A Quote by Mike Shinoda

I remember being a little kid sitting in the living room with my brother and some friends from around the neighborhood, and I would sit at the piano and as they were running around the room doing different things and being silly, acting out, I would actually play the score for it - the music that went along with it.
I remember living in a pretty small neighborhood where you could play in the streets and run around like crazy. My friends and I would ride our bikes around, but instead of just riding our bikes, we were solving crimes and going out in the woods to see what lay out there.
I was even more of a fan of Jake The Snake than I was of my dad when I was a kid, and that's because of the snake. Jake used to have his snake, Damien, out in the locker room slithering around the showers. In the locker room, they would actually block off one of the showers just so Damien could roll around, and I'd sit there and watch him.
I had demos that I'd send out of the songs and I'd get, "Great, can't wait to get in a room and actually play this and work on the album." So, it was good all-around because they knew even though I wasn't with them for some of the shows, I was being productive, which was really important because I didn't want to just sit on my ass. Once I was able to use my hand again, I would go right into it.
You think about, like, [20th-century classical composers] Alban Berg, Schoenberg, and Webern sitting around in some living room in Vienna and being like, "We are the end of music. We are the end of this tradition. Music is done."
I can remember dancing around living room with my two sisters to the music of Paganini and Mozart. I can still remember my dad combing the newspaper, circling all the free concerts in town, and on the weekends, we would go as a family.
When I was a little kid wanting to play music, it was because of people like Pete Johnson, Huey Smith, Allen Toussaint, Professor Longhair, James Booker, Art Neville ... there was so many piano players I loved in New Orleans. Then there was guys from out of town that would come cut there a lot. There was so many great bebop piano players, so many great jazz piano players, so many great Latin piano players, so many great blues piano players. Some of those Afro-Cuban bands had some killer piano players. There was so many different things going on musically, and it was all of interest to me.
Our main thing we'd have to entertain us: All my uncles would come over, and we'd sit around the living room on a weekend night, and we'd play. That was a big event for me, getting to play. We never did have any percussion.
I remember hanging out at Starbucks. There were these older guys who would sit around and play Crosby, Stills & Nash songs. I was just so in love with music. I would just go hang out with them, and I would try to sing and harmonize with them. I didn't even know the songs.
There's such a thing as being a little too perfect - a little too shiny. I know I prefer things that have room to breathe and give you a story, a world, in which you have the room to move around.
Every two to three weeks, I was changing around my room. My room was made out of nothing, basically - a magazine, a little radio, a little bed - and I had the sensibility to put things together and match things in a certain way so that they were very special.
The first stage I preformed on were the stairs to the hallway in the living room. There was a really nice platform, and when people were sitting in the living room, it was kind of an elevated platform and we would put on shows and skits.
Actually, I don't even like parties. I would much prefer a room with four friends who sit around and have dinner. I detest nightclubs. And I don't like places where the noise is so loud you can't talk to people.
I attribute being a good center fielder to many things, but being outside with friends as a kid, running around and racing, that was a big part of it.
You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room - proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.
My earliest attempts at writing were when I was seven. I would sit at the piano and transcribe the songs I heard on the radio. I'd change little things in the music and write different lyrics.
We only live once, and how would you want to be remembered? I have kids. I have, due to my job, a probably higher responsibility to do good things in my life. But also, since I was a kid, I love doing things out of context, helping friends, being different, being a special kind of man is important for me.
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