Mike Shinoda Quotes

To keep creating something with this type of music, you have to take it out of the box.

I got to realizing that I wanted to record, I wanted to experiment. And doing those same old songs the same old way - I said, 'I think it's time for me to have some fun.'

Working with Prince, it's kind of like he's opened up this whole new world, especially with the horn players. And I'm like, 'Man, only if I had strings on this album, too.' And I'm like, 'I wish I had an orchestra.' So I just, you know - I just wonder what's next, you know. I just want to constantly push myself for more.

Especially with Fantomas, i'm just trying to stretch out what the band can do. Figuring out, really, on the job or on recordings, what I can or can't get away with.

If you have a good idea, get it out there. For every idea I’ve realized, I have ten I sat on for a decade till someone else did it first. Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, sauté it, whatever. MAKE.

What I wanted to hear didn't exist, so it was necessary for me to go out and create it.

A lot of people from my generation of music are so focused on playing things correctly or to perfection that they're stuck in that safe place.

Musicians are always eclectic. Musicians are always curious and hungry for new things.

I've been fortunate to come on places where the question isn't why did I do it? The question to me is always, why didn't anybody else do it before me? Those are the ones that I scratch my head about.

I'm the type of person that doesn't like to wait for people to do things for me, and I never want to feel stuck. Why sit around and be like, 'I wish my label would book me some studio time,' if I can just buy my own studio equipment and figure out how to run Pro Tools and record it myself?

You'll find little schools of musicians experimenting with different ways of making music in Brooklyn, all through Manhattan, in Queens, in Jersey, you know? The city is still bubbling with creativity.

What I want to happen is to be really creative, and to play something new in the improvisations, every time.

I never thought that I would be creating my own 'cross-over' genre. What I did was very real and organic. I have worked in so many different styles so it all just came together.

Forget about where you want to be and go out and build stuff. Dodgeball came from being bored at work... things happen because you make them happen. Stop sketching, and start building.

We have always wanted to write songs and be experimental in that way.

I'm a great believer in not sitting around waiting for the right part to come around, but jumping in and building it for yourself.

You have got to make new music, that is the way that I look at it anyway.

I know that you're better off making your own products, not just waiting for someone to hand you something.

Miles Davis would have this lineup of all these amazing musicians and one day would just say, 'We're done.' After tons of great records and tickets sold, he said, 'Now I'm going to grow my hair out and play my horn through a wah-wah pedal.' Rather than play it safe, he went on.

Typically, my advice to young artists is not to wait for someone to allow you to do the thing. Just do the thing, and they'll catch up.

I really just care about making music and how I can make it next.

Everybody in Lynyrd Skynyrd loves different styles of music, and our minds are very open when it comes to writing our songs and making the band true to what the band is, but also stepping out and doing something current.

It's like jazz: You learn the rules to break them - as long as you can break them in a meaningful way.

I've never been one to just play safe music and think that's all there is to it.

I've always taken it upon myself to be a pioneer or a leader, and create a different sound, not just go by what the radio is playing at the time.