Mike Shinoda

“I know at one point I had bright red hair and I had bracelets from my wrist up to my elbow and I was wearing size 50 pants. I wouldn't wear that today, but I'm not embarrassed about wearing it back then any more.”

“When I was in high school, if my favorite band got too popular, I'd watch carefully.”

“I'm excited to doing more scoring work in the future.”

“Little pieces of advice like that can provide us with months' worth of entertainment.”

“We have people in the band who don't drink or do drugs... some of us like to go sightseeing.”

“The casual listener won't be around forever.”

“You definitely pick stuff up when you go back and listen to older material.”

“As a creative person you just get an idea in your head, and sometimes you just can't shake it off.”

“Most of the musicians that I know almost to the man everybody uses Apple computers. They've thought of the steps that you're going to think of when you're trying to create your thing. And that's where the tools get invented to make better art.”

“I spent ten years playing classical piano, and that was what led to keyboards and eventually to production and to Linkin Park.”

“My dad remembers being in school with my uncle, and the teacher would say outright to the class that the Japanese were second-class citizens and shouldn't be trusted.”

“In high school I was making beats for my friends and for myself and rapping over them.”

“Go find something that you haven't done before. Don't do the same thing over and over again.”

“My parents still treat Christmas like I'm thirteen years old.”

“I liked the piano. I always liked playing. I just hated homework.”

“I got over being embarrassed.”

“We learned pretty early on in this band that you can't have snobbery in music.”

“I grew up painting and playing piano so when I was a little kid I thought I was going to be an artist or a painter but my mom had me taking piano lessons for about 10-12 years as a young kid.”

“I have a BFA in illustration.”

“I like sneakers. I guess I could call myself a collector.”