Linkin Park singer/guitarist Mike Shinoda was asked about Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl being important to him as he moves on from the death of Chester Bennington. Grohl dealt with a similar tragedy in 1994 when his Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain died by suicide, and he went on to continue his musical career with Foo Fighters. Alternative Nation transcribed Shinoda’s response.
“I would say there was a conversation, there have been a few conversations about different people who have followed a path after tragedy, after losing someone who was an important part of their group, that includes Dave Grohl, that includes AC/DC, there are tons of examples. Different people have done it different ways. A couple of weeks after Chester passed away, I think it was a week and a half probably, I connected with Rick Rubin again, we got together at his place and had a talk.
I caught him up on some things, and he asked me a lot of questions, and I asked him about different paths I could take. We didn’t agree on everything, which is usually the case between me and Rick. At a certain point I had to stop being like, ‘Oh my god, it’s Rick Rubin, he’s the greatest.’ I started realizing he’s not right about everything for me, he’s right about everything for him. But he is a mentor, he is a musical genius, and when we talked about certain things for trajectories and places to go.
Taking it away from what you were kind of pointing out, I don’t think there is exactly a template for what I am doing. There are some things that are similar, I have watched some of those things from afar and really enjoyed watching them, but in terms of what I am doing, I don’t know where it goes. There isn’t a path that I can look at and go, ‘Oh, let’s just do that.’ So it’s a mystery, but it’s one that I am excited about pursuing and seeing where it all leads, and if I have to circle back around and do things a second time on something, fine.”
