Brad talked to RIPITUP magazine about the difference between ATS and LIVING THINGS, interaction with fans, Chester breaking his wrist on stage, and speculates on when they will be returning to Australia, read a preview below and the FULL article here

They made their fortune on the back of punchy hit singles such as What I’ve Done, In The End and Numb tapping into a 21st century angst, but Linkin Park’s last album A Thousand Suns left a vocal contingent of their fanbase perplexed and angry. Guitarist Brad Delson can laugh about it now, but admits that the online attacks on their 2010 album were scathing.


“Yeah, they were!” Delson says. “A Thousand Suns was unique – we’ve had a lot of commercial success, but with A Thousand Suns not only was the fan reaction somewhat polarised, the critical reaction followed suit.


“If you look at reviews of the album they were almost exclusively one star or five stars,” he continues with a chuckle. “It was really kind of shocking to us at first, but we then took a step back and realised that it was really resonating with people for them to have such strong reactions to it. Some of the people loved it, some had a strong reaction the other way. We’d been living with those songs for two years, so they didn’t sound strange or radical to us. They sounded really comfortable and familiar, but to expect someone to hear it that way after one or two listens isn’t likely. With that album we encouraged people to live with it and listen to it. Some of my favourite albums of all time – probably all my favourite albums – are the ones that I didn’t get at first and grew on me over time in a really powerful way.”


Delson says tearing up the rulebook on A Thousand Suns and creating such division ultimately strengthened rather than weakened Linkin Park going into the recording of new album Living Things.


“This is just my perspective, but I would say it made us stronger. That was the album we wanted to make and all of us in the band love that album. It ultimately led us to Living Things, which we are also proud of for different reasons. They are certainly different sounding records but if you’ve been following the band since our inception you’ll notice the through-lines. People have been saying that Living Things has the spirit of our earlier records, but I would also argue at the same time that the more progressive and experimental elements have come out of A Thousand Suns’ radical experimentation.”

I’ve also added a few more pictures to the gallery, 36 pictures from the show at Orange Warsaw Festival and 13 from the Maxidrom festival, links are below.

Home > Live > 2012 > Warsaw, Poland – Orange Warsaw Festival Jun 9



Home > Live > 2012 > Moscow, Russia – Maxidrom Festival Jun 10