Linkin Park
VMA winner and 8-time Platinum band Linkin Park took a day
off between two worldwide tours to have a celebrity game against
Cypress Hill in Huntington Beach. Facefull went backstage to
find out more about the band's recent addiction to paintball,
their rockstar lifestyle and how bad catering can actually get.
Mike Shinoda, 27 (Emcee/Vocalist)/
Rob Bourdon, 25 (Drums)
Who's the most enthusiastic about paintball in the
group?
MS/ I wouldn't say... I don't know if anybody's
most.
RB/ We're all just learning about it and getting
into it now.
How did it start? When did you first hear the word
'paintball'?
MS/ Well, we've known about it forever.
 Did
kids at your school go around shooting paintballs?
RB/ Yeah...
MS/ There was this one kid at our school who started shooting
paintballs in the parking lot, and he got in huge trouble.
It can be dangerous...
MS/ Yeah, who brings a paintball gun to school?
RB/ I went paintballing a few times when I was in high
school. I went out with friends to paintball fields. I liked
it then, and then, a couple of guys who work on our security
team brought it up to us. They played occasionally. They asked
us if we had any interest in it. We spend a lot of times on
the road. There's a lot of hours with nothing to do, so... we
thought it would be really fun to get out, get some equipment,
put together some teams, play against other bands when we were
on tour with. We play a lot of combat video games.
I heard you were huge Halo fans. How does it compare?
MS/ If this was a Halo tournament out there today, we'd
have a way better chance of taking the prize.
What do you think of Cypress Hill?
MS/ We just saw B-Real. We toured together so we know these
guys pretty well. Bogo came to our show a couple of days ago.
I saw him. Apparently he's not going to be here today. He wasn't
going to come, but he heard that we were going to be here today,
so maybe he'll show up. We're good friends with those guys,
and being out here... They're way more experienced than we are,
so we're going to need some help out there.
Have you thought about strategy?
RB/ We're working on it.
Are lead vocals always in front?
MS/ I hope it would be the opposite. Chester's not going
to be here today.
RB/ We're definitely going to put some strategy out there,
because without that, we're definitely not going to survive.
We actually do have a lot of team play left over from Halo.
We have a lot of good strategy that we're going to apply today.
 You
play Halo that much?
RB/ We play team players, so one is always covering your
front man while you're shooting out the opponents.
Do you think that paintball is a full sport, closer
to extreme sports or to video games?
MS/ I don't know much about what people would
call it, obviously it's very athletic and there's a lot of strategy
involved. That being the case, it's a lot of fun.
Do you practice other sports?
RB/ I like to surf.
MS/ Phoenix (Farrel) also surfs a lot. They're trying to
put something together. They're pretty good, I'm looking to
get out there a little. I snowboard... I actually have been
trying to get out there and snowboard a little, but just like
paintball or surfing. These guys live pretty close to the beach,
so they can go and surf a little bit. Getting out to do something
like paintball or snowboarding to me, is a little bit more difficult.
So it's a real treat when I get to do it.
WDP, how did you hook up with them?
MS/ We were touring the UK, and they came to see us.
RB/ Yeah, we actually got to play for the first time
with real equipment and great guns, and do the real deal. The
first time was with them. While we were touring, we had a day
off, went with them and played against our security guys.
Who won? RB/ We mixed up the teams a little bit...
MS/ It was actually really close... We actually took our
security out a couple of times...
RB/ And that's impressive, because, they're like marines.
It's a completely different strategy, when you know
that it's not real... Cops often lose to paintballers for that
reason. Thinking of joining the circuit, or coming back to one
of these tournaments?
RB/ It's early to say, but obviously, we're
really happy to be here doing this. It's a lot of fun, it's
a new experience for me and I'm exited to be here.
 You
guys really busy this year, I imagine.
MS/ We just got off the world tour, we're going to be home
preparing for our summer tour, which is called Project Revolution.
This is the third year that we've done Project Revolutions and
this is going to be the biggest year.
RB/ It starts on the 23of July. It's going to be us,
Korn, Snoop Dog, The Used, we're going to be adding more bands.
It's very likely that there's going to be a second stage as
well. So this is the biggest year for our tour. A couple of
shows have already gone on sale and they're doing very well.
And album-wise, Live in Texas is out now.
MS/ Meteora is still out, Live in Texas is still out,
and we'll probably be doing one more video from Meteora in the
next few months... Probably as the tour starts. One more video
will come out.
 Do
you think that you'll be playing paintball on that tour with
Korn... What do these guys think, honestly about you guys playing
paintball?
RB/ When we talk to other bands, we say: "hey, let's
go play paintball on our day off". Everyone seems to be
into it, a lot of people have done it before. Maybe only a couple
of times, and people haven't really gotten into it yet, but
hopefully we'll find good spots to play paintball at and go
for it.
We always end our interview with something you like/something
you hate.
RB/ We usually hate catering on the road. We get really
hungry on the road, and it sucks not to be able to eat good
food.
Don't you have your own catering that follows you around?
RB/ Not all the time, once in a while. That's really
expensive. We get catering but there's different levels... The
catering that we have is localized catering, where company will
come cater that event. So everyday, you get a different local
company. Sometimes, they're good...
MS/ Most of the time, it's just mediocre.
RB/ When they're cooking for 80 people, they have to
mass-produce the food and it's just microwave food.
And something you like...
Please don't say your fans... It is going to be our fans. We
do love our fans, we wouldn't be able to do any of this if we
didn't have great fans...
INSER
"We're going to try not to make mistakes, give it to 'em
or underestimat'em. They could just be saying they're scared
and playing possom, and may really know how to play. We'll take
it serious like any other game, and hopefully, we smok'em, you
know."
-B-Real, Cypress Hill
Comments
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| "I think linkin park is cool i like there music thats all i like.." | tony{p8baller}
05/10/04 at 00:54
 | | "I think there music sucks but this will help get paintball in the publics view." | robboards
09/10/04 at 15:57
 | | "linkin park kicks major butt, and hopefully paintball will be seen as a safe, fun sport
" | paintball enthusiast
20/10/04 at 14:06
 | | "Linkin Park is not so bad...but its very commercial..." | siergiej
08/02/05 at 17:55
 | | "Linkin park its a boy band!with rock attitude! naaa i dont like i prefer cypress hill! but its a good chance to get paintball on the media!" | marciano
16/04/05 at 22:16
 | | "cypress hill sux, and linkin parks suck, i think i'd be down with a team like
-angilina jollie
-jessica simpson
-shakira
you know, somewhere along those lines. Now thats good marketing!!" | bcpete
30/06/05 at 17:46
| | "Its just fun to see people who enjoy the sport as much as we all do. Exspecially celebrities, it shows they are human too." | the_leech
03/09/05 at 10:10
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