Linkin Park Releases Sixth Studio Album: The Hunting Party

Grammy-Award-winning rock band, LINKIN PARK have released their sixth studio album, The Hunting Party (Machine Shop Recordings / Warner Bros). Co-produced by band members Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson, the album is now available on iTunes and at music retailers everywhere. Linkin Park have managed to capture their ever-innovative spirit and permeate it with a defiance and hunger seldom seen in bands working on their sixth album. Though some fans believe The Hunting Party to be something of a “prequel” to their debut album, Hybrid Theory, guitarist Brad Delson explains, “It’s not a return to a style or sound, it’s a return to an ethos and inspiration – one that predates us coming together as a band. It’s the result of a hunger for music that we’re not hearing anyone doing.” The debut single from The Hunting Party, “Guilty All the Same” was #1 at Active Rock for three weeks. The current single, “Until It’s Gone,” is quickly climbing the charts at both Alternative and Active Rock, where the band has dominated playlists for well over a decade. The video for “Until It’s Gone” premiered on Facebook, with a massive viewership of over a million views in the first 24 hours. On Wednesday June 18th, Linkin Park was inducted into Guitar Center’s Historic RockWalk at Guitar Center’s Hollywood location on Sunset Blvd. Linkin Park will be co-headlining the Carnivores Tour with Thirty Seconds to Mars this summer. “The Carnivores Tour is shaping up to be one of the biggest summer tours of 2014,” says Rick Franks, President of Touring at Live Nation. The Carnivores Tour, also featuring AFI, kicks off August 8th in West Palm Beach, Florida. To purchase tickets and for tour updates go to: www.linkinpark.com We were able to speak with Brad Delson, Linkin Park's guitarist and co-producer of The Hunting Party. Here is what he had to say about his new album, guitar preferences, and his evolution as a musician: How did you start playing music? What was it about that guitar that first pulled you in? I first started playing music in elementary school. I played the recorder and the trumpet and eventually I graduated to the guitar. That was a lot cooler to me, nothing against any of the brass players out there. With the guitar I felt I could really express myself and identified with a lot of guitar-driven bands at the time that I admired. How has your playing evolved over the years? I certainly hope I’ve grown as a musician. I started out learning music theory, scales, chord voicing’s and really rooted myself, fortunately, in a solid foundation. From there I’ve tried to use the instrument as a true means of self-expression, not really thinking about the theoretical or fundamental underpinnings of what I’m doing, but using the guitar as a means to express my creativity or help further the emotional content of a song. Why PRS? What attracted to you to the Custom 24? Before I had any real money to buy fancy instruments, the PRS was always the guitar on the wall at Guitar Center that I would stare at and think, maybe one day I could own one of those. I remember when we got our first small check from our publishing deal, the first thing we did was go to that store and I bought a Paul Reed Smith guitar for the first time. That was the guitar that I used throughout all of the touring for our first record Hybrid Theory. Eventually PRS was nice enough to increase my arsenal and that Custom 24 red soldier instrument is still probably my favorite in my entire collection. I have heard that you guys took a different approach to writing The Hunting Party, writing while in the studio with you and Mike Shinoda producing the album. How has that process been different (better/worse) than previous projects? For the last few records, we’ve always written and recorded simultaneously so in that sense this record was no different. But one thing we did was much more jamming and recording to tape…kind of just unbridled playing. Mike really wanted to make a technical record, an aggressive record, and certainly playing guitar every day, jamming, coming up with riffs and incorporating many of those improvisational moments into the actual songs was a crucial part of creating The Hunting Party, a record about which we are very proud. How would you say the resulting record differs from previous LP albums? Similarly I can say, there was kind of an improvisational or exuberant craziness that permeated the creation of this album. A lot of what you hear on the record is the result of happy accidents. We tried to channel that kind of child-like, non-linear, irrational wonder into all of these songs. I hope that you can hear how much fun we had and how inspired we were making the album. Is there anything outside of the process itself that you think contributed to that? For me, on this record, Mike really challenged me to get in touch with my inner-fourteen year old. When I was 14 I used to play 4 to 6 hours a day every day and I did get in touch with that love of playing guitar every day again. I’ve been playing for more than half my life so for many records I gravitated toward other instruments or other means of creativity in the studio. With The Hunting Party, I was clearly focused on playing guitar every day and that playing laid the foundation for how a lot of these songs were written and how they evolved into what you hear today. What’s on tap for LP for the rest of 2014 and into next year? We’re very excited to be going out on the Carnivores tour with Thirty Seconds To Mars and AFI. We’ve worked really hard on our live show re-building it from scratch. For our supporters who are able to come see us live, not only are they going to hear new music, they will hear music from throughout our entire catalog presented in a way that we certainly haven’t presented it before that I think really stands alone for us and hopefully contributes to a unique show that people will truly enjoy.