Staind singer Aaron Lewis will be heard on a new version of the Linkin Park single “Crawling” on the Southern California rap-rock band’s upcoming remix album. Lewis recorded harmonies for the song in Linkin Park’s bus on the Family Values Tour last fall, Linkin Park DJ Joseph Hahn said Thursday. Hahn described the track, remixed by vocalist Mike Shinoda, as spacey and twice as long as the three-minute original.
Linkin Park are shooting for a May release date for the still-untitled album, which will feature remixes of the tracks on their debut, Hybrid Theory, the best-selling album of 2001.
The Crystal Method are working with Ryu from the underground rap group Styles of Beyond on a remix of “Pushing Me Away,” while Orgy’s Jay Gordon put a technological twist on “Points of Authority.”
Turntablist crew the X-ecutioners, who performed with Linkin Park at last year’s MTV Video Music Awards as well as on their own upcoming album (see “Linkin Park, Xzibit, Big Pun Turn Up On X-ecutioners’ Latest”), also do “something special” on the record, Hahn said.
“It’s good to work with all these different people that we respect,” Hahn said. “It gives us a good excuse to reach out to them.”
Other artists working on the album include Dilated Peoples’ Evidence, DJ Z-Trip and producers Prince Paul (Handsome Boy Modeling School, De La Soul), the Alchemist (Big Punisher, Mobb Deep) and Josh Abraham (Limp Bizkit, Crazy Town).
Hahn, who spent the past week directing videos for the X-ecutioners and Static-X, is putting the finishing touches on his remix of “With You” for the project.
“I just gutted the whole song and made a new song out of it,” Hahn said. “Same vocals, but all the instruments are a lot different.”
Linkin Park kick off the Projekt Revolution Tour with Cypress Hill, Adema and DJ Z-Trip next week in Colorado.