Joe Hahn on Linkin Park, directing "Mall"
Joe Hahn is used to directing videos for Linkin Park. He's been doing that for years with some 30 music videos under his belt, but for the first time ever, he's directing a full-length feature film.
The longtime Linkin Park member is behind the movie "Mall," starring Gina Gershon ("Killer Joe") and Peter Stormare ("Fargo"), along with Vincent D'Onofrio ("Men in Black"), who also serves as producer and screenwriter.
Based on a 2001 of the same name by author Eric Bogosian, the film (due Oct. 17) chronicles a group of disaffected suburbanites who find themselves at a shopping mall in the midst of a seemingly random shooting.
"Aside from some of the on-the-nose violence moments the whole film is centered around the idea of people being violent to themselves...It really surrounds these characters that hang out at the mall that don't really talk to each other but through the events that unfold that day they start to connect through our main character, Jeff (Cameron Monaghan)," Hahn told CBS News. "He's a character that you kind of see a little bit of hope for. He's a little bit arrogant in the beginning. You know that he's smart kid. He quotes a lot from Steppenwolf. But he evolves his way of thinking through a transcendent experience that he has throughout the day."
Linkin Park provides four of the songs on the soundtrack as collaboration with Alec Puro, the drummer of Deadsy.
"We had a lot of music that was kind of laying around so I was able to pop music in in different places," said Hahn, who's responsible for the beats, programming and keyboard for Linkin Park. "There were some songs that didn't have a home that really resonated with characters in the film."
The rest of those tracks ended up on "The Hunting Party," Linkin Park's sixth studio album, which came out in June. It's called "The Hunting Party" because it's the "idea of us getting what we want to get," Hahn said.
"We were trying to get back to this guttural emotion of making something heavy," Hahn said. "We found ourselves reacting to what's going on in the world. A lot of its pop-driven."
The difference between Linkin Park's debut album, 2000's "Hybrid Theory," and the band's latest release is that everyone's "a lot older," Hahn pointed out. "There's a lot of things to say. I would say it's our heaviest record."
Hahn says he's glad to be able to both play in Linkin Park and pursue his love for directing. He's directed several shorts, too, and has had the director's bug for a long time. Being at the helm of all those Linkin Park videos helped set the stage for "Mall."
"When I was a kid my passion was comic books," he said. "So I would just sit around copying my favorite artists or designing covers -- and every time you do it you get better and better...So the videos allowed me to experiment in so many different ways and it allowed us to elevate what we were doing musically...I take all those things with me. It's almost like a bag of tricks...It came in really handy when it came to shooting this film. We only had 18 days to shoot it, which is very fast...You had have to think quickly and improvise. And there's always something that goes wrong. For me I love it. I wouldn't say it was easy, but it was easy in the fact that enjoy it."
So, don't be surprised if you see Hahn directing another feature-length film soon. He's hoping "Mall" will open the door for more opportunities.
And even if it doesn't, there's always going to be that Grammy-winning band Linkin Park.
"Hopefully, we'll be doing it for a while," said Hahn.
When asked just how long, Hahn said, "I'd love to do this for forever."
