Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda says daughter shrugged off his guitar tips: 'What does he know about performing?'
She'd become so numb.
It's been long enough since Linkin Park last toured that Mike Shinoda's kids don't quite understand what a rock star their dad really is.
"'Yeah, whatever. Cool Dad.' Basically 'leave me alone,'" Shinoda said on The Tonight Show of his daughter's response when he tried to help her learn chords for a recent school performance. Later, when she finally came to him on her own to ask for pointers, Shinoda bragged to his wife. But she started "laughing" at Shinoda, explaining, "that's not what happened."
"I heard you two talking originally and she was like, 'Get out of here, don't tell me how to play,'" Shinoda recalled his wife saying. "After you left I went in the room and was like, 'Hey, you should listen do your Dad,'" to which Shinoda's daughter responded, "What does he know about performing?"
Shinoda was understanding about his daughter's lack of interest in his decades of performance experience with his band Linkin Park given the ages of his kids. "We have not been touring as a band for seven years," he told Jimmy Fallon, "and for them, their memories of Linkin Park, they don't really have them, because they were so much younger."
Shinoda and wife Anna have three children together. The eldest, Otis, was born in 2009, which would make him only eight years old when the band played their last show. Lead singer Chester Bennington died by suicide in 2017, causing the band to cancel their tour and enter an indefinite hiatus. Earlier this month they reunited with a new drummer and vocalist, and released the album From Zero.
Without even seeing their dad tour the world providing vocals, rhythm guitar, keyboards, and synths for Linkin Park, his kids all gravitated toward music on their own. "A couple of them play drums, a couple of them play piano," he explained. Shinoda describes being generous with his musical proficiency, asking his daughter, "'How's everything going,' talking to her," and gently advising, "'Hey, by the way, that one chord at the end of this part, your fingers go here.'"
When she rebuffed him, Shinoda displayed some of the humility he's come to be known for: "I was like, 'Okay sorry! I'm sure you got it.'" In 2022 a video of Shinoda went viral when a red carpet reporter had to be reminded who he was, mid-conversation. "My name is Mike Shinoda, I play in a band called Linkin Park" he said, a full minute into the interview and to the interviewer's obvious shock. "She didn't know that," he joked.
Related: Chris Martin honors Chester Bennington with moving cover of 'Crawling'
The new iteration of the band made their debut on The Tonight Show, with vocalist Emily Armstrong taking over for Bennington, which has already caused controversy. They performed the lead single from From Zero, called "The Emptiness Machine."
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.