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If one thing has remained constant about Linkin Park throughout their evolution as a band, it’s that they know how to put on a show for their fans, whether it be on the stage or off. With the upcoming release of their fifth studio album LIVING THINGS, the band has topped themselves once again with an interactive campaign involving cryptic messages, code cracking, puzzle solving and treasure hunting. The activities have sparked much intrigue throughout the LP community over the last two months, as dedicated fans across the world have come together to speculate and debate about the band’s next moves. Where we’re going, nobody knows, but we’re excited to be along for the journey.

With last week’s announcement of a real-world scavenger hunt, the band has once again stepped out of the box to engage their fan-base. It is the first time a Linkin Park album hype campaign has taken place outside the cyberworld, instead playing out in the backyards of some of the world’s largest cities. The fervor at which the LP fan community has embraced this campaign is a testament to the band’s worldwide presence and influence, and its scale and complexity makes this Linkin Park’s most ambitious endeavor yet.

The journey began with an ambiguous tweet from Mike Shinoda on May 6th , which ignited much excitement among fans across social media and message boards. Two days later, the Linkin Park Scavenger Hunt was officially underway.  The first clue was announced by Mike via Viddy. This would be the starting point for an ongoing campaign that would take Linkin Park fans on a journey around the world, and it all began Down Under…

Puzzle #1 – May 08th, 2012 – Sydney, Australia

The video Mike posted on Viddy revealed a map. LPA user Cure4TheItch quickly discovered that the bar was located on the campus of the University of Sydney Union. Since this clue was released in the dead of night in Australia, many fans in the region did not discover their role in the scavenger hunt until morning arrived. The dedication of Linkin Park fans became quickly evident with LPA member GloomyMushroom beginning a 2.5 hour journey to Sydney to help find and share whatever was waiting for us.

Fans were excited, curious and unaware of what we would find at Manning Bar and speculation amongst the community was high. It wasn’t until Twitter user @MaDHacka tweeted the following image that we would have an idea of what we were getting ourselves into.

This poster, not out of place in your average college bar, was found on a wall space two floors below Manning Bar. The poster included a QR code which led to a new directory of the Linkin Park website located at http://linkinpark.com/youdidittoyourself, revealing the next location in the scavenger hunt to be Tokyo, Japan.

Puzzle #2 – May 10th, 2012 – Tokyo, Japan

Upon accessing the new webpage at http://linkinpark.com/youdidittoyourself we were greeted with a message in Japanese. Working together, LPA user Kameiko enlisted the help of her Japanese friend @cammiechan for the translation which read the following:
“Last September, “A Thousand Horizons” took fans from all over the world here.”

“May 10 or May 11. 11am-8pm only. Don’t be early. Don’t be late. One person only.”

The second location was quickly narrowed down to be the NicoFarre Club located in the Roppongi district of Tokyo, Japan (this venue hosted Linkin Park’s A Thousand Horizons event in September of 2011). Rallying fans online became the forefront of the puzzle, as it became crucial to have someone on hand to share their findings with the rest of the fan-base. Both @KaoruTK and @karinseino formed an alliance upon arriving at NicoFarre at 11AM on May 10th and were rewarded with our second clue of the hunt in the form of an envelope containing an address to an unknown Twitter account: http://twitter.com/youbetterhearme.

Puzzle #2 Part 2 – May 10th / May 12th – “Allan” – Twitter

At this point in the game we were introduced to a character on Twitter named “Allan”. The puzzle left the physical world and went online. As fans began to take notice, “Allan” played the role of an antagonist:

Fans went to great lengths to spread the word that the next clue depended on “Allan” receiving 3000 followers, using Facebook, Reddit and Twitter to encourage people to follow @youbetterhearme. Mike Shinoda and Linkin Park also got involved, reigniting the drive in fans to promote the scavenger hunt, eventually reaching the goal of 3000 followers on May 11th. Seeing the band themselves interact with the scavenger hunt and the community taking part really made it feel like we’re not segregated into different roles in the game. We’re all in this together and Linkin Park want to see the fans succeed as much as the fans themselves do.

Upon reaching 3000 followers, “Allan” began to drop hints of the next location. He first began following Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper (@PMHarper), then changed his profile image change on Twitter, depicting the Toronto skyline.

As “Allan” was teasing his followers with the involvement of the Canadian Prime Minister, fans got restless. Had we already been given the clue? Were we missing something in “Allan’s” tweets? LPA member Cely_lp pointed out that there’s a public park known as “Allan Gardens” in Toronto, could this be the next location? It wasn’t until May 12th that “Allan” gave the location of the third clue, confirming Allan Gardens to be the location.

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Puzzle #3 – May 13th, 2012 – Toronto, Canada

The photograph above shows a central location in Allan Gardens. Fans were instructed to check under the benches as seen in the image at exactly 1PM on May 13th. Multiple fans arrived at the location at 1PM to begin their hunt for the next clue; searching under benches, on statues and even in nearby bushes…but there were no clues to be found.

It wasn’t until 2PM when the fans were approached by a man, appropriately asking “Did Allan send you?” before handing four fans a piece of paper containing the next clue. The four Twitter users @ericasibley, @thejaff2,7 @MartineAllard1 and @p33nny all helped solve Toronto, with the picture below: a building with no name, location, or identifying information.

