I've been making songs on my own at home or in the bus, but hadn't gotten to work with the other guys until this week. A few days ago, Joe, Phoenix and I were having some fun at Joe's, and started a couple things. Of the two songs we worked on, one was a heavier, fast-tempo song with heavy guitars and distorted sampled drums, and the other was a little less aggressive, but still dark and upbeat, and had a really interesting chord progression. Joe's got this new MIDI keyboard-turntable unit, where he can make his vinyl play tones that you hit on the keyboard, and we can scratch them in real time. It's pretty cool--I think there's a lot of potential for that thing.
Anyway, more updates to come later. We're preparing for a more defined studio schedule in the coming weeks.
On a random note, Joe gave me Ableton Live, a program where I can make dope mixtape-mashup-projects...I'm making one that I'll hopefully be able to post here on mikeshinoda.com soon, which will feature some old songs by other artists that I think are cool.
mike
PS - I have to call The Phoenix out on the shirt he was wearing that day. The funny thing is, he knows it's questionable, but he wore it to amuse me and Joe.