Call it Linkin Park’s pet projekt.
When the band’s fourth annual Projekt Revolution tour rolls into town Saturday, it’ll be doing so in “green” style. The band’s tour vehicles have been converted to use cleaner-burning biofuel (made from natural, renewable sources such as vegetable oil), and its Music for Relief charity is donating $1 from each ticket to plant trees that will help reduce global warming.
“It’s not about trying to save the world,” says rapper Mike Shinoda, who writes most of the band’s lyrics. “Our goal is to do everything we can to clean up our world and make it a better place. We want to do something to help focus people on climate change and global warming, and we as a band want to help reduce and fight damage to the environment.”
Linkin Park’s proactive approach taps into an environmental awareness that’s spreading across the music industry.
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More than ever, artists of all stripes — from the arena-packing Red Hot Chili Peppers to the indie-rocking Andrew Bird — are employing various methods to reduce the environmental impact of recording and releasing albums and, most visibly, touring.
“It’s gone from ‘What’s biodiesel?’ to [what I call] the post-‘Inconvenient Truth’ era,” says Adam Gardner, guitarist/vocalist for rock band Guster and co-founder of the eco-minded non-profit Reverb. “There’s a lot more awareness now. Everyone now is interested and wants to take action.”
Reverb is one of a number of non-profit organizations (such as NativeEnergy, Global Cool) that work with artists such as Bird, John Mayer, the Chili Peppers and Norah Jones to draw up plans that, among other things, help reduce waste, offset carbon dioxide emissions, promote eco-friendly merchandise and encourage recycling during concerts. Gardner says Reverb has worked on more than 500 tours since its creation in 2004.
Individual artists and bands aren’t the only ones thinking greener. Most major music festivals, from this summer’s Lollapalooza (featuring a “Green Street” area that promoted sustainability) to Austin City Limits (helping the city maintain the grass at Zilker Park, where the festival is staged) to South by Southwest (offsetting energy used at venues during the festival), are working to limit or undo potentially harmful environmental effects.
The heightened interest doesn’t surprise Neal Turley, co-founder of Sustainable Waves, which provides Earth-friendly equipment such as solar-powered stages.
“[Greening] has definitely accelerated,” Turley says. “It’s really amazing in the last three years where this has come. When we were trying to make this happen 10 years ago, it was a pretty tough sell. Five years ago, it was starting to turn the corner, and now it’s just amazing.”
Shinoda says Linkin Park’s eco-friendly stance was bolstered during the band’s July 7 appearance at Japan’s Live Earth climate-change concert. He says he noticed a significant difference in the behavior between Western audiences and those in the Far East, which spurred the band members to push harder to make a difference.
“A couple of songs into the set, the fans were getting so rowdy that they needed to fix the barricades,” Shinoda says. “So after it was announced, the Japanese crowd took two steps back, and the whole thing was done in 10 minutes. In L.A., when you ask a crowd to do something, they basically just take another sip of their drink and stare at you.”
Green touring is just an extension of other activism and charity work in which Linkin Park has involved itself. In 2005, the members founded Music for Relief to aid victims of world catastrophes and combat global warming. Since its inception, the Beverly Hills-based charity has raised more than $2 million for victims of the tsunami in Southeast Asia and hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
As for Projekt Revolution: “We hope by the end of this touring cycle to plant a million trees,” guitarist Brad Delson says. “That’s something we can really hang our hat on, you know?”
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Projekt Revolution
Featuring Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, HIM and more.
When: 1 p.m. Saturday
Where: First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre, 19100 S. Ridgeland Ave., Tinley Park