Mike Shinoda\'s Blog

Recently, our band’s business manager, Jonathan, shared a shocking story with us. His childhood friend had passed away from a heart attack at the young age of 42. At the funeral, Jonathan and his friends were talking about their mutual friend’s passing, and decided to all get their hearts checked.

Jonathan went to the doctor, who recommended a “CT Angiogram.” It bears mentioning that Jonathan is, at a glance, a very healthy guy. He’s arguably fitter than I am, eats better, and exercises more often. He has a wife and beautiful children. He had absolutely no reason to believe he had heart problems. Jonathan was waiting for results in the doctor’s office. The doctors came in, and were obviously not happy.

Jonathan was terrified.

They told him he had nearly 100% blockage in his heart. If he didn’t get immediate attention, he would have likely been dead within the month.

After calling his family and crying on the phone, he went into surgery. He ended up receiving a stent to restore blood flow, and decided to take on a lifetime change in diet and lifestyle. Since then, he has started a foundation called the Heartview Global Foundation. Their goals include: creating a fund to pay for the CT Angiogram for people who can’t afford it, spreading the message of awareness, and encouraging more medical insurance companies to cover the cost of these life-saving tests. Jonathan’s personal goal is to “save thousands of lives.”

If you have any family history of heart problems, or if you simply don’t know, please get tested right away.

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From Dr. Satinder Bhatia, MD:

Coronary CT angiography (CTA) represents a great advance in the early detection of coronary artery disease. Coronary artery disease (CAD – hardening of the arteries) is often clinically silent (no recognizable symptoms). Early detection of CAD can lead to aggressive prevention strategies to avert heart attacks and save lives. CTA represents a noninvasive modality for the early detection of CAD. Using an ultrafast scanner and injection of a contrast material through a peripheral vein, high resolution images of the coronary arteries can be obtained. Such images were previously only available via invasive coronary angiography that involves the introduction of catheters into the coronary arteries. CTA allows the visualization of the coronary arteries and detection of stenosis (narrowing), hard plaque (calcified cholesterol deposition), soft plaque (non calcified plaque) and vulnerable or high risk plaque (increased risk for acute events such as heart attack). This noninvasive technology is the only methodology that visualizes soft plaque. By identification of arterial disease, specific treatments can be applied for the prevention of cardiovascular events (heart attack, sudden death). CTA represents a major advance in the early detection of CAD in individuals at risk and allows the ability to detect disease in advance of symptoms or clinical presentation. Judicious application of CTA technology can lead to early detection and treatment of CAD, prevent heart attacks and save lives.

mike

Mark Your Calendars: March 23

February 29, 2012

mike

Joey BadA$$ X Styles Of Beyond

February 27, 2012

New track: Joey BadA$$, 2012:

The sample. I believe I was in the studio when they cut vocals to this song, in Skully’s garage in the valley: Styles Of Beyond, 1998.

Shout out to Broke Mogul for the heads up on this track…

mike

Raid Score vs. Soundtrack

February 15, 2012

The Raid is coming to theaters soon. Almost all of the music is instrumental–doing anything with vocals seemed to take away from the movie. I think it ended up being 50+ minutes of score.

But at the end of the film, I found room for two songs with vocals. I didn’t want to do sing or rap. I decided to call on some friends.

They are:

and

mike

New Image: Ron English

January 25, 2012

mike

The Raid Sundance Wrap-Up

January 24, 2012

Had a great time at Sundance this past weekend. This was the premiere of the film with the new score. All the award-winning showings of the movie up to this point have been with the previous score, and the reviews have been amazing…so I was a bit nervous to see how critics reacted to it with the new music. Needless to say, I was relieved to see that people still liked it, some saying they even liked it more with the new music.

I went to the premiere with an old friend, Ken Block. Most of you probably know him from this. Ken started DC shoes back in the day, and is a pretty inspirational and fun dude.

With the premiere over, and a change to relax, we got together with some mutual friends to hang. Met Steve Berra. Awesome dude, I could have talked to him for hours.

Did a little press too, with the director (Gareth Evans) and my scoring partner (Joe Trapanese). Great guys.

Wrapped up the weekend with a party for The Raid, and a set by Deadmau5.

All in all, a great trip. Lots of awesome reviews about the film and the new score. Here’s a new (super bloody) taste of what you’re in store for when the movie comes out in a couple months…

mike

More About “Less is More,” More or Less.

January 15, 2012

I like New Year’s resolutions. I think it’s one of the best moments to reflect on where I’m at and where I’m going, and to make a simple effort to direct the course towards a place that I’d like to be in the future. This year, mine comes from a classic tenet of design I learned in college: less is more.

There’s a lot of “more” around. I’m at the mercy of it at times (maintaining this blog, my Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Viddy while I work on my band stuff and other stuff at the same time). But there are moments when the “less” really shines. As I was working on some new music tonight, I was thinking about how few instruments and gadgets I’m really using in the studio, for example. Sometimes, zeroing in on a few things that you like best can really help define what you’re doing. It can also give you more time to effective in what you’re doing. Rather than screwing around with 50 gadgets, you’re going deeper using the 5 that are your favorites. As Buckminster Fuller might say, “do more with less.”

I like being busy and I’m fine with dabbling in a lot of different creative pursuits. And I don’t expect for my “less” to be anything like anyone else’s “less”.

But like most of us, the noise out there in the world is deafening, and it pays to shut it off for a minute and focus.

mike