- He can play the piano & guitar. He can rap. He paints. He likes Japanese food & after it he likes Indian food.
- Both Mike Shinoda and bandmate Joseph Hahn claim to be unstoppable on Microsoft's video game console, the Xbox.
- Mike can be seen playing guitar in the videos for Crawling, Somewhere I Belong, What I've Done and Bleed It Out.
- Mike's natural hair color is black and his eye color is brown.
- Mike's most emotional moment was when when he recieved his college diploma.
- Mike is one of the two founding members of 'Linkin Park,' the other being Brad Delson.
- Mike has been married to Anna Lovejoy since May 10, 2003.
- Mike has his own MySpace.
- Mike attended the Art Center College of Design to study graphic design and illustration.
- Mike attended the Agoura High School with Linkin Park bandmate Brad Delson. The members of Hoobastank also attended the school.
- In his younger years, Mike took piano lessons, then later moved on to Jazz and Hip-Hop.
- Mike has a younger brother named Jason, Mike calls him Jay.
- Besides being a musician, Mike is also a record producer.
- Besides being with Linkin Park, Mike is also a member of Fort Minor.
- Mike's astrological sign is an Aquarius.
- Mike enjoys taking showers.
- Mike enjoys listening to Dido.
- The first record Mike bought was Bon Jovi.
- Mike has had numerous haircolors.
- Mike is currently living in LA.
- Mike got a job as a graphic designer right when he was out of college.
- Mike attended the same high school as Heather Graham.
- Mike shares a birthday with Jennifer Aniston, Sheryl, Kelly Rowland and Burt Reynolds.
- Mike wears contact lenses.
- Mike produced the entire album Reanimation.
- Mike plays the keyboards and the guitar.
- Mike went to Pasadena Art College.
- Mike attended Agoura High School.
- Mike designed the cover for Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory album.
- Mike met Joseph Hanh in art school.
- Mike started writings songs in his bedroom.
- Mike met Linkin Park's guitarist Brad Delson in 9th grade.
- Mike is 6' (1.83 m) tall.
- Mike has a cd that came out over the summer called The Rising Tied by his side project Fort Minor.
- Mike's nicknames are the Glue, Mike the Spike, Shinizzle, Spike Minoda and Mikey.
- Mike supports downloaded music. He says, "We support free music. So go ahead! Download that shit."
- Mike loves to draw and paint in his spare time.
- Mike is not related to the Russian classical composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
- Mike is half Japanese.
- Mike is one of the vocalists for the band Linkin Park.
- Mike: I do actually get to do a lot of artwork in the band. I do our t-shirts and posters. I do our website with another group of friends. I do our album artwork with a friend of mine, who's an art director. Part of this – the whole picture – is just the fact that our band is very self-contained.
- Mike: (On a possible collaboration with Bjork) The door, I think, is still open, but we haven't done anything yet. I would love to. I think that she's a very interesting musician. She's very original. And one of the beauties to Reanimation [Linkin Park's 2002 remix release with featured guests] was the ability to meet with other artists and work in the studio and learn how they work, because everybody teaches themselves to write songs in different ways. And I realized that Björk is probably – is definitely – somebody that has a very interesting way of putting together a song, just in speaking with people that have worked with her.
- Mike: My parents must have thought that I was crazy when I was younger, because they're thinking, "How in the world is the this kid ever going to make a living? The only two things he likes to do are paint and make music. And the chances of him being able to do either are slim." I do actually get to do a lot of artwork in the band. I do our t-shirts and posters. I do our website with another group of friends. I do our album artwork with a friend of mine, who's an art director. Part of this – the whole picture – is just the fact that our band is very self-contained.
- Mike: Mixed kids always have a very unique experience with the race subject because we are many times not obvious members of any group. For example, when I was younger, I would hear people make jokes about Asians around me because they wouldn't know that I was half Asian, so they assumed that I was maybe Hispanic or maybe Middle Eastern and they'd make a joke about Asians and I was the spy. I was the undercover receiver of this joke.
