Linkin Park World Premieres 'New Divide' for 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen' on KROQ

The song made its debut at 12:45 PM on Monday, May 18, 2009.

The band has made New Divide available on iTunes, and fans may hear the song free on demand by visiting Linkin Park's official website.

What I've Done, a 2007 release, achieved great success both on the Transformers soundtrack and Linkin Park's third studio album, Minutes to Midnight.

New Divide, being written specifically for the new Transformers film, will likely not appear on a Linkin Park album.

Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda later spoke to KROQ's Kevin and Bean about their new song for the new Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

They explained that director Michael Bay was kind enough to show the rockers selected scenes from the film while in production, the basis upon which they drew in writing New Divide.

They went on to state that they do not like to play songs for "anyone" until they are finished, so Bay's great gesture was not lost on Linkin Park.

Bennington and Shinoda shared an analogy formed by Linkin Park guitarist Brad Delson. He likened creating a single song (as opposed to a full-length album) to cooking 1 hamburger instead of 12.

They also joked that they wanted to meet Megan Fox, but were turned down.

Mike Shinoda has been blogging about the process on his website all along, even before announcing that the song in question had been written for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

Linkin Park also aided in scoring the new summer film with Hans Zimmer, who has won a multitude of prestigious awards for many films (The Dark Knight, Rain Man, The Thin Red Line, to name a few) including a Grammy, Golden Globe, and Academy Award for Lion King.

"The song we wrote is being used as one of the themes, and we will be writing various interpolations on that theme, and trying out some other thematic ideas as part of the (very large) team scoring the film," Shinoda wrote on April 24, 2009.

The score for the new Transformers film is being composed primarily by Steve Jablonsky, who told Sci-Fi Scoop, "...I am still the composer on this film. It has all gotten rather complicated. The film is BIG, and now that we've got Linkin Park involved, Hans has kind of been helping me keep the production on track, because I'm so focused on writing the score at the moment."

Following the KROQ World Premiere, Shinoda posted the lyrics for New Divide on his website.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen hits theaters June 24, 2009.

Sources:

Darren. Jablonsky Still Scoring 'Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,' Sci-Fi Scoop. April 28, 2009: http://www.scifiscoop.com/news/jablonsky-still-scoring-transformers-revenge-of-the-fallen/

KROQ Live Broadcast, 106.7 FM Los Angeles, CA. May 18, 2009.

Shinoda, Mike. MikeShinoda.Com Blog: Transformers 2: New Linkin Park Song and Score. April 24, 2009: http://www.mikeshinoda.com/index/Recommended_Music

Shinoda, Mike. MikeShinoda.Com Blog: New Divide Lyrics. April 24, 2009: http://www.mikeshinoda.com/blog/linkin_park_/new_divide_lyrics