are your songs on napster?
Phoenix: YES ( i was noticing that phoenix was into the monosyllabic
affirmatives)
RS :
are you guys ever gonna do the dave matthews thing and release an
album on-line?
Mike : um, we don't know, how do you expect us to answer that question?
RS : well, are you thinking about it?
Phoenix: the answer is yes ( but i think this was said sarcastically)
Mike : the answer is, let's look into the magic crystal ball .
in fact let's look into the magic crystal ball and look at a question.
(reading from the message board ) " are they, meaning your band,LINKIN
PARK, planning on being on any tours like ozzfest or tattoo the earth?
etc?" this is a question from anthony dynamic, a street soldier on our
message board
Phoenix:
YES ( are you seeing the monosyllabic thing here?)
mike:
what tour, phoenix?
Phoenix: we're playin ozzfest this summer
mike: with whom phoenix?
Phoenix: well, there's a whole bunch of bands actually mike, some of
them being black sabbath, as well as marilyn manson, as well as slipknot,
as well as papa roach
Mike :
PAPA ROACH!!!!!, CACA ROACH !!!! ( insert freaky, but adorable,
mike voice. clearly mike had some red bull before the interview)
RS :
they're gonna love that one
Mike : who the broken home boys?
Rs : you just called them " CACA " , i don't know if they like that
Mike : they love CACA
Phoenix : they love us
Mike : coby loves being a broken home boy. we toured with them in
december, they called us the linkin park rangers and we called them the
broken
home boys.
(chit chat) - *************PAPERCUT****
(so we come out of the song but they don't know the mic is on and they
keep chatting , phoenix says " but you won't say who did it?" which
comes into play further on in the interview. then Phoenix looks at me and
goes "wait are we on?" then we talked about the kid that won
the tickets.)
Mike : okay so, i have a funny story, i don't know why i was reminded
of this this morning, but since you're in radio and it's all about
entertaining
the people i figured i'd help you out.
RS : yah cause i usually have to resort to nudity and that really
doesn't work in radio
MIKE & PHOENIX: no no it doesn't work. no
Mike : so i'm gonna take the wheel right now and tell you a story
The first tour we were on was with a band called the union underground.
phoenix was not with us so this story may be new for him, i think. so
the guys from the union underground decided it would be really funny
to play pranks on ourselves and the middle band, Systematic. and so ,
they didn't really do anything to us, but they put LIVe chickens on
systematic's stage, and the poor chickens got caught in the lights and were
pooping on the drums and stuff, the guitarist couldn't even move anywhere
cause there were chickens all over his feet.
so we played after systematic and in preparation for our prank - cause
we figured if they are gonna pull a prank on us we should pull something
on them. and i am not gonna tell you who in our band did this, but it's
somebody in our band who wouldn't ever usually do something like this.
they're prank was going to be that they were going to defecate into a
trash bag, and if anything at all happened to us on stage, taht person
in our band was going to throw it on union underground.
union underground didn't even know this but i guess word got around
that you shouldn't mess with us. They're like "don't mess with that band,
you guys listen to me. i heard bad rumors and if you do anything to
them you're gonna be in big trouble' and luckily we ended up leaving the bag
of feaces.
RS : what kind of faeces was it though? was it rock hard? diarrhetic?
Mike: nobody knows, only the person who did it. because they did it,
brought out the bag with a big smiling face and everyone else was like
WHOA, i can't believe you just did that, first of all. and second, i'm
afraid to actually follow through but...
( now i could say that mike looked somewhat guilty during this part of
the story but i could be wrong. but let us refer back to their "are we
on" conversation right after we played papercut. tee-hee)
Mike : oh, but now my story is dying because we went off in a wierd
direction.. BUT HEY! here's a question addressed to me. how long have
i been playing the guitar. and i've actually been playing the guitar
a long time and brad and i write guitar parts together. like we wrote
stuff together for the album, but.. this is the first tour that i've
actaully played on stage and it's very different, really wierd. if you
play guitar at home.. do you play guitar?
RS: no i don't do anything useful
Phoenix: we've been running mike through the guitar lesson thing
Mike: dude it's a whole different animal, holding that thing sitting
down, i'm pretty good, but holding that thing standing up it's a lot
harder for me to play, but i'm getting the hang of it.
RS : do you do that pelvic thrust thing to hold it up?
Mike : that's the only way to hold it up. you don't understand, like
people do that and it's not like a style thing
Phoenix : it's a neccesity, really
Mike: yah, it's functional. like the pelvic thrust is functional
adaptation
Phoenix: it's called "going shotgun", that's the technical terminology
for that rock and roll move ( mike has a fit of laughter in the
background)
Mike : WORD
RS : one more question, what's your favorite song on the album
I think your fans really like in the end but..
MIKE : i like in the end. i like papercut
Phoenix : yah i like papercut. i think that's my favorite
RS : well tahnks to linkinpark for...
MIKE: ( a-la-5 yr old who forgot his g.i. joe in the car and HAS TO go
get it right now) WHOA! on more thing , god, i'm so talkative today,
what's with me?- ( and discusses the art contest on the website)
**************
that's it. then they went to do station id's for us and kept messing
up and calling each other retards. it was pretty funny. and of course
the concert was great. please excuse spelling mistakes.
robin swen
dj, 95.5 wbru, providence
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