- Mike: I think it was probably in college that I realized that there was a difference between Japanese and Japanese American. That's important to realize. It's not the same thing and then eventually with Linkin Park, I toured in Japan. I've been there now I think four times. I remember the first time I went, how familiar it seemed, just getting out of the plane, it smelled like my aunt's house, in the airport, it smelled like Japan.
- Mike: (If he was not in Linkin Park) If I couldn't play music for a living, I would probably be doing art, doing graphics. And what's funny is that when I go home now and relax, I paint. So if I were painting for a living, I'd go home and make music for fun.
- Mike: (On if he would exchange roles with Chester) We've joked about it. I don't think that I could compete with him, his talent in singing, just the same as that he wouldn't want to compete with my talent in rapping. It's just that we have a natural inclination towards [what we each do].
- Mike: (On fame) There's always a new level. You go on tour and people recognize you. That's a level. You're driving through a city and hear your song on the radio. You turn on the TV and you're on TV. At this point, I've played the Grammy's with Jay-Z and Paul McCartney. We played Live-8 in front of 750,000 to a million people standing in the field. Not a million people on TV, but a million people there and then millions of people on TV saw it, and online obviously even more. We played in front of some big crowds. And we've met people, too. It's really cool to be able to meet Elton John and have him know who you are, that's a really strange feeling.
- Mike: I'm involved on all of the artwork for Linkin Park up 'til this point, whether it be art direction or actually coming up with specific graphic elements and design ideas. I helped design the cover for Hybrid Theory. I designed a lot of the packaging for the re-animation "Meteora." I came up with those concepts with our director Frank, but more importantly, the Fort Minor record. I pretty much did all the art on that.
- Mike: (On how education contributed to his success) I think a lot of the lessons that I learned in illustration kind of carried over to how I work in the studio now because in painting class every week you work on a painting for six to 12 hours, and you put it up on the wall, and 29 other people tell you why it's horrible. That just taught me how to go into a situation and hear criticism without taking it too personally, how to leave the ego at the door and walk in and do what's best for the art.
- Mike: (On the track, Kenji) Kenji is my middle name. It's also obviously a very common name, so the reason I named the song that is because it's my family's story but it's also a common story, something that happened at that time. So to everybody who is out here in the West Coast, this is their story. I did my best to capture an accurate story in that song that I thought represented the people's struggle and my family's struggle at that time. The song is about how the internment and how a family like ours would be pulled out of their homes by the FBI because of fear and racial profiling.
- Mike: (On the moniker, Fort Minor) I just don't want to bring out an album under my name, because then everybody would say ,"Oh its that guy from Linkin Park." Besides I attach great importance to my privacy. If there were my name everywhere I would be scared. I'not keen on to be a star and I'm not fancy that paparazzis will follow me.
- Mike: (On his recent collaborations) I just helped score this year's MTV VMA's. Those beats, and the fact that people are starting to hear Fort Minor music, has gotten me a lot of calls to produce songs for people. I did a track on Lupe Fiasco's upcoming album, songs for Styles of Beyond, and worked with Chad from The Neptunes on a song for Kenna. On the rock side, I'm about to get started on a remix of U2 and hopefully a song with Sting. I don't know what will all pan out, but I just go where the path takes me.
- Mike: My bandmates in LP were very excited for me to be able to show the fans what I do individually. I wouldn't have done this without their complete support. In fact, I picked our guitarist Brad Delson as my A&R guy!
- Mike: I am playing every instrument on there, but it's not really about me. I'm featuring a lot of great MCs that are friends of mine. I want to work with people that I'm friends with, that I get along with. I'm not just going to go out there and grab whoever's hot at the moment. I want to connect with people I see eye-to-eye with, and make great music. Like I said, it's not really about me.
- Mike: We learned pretty early on in this band (Linkin Park) that you can't have snobbery in music.
- Mike: Writing songs and sharing them with people is a very rewarding experience. many thanks to all our fans who support our albums and concerts.
- Mike: When we started the band (Linkin Park), it was because we were waiting for a sound that never happened. We got tired of waiting, and we decided to just do it ourselves.
- Mike: "Fort" represents the more aggressive side of the music. "Minor" can mean a few things: if you're talking about music theory, the minor key is darker. I wanted to name the album rather than having my name on the cover, because I want people to focus on the music, not me.
