Mike Shinoda finds it "too hard" to play certain Linkin Park songs in the wake of Chester Bennington’s death.
The 41-year-old musician was devastated when his band mate and friend took his own life last year, and has said Linkin Park songs such as ‘Breaking The Habit’ are now too painful for him to perform without his pal by his side providing half of the vocals.
Mike – who released his debut solo EP ‘Post Traumatic’ in January – said: "We didn’t play ‘Breaking the Habit’ at the tribute show because topically, that’s just way too hard. For me, on the solo shows, there’s probably a few songs I could play myself but I don’t want to at this point, I don’t want to do it.
"I can sing ‘Nobody Can Save Me’ and ‘Battle Symphony’ from the new Linkin Park record and I can sing them because I wrote them with my friend John Green. I sang the demos and they were written in a way that I can sing. I can sing those pretty well but lyrically, they’re a little too hard. I just know that in the long run, if I put that in the set, it’s only going to be a show or two before I’m like, ‘I don’t want to sing those words.’ It’s a work in progress and it’s also knowing myself as I go."
And it isn’t just the Linkin Park songs that Mike struggles with, as he even says he finds it hard to perform some of the meaningful tracks from his solo record.
Speaking to NME, he said: "I did the song ‘Over Again’ that has the two verses. A few shows ago, I did both verses and when I was doing the first verse … something about the flow of the show, I expected the energy of the show to be a little more positive and upbeat and it had this momentum going up and then it hit that verse and it went [crashing down].
"It sucked the air out of the room a little bit and so then the next time I did it I went straight from the chorus to the second verse and the momentum stayed up."
Mike Shinoda struggles playing Linkin Park songs
