How Mike Shinoda found life after the death of Linkin Park's Chester Bennington
Mike Shinoda's wife used to joke that his tear ducts were broken.
As the painstaking sonic mastermind of Linkin Park, this Southern California native spent years creating carefully detailed tracks - dense with serrated guitars and throbbing hip-hop beats - that showcased the signature wail of the group's talented but troubled frontman, Chester Bennington.
Shinoda did more than program and produce; he rapped too, and with plenty of aggression to match the band's forceful attack. Even at his most intense, though, Shinoda as a vocalist always put across something of an intellectual quality - outraged but not agonized.
"By nature I'm very analytical," he acknowledged on a recent afternoon. "So even if I'm going to talk about something that's really emotional, I'll communicate it in a way that's organized.
"Maybe it's because I'm half Japanese and was raised with that Japanese approach
