Linkin Park’s return last fall was one of the biggest stories in all of music for the year. With new co-vocalist Emily Armstrong, the band are back in full-force, as evidenced by their comeback album From Zero (check out Kirk's and Baniboi's reviews, named for the band’s original moniker of Zero, debuting at the Whisky-A-Go-Go in 1997 as an opener for Sen-Dog of Cypress Hill and System of a Down. Those who insist that the band is and will always be Chester Bennington’s may need to be reminded that the band is the brainchild of Mike Shinoda, and the decision to reform was not one made lightly or easily.
As such, Shinoda is the latest guest on Last Meals, Mythical Kitchen’s experiential interview show in the vein of Hot Ones. Instead of chicken wings (for the most part), the guests can request their hypothetical last meal, consisting of whatever the guest wishes, from the comfortable to the cloying and everything in between. Shinoda’s requests run the gamut of his Japanese-American upbringing, from the complex tsukemen noodles to a humble ham and cheese from Dan’s Super Subs to even humbler vanilla ice cream and Reese’s cups for dessert.
Shinoda even provides food analogies for some of the earlier Linkin Park albums, referring to the debut album Hybrid Theory as a smoothie, whereas 2007’s Minutes to Midnight is more of a sandwich, as all of the parts and components that make the band’s sound what it is are more established and therefore more evident. To that end, he calls From Zero an omakase, a greatest hits sort of record where everything is on the table and the fans know, more or less, what to expect at this point. That said, he and the rest of the band used to shrug off the nu metal label, even labeling the genre as “frat rock” given the genre’s edgier, angrier state of affairs at the time, to the point where Shinoda used to say “don’t put that flag in my hand, I will not carry it.”
One excellent Chester story that Shinoda tells involves the executives at Warner Bros. Records wanting Bennington to boot Shinoda, at that time the band’s producer and not yet a full-time member, to which Chester told said exec “go fuck yourself.” Turns out the folks at WB have a history of short-sighted ideas… but that’s neither here nor there.
The highlight of the episode is the fact that Shinoda shared his family’s secret recipe for karaage, a Japanese style of fried chicken usually made with either flour or potato starch. Host Josh Scherer ensures Shinoda and the viewers that only the chef who prepared the chicken for the show saw the recipe, which was begrudgingly given by the family, though Shinoda remarks that it’s “about 85% there” in terms of being close to the original article.
Check out the full episode of Last Meals with Mike Shinoda, which includes talk of Smurfs, Bobcat Goldthwait, and Shinoda’s Japanese-American heritage on YouTube:
