“What does he know about performing?” Mike Shinoda reveals hilarious insult from his daughter, who had no idea that Linkin Park are kinda a big deal

(Image credit: Theo Wargo/Getty Images)

It's been a while since Linkin Park were an active, touring rock band, and, in a new interview with US talk show host Jimmy Fallon, Mike Shinoda revealed that even members of his own family weren't fully aware of what exactly their daddy does.

The reformed Los Angeles band performed their new single The Emptiness Machine on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last night (September 17) and Shinoda also talked with the show's host about their recent comeback.

During the conversation, the singer shared a highly amusing anecdote about his daughter having no real idea that her father and his band are kinda a big deal in the music world.

“One of my daughters said, 'Oh, you know, I signed up to play this song at this school festival type of thing',” Shinoda told Fallon, adding “This girl doesn't know how to play guitar. She took two lessons at that point, this was a couple years ago.”

Over the next couple of weeks, Shinoda could hear his daughter diligently practising the song, and while he was delighted to hear her “getting really pretty far”, he could also hear that she was getting one of the chords in the song wrong, and decided to offer some fatherly advice to his offspring.

“I was like, How's everything going?” Shinoda recalled, saying that he casually added “Your fingers go here” in reference to the chord his daughter was playing incorrectly.

“And she's like, 'Yeah, whatever'.”

The next day, Shinoda continued, “she came to me and was like, 'Hey, Dad, um, can you show me that chord?' And I was like, Oh, yeah, cool. No problem. I just thought, Oh, she came around.”

However, Shinoda's wife Anna later told him that this wasn't exactly how events had played out.

“She said, 'I heard you two talking originally, and she [the couple's daughter] was like, 'Get out of here', basically, like, 'Don't tell me how to play'. And she [Anna] was like, 'After you left, I went in the room and I was like, 'Hey, like, you should listen to your dad.' And my daughter goes [dismissively], 'What does he know about performing?'”

“My wife literally pulled up a video of us, of Linkin Park, onstage at, like, Rock in Rio in front of 85,000 people. And she shows it to her, and my daughter goes, 'Who's that?'

'This is your dad. He knows how to rock. You should listen to your dad.”

Watch the full interview with Shinoda below:

Linkin Park's new album From Zero, will be released on November 15.

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.