Puzzle #4 – May 15th, 2012 – Chicago, Illinois

Within seconds of the fans on location sharing the image, fans online began to work together to find the location of the building. LPA member Rappy hit the jackpot: the photo was taken at Lincoln Park Zoo, Gateway Pavilion in Chicago Illinois.

Tomorrow, the puzzle continues, and we will we see just how deep the Linkin Park scavenger hunt will go.
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As we approach the mid-point of the campaign it has become apparent that the Linkin Park Scavenger Hunt is becoming more immersive. What is most impressive is the fact that Linkin Park fans have fully embraced their participation in this campaign without even knowing what reward awaits us at the finish line. Fans from every corner of the globe have unified, collaborated, and pooled resources to solve each puzzle. Whether they are out there finding the clues, on message boards helping to solve the latest puzzle, or promoting the scavenger hunt through social media; there’s a feeling of camaraderie between fans that makes achieving progress a tangible reward in itself. For something designed to hype up LIVING THINGS, this campaign has certainly taken on a life of its own.

If you’re new to the scavenger hunt you can keep up with us and the fans, by following up to the minute updates at LPAssociation.com: http://www.lpassociation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=36248

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Thanks to Derek and all the fans, named and unnamed, who have participated in the hunt so far.  Keep an eye out for progress…the hunt may be coming to you next.

Monday is almost here.

Early Monday morning, our new single BURN IT DOWN will be released. The LIVING THINGS album pre-sale will begin. You’ll see the album cover, the track listing, and hear about some new tour plans. My bandmates and I are very excited for this week.

Many of you know our story up until this point. We built the band upon the idea of fusing all our favorite styles of music–as different as they might be–into one, signature sound. Our first two albums were the result of a lot of hard work, perseverance, smarts, and luck, to build a toolbox that would provide us with what we needed to make the best songs we could at the time.

Success came at a pivotal time in an industry that was about to take a nosedive, and we were able to establish ourselves before things changed drastically. Hybrid Theory became the best-selling album of the year, worldwide. After Meteora‘s success, we realized that we needed to step back and think about our future, in order to have one. We decided we had to had to veer away from the main thing upon which our success was built: the music.

When I tried to explain this pivotal moment to a friend of mine, he had a hard time understanding. He said, “It’s like you invented the Big Mac or the iPod, then decided not to sell it anymore. Why the hell would you do that?”

Trying to explain how personal and artistic choices factor in for a band like ours is difficult. As we finished up “A Thousand Suns” in 2010, I found myself having to try to do it often, in interviews and to myself. Before we even finished the songs, each guy in my band knew it was a polarizing and challenging album, one that people would probably love or hate. I suppose that it didn’t really matter if it made sense to anyone but us — for a while, we had to steer as far away from the early sound of Linkin Park as possible, or else we would be trapped making the exact same music over and over until we had to call it quits.

Thinking back: as we wrote Minutes To Midnight and A Thousand Suns, I would sometimes bring in demos that sounded like something from the first two albums. Those demos were always met with a negative reaction by my bandmates, and I tended to agree. I loved the journey toward a new, unknown sound. With each experiment, we discovered new ways to make songs, and we filled our toolbox with tons of new tools. With each song, we tried both cutting-edge and classic gear; we started with radically different seeds; and we approached the vocals with a virtual blindfold on. And, about a year ago, I realized that our toolbox was virtually overflowing with great tools.

But we were avoiding something.

In the early part of our career, we were inexperienced. We made decisions on all fronts that some of us regret (some times a little, some times a lot). And some decisions (like my fire-engine red hair back in the day) were things that I don’t really regret, but I simply wouldn’t do today. All those things spun together to create a complicated uneasiness about the past that the band wasn’t able to come to terms with for a while.

Luckily, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Over the course of the last year, the subject kept popping up, and we talked about how to tastefully bridge the gap between all the musical places we’ve been, to marry together all the ideas we’ve accumulated about how to make a song. And as LIVING THINGS began taking shape, the most powerful shift I saw take place was the acceptance and eagerness to use all the tools in the toolbox, not just some. Everything at once, together.

Some people have already compared our new album to the early ones. I suppose it depends on how you want to make that comparison (by the way, it’s certainly not about guitars). For me, it’s all about getting back to the real “hybrid theory” — not the album with that name, but the idea that the six guys in our band have drastically different tastes in music, and the blending of all those sounds into one is exactly what we built our band upon.

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The single BURN IT DOWN and the album LIVING THINGS (presale) will be available tomorrow.

My movie comes out tomorrow.  Catch The Raid in limited U.S. theaters near you, with my score.  Get tickets now.

Listen to a few of the tracks from the soundtrack now at TheRaidSoundtrack.com, including the song “RAZORS.OUT,” which features Chino from Deftones/†††. If you pre-order the album, you get “RAZORS.OUT” instantly.

TheRaidSoundtrack.com is the ONLY place you can get the physical CD. You can also pre-order the digital album download only and it will be delivered on 3/20.

“The Raid: Redemption” opens in New York, LA, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington DC on March 23, and nationwide April 13. Watch the trailer HERE.

-Mike