Mike Shinoda phones Hong Kong early one Sunday morning. His band Linkin Park are in Chicago getting ready to play one of the final dates of their annual Projekt Revolution multi-band tour and Shinoda spends the hour before showtime on the phone promoting upcoming gigs and pet projects. Lately, the pet projects take priority.
'We want to be a part of helping find solutions to people's wastefulness of energy and make our concerts more green,' Shinoda says. The band is helping Habitat for Humanity build homes in New Orleans and is donating proceeds from the sale of a Projekt Revolution art book to Music for Relief. They're the kinds of projects you'd sooner hear an activist talking about than a rock star, but it's a role in which Shinoda shines.
The 30-year-old guitarist has been called the glue that binds Linkin Park. He founded one of the world's biggest bands with Brad Delson, the guitarist he's known since seventh grade, and later with drummer Rob Bourdon and turntablist Joe Hahn.
'Some time after that, we realised that global warming seemed to be potentially causing the disasters that we were cleaning up after,' Shinoda says. 'So rather than being reactive, we wanted to focus more of our efforts on proactive measures, such as planting trees, being more conservative about the way we use [resources] and spreading the word.'