Like many artists, Mike Shinoda often seems more comfortable talking about the music and musicians who inspire him rather than dissecting and analysing the music that he himself puts out into the world. Enthusing about the work of Public Enemy, or Aphex Twin, or Portishead, or Rage Against The Machine, Shinoda is animated and passionate, but when conversation switches to the music he's currently working upon, the 46-year-old Californian becomes noticeably more guarded and careful with his words.
This, perhaps, is understandable. Linkin Park, the band with which Shinoda made his name, have sold 100 million albums worldwide this century, and though the tragic passing of co-vocalist Chester Bennington in 2017 brought the Los Angeles band's career to a juddering halt, Shinoda is only too aware that their history and legacy will forever be referenced in relation to whatever music he creates as a solo artist. Ahead of our meeting at his record company's west London offices, it is politely requested that we respect Bennington's memory and Shinoda's grief by not revisiting the past, but rather focus on the here and now, with the man himself proclaiming his recently-released single Already Over - with its undeniable echoes of Linkin Park's infectious, propulsive pop-metal stylings - “a bridge from the past to a blurry but exciting future”.
