Mike Shinoda remembers Linkin Park playing their first ever show with System Of A Down

Mike Shinoda has recalled being starstruck when Linkin Park played their first-ever show with System Of A Down.

Shinoda sat down with NME to speak about his “Firsts”. He revealed that the first gig he attended was Anthrax, Public Enemy and Primus, adding that a group called Young Black Teenagers served as opening support.

“People Kind of make fun of me because it’s like ‘Obviously that’s the first gig you went to. That’s basically what you ended up doing for a living.’” He also shared that he was chaperoned there with his friend and his friend’s dad and that rapper Ice T was in attendance and got his autograph.

The musician also opened up about the the first moment he was ever starstruck. “It was very minimal, it wasn’t like a full on ‘I can’t talk, I am completely overwhelmed’, it was that we played our first show with a local band that had just got signed called System Of A Down,” he recalled.

“And I was like ‘These guys are so cool and they just got signed at like a major record deal’,” he continued. “We opened for them and I met a couple of the guys and thought they were the coolest. I think they are just barely older than us but I was so impressed, I mean besides, they’re incredible so of course I was impressed.”

In other news, Shinoda has continued his run of ‘Already Over’ sessions – this time teaming up with musicians in London.

The sessions see the former Linkin Park and Fort Minor musician put new spins on his 2023 solo track ‘Already Over’ – re-recording the single alongside other artists from across the globe.

Speaking to NME last year, he also reflected on the response to the track, and how the idea for the collaborations arose.

“With ‘Already Over’, I played all the instruments and I was like ‘Well, OK, it’s such a live-sounding song. Should I go on tour? Should I put together some musicians to do a live show?’ Then I realised now is not the time to go tour for me. I want to stay in the studio and make some more things musically,” he explained.

“I don’t want to put together a band, and I don’t want to go on tour, but I do want to play it live. So myself and a few other people on my team were able to come up with this format of putting together multiple sessions. We call it the ‘Already Over sessions’.”

He also looked back at the recent anniversary reissue of Linkin Park’s ‘Meteora’, and told NME whether or not fans can expect him to revisit any of their other albums?

“[There’s] nothing planned right now. I always just tell people like when there’s news I’ll give you the news. We’ve been doing it for a while and I think our expectation for what’s a proper reissue is kind of high,” he explained.

“I don’t love putting out Greatest Hits stuff or putting out re-masters of things we’ve done, [so] if we were to do a re-reissue of one of our Linkin Park albums, we want it to be a big deal. If we can’t make it that quality then we won’t do it. If it’s not great then I don’t think we should do it.”