These Linkin Park x Sebago boots were made for comfort, concerts, and charity

By Ana Valenzuela, InterAksyon.com · Thursday, January 31, 2013 · 10:02 pm

These pair of Linkin Park designed boots comes at a retail price of Php10,499.75. Photo courtesy of Sebago.

California-based rock band Linkin Park, which gave us hits such as “In the end,” “Numb,” and many more recently struck another one. This time, it’s a treat for the feet, as the rock band got together with renowned footwear brand Sebago.

This is the first time the band has designed any footwear, which was launched a week earlier in New York. The band chose Sebago, a premium purveyor of nautical and New England-inspired shoes, as a friend of theirs, popular New York graffiti artist Stash, was designing for Sebago, doing his collaborations with the shoe brand at the time, and that got them interested.

Linkin Park's DJ programmer Joe Hahn showing the shoe at the New York launch. Photo courtesy of Sebago.

The Grammy award-winning artists decided on making a unique boot that would be comfortable in their tours and travel. “The idea we had was for people who travel with us, (they) travel so much, not just the band but our crew and security (and) what would they like in a shoe,” shares Mike Shinoda, Linkin Park’s rapping vocalist, keyboards, and guitar in a video shown at the recent launch held in Greenbelt mall in Makati City.

“The band actually worked with our designers and made the sketch, our designers would say, ‘how would you like the boot to look like,’ and gave them options for materials,” says Gifford Chu of Sebago Philippines.

Linkin Park's DJ programmer Joe Hahn , and rap vocalist Mark Shinoda together with Nylon TV's Josh Madden. Photo courtesy of Sebago.

“We wanted to keep the boot really simple, really sturdy, really high quality so it would last forever, so we used premium leather, really tough nylon, and vibram soles,” Shinoda emphasizes. The boots has the Linkin Park (Lp in a circle) logo on the sole, and Sebago comments on its sturdiness as the vibram rubber outsole is a premium outsole maker known for its durability.

“This is the first time Sebago has collaborated with a music band. Previous collaborations we have done were with graffiti artists, shoe designers, and designers for the apparel brand,” Chu tells us, as he hinted there would be more to come.

Sebago was inspired by the creativity of Linkin Park and both teams created this boot design for the benefit of Music for Relief, a charity established by Linkin Park themselves.

Ten percent of the proceeds will go to this charity.  Joe Hahn, Linkin Park’s DJ and programmer tells us more about Music for Relief in the video. “It started as a relief organization for people who were victims of for example hurricane Sandy, and a certain point we wanted to do something preventive as well. So we got involved in a number of green measures,” he says.

Chu agrees, “the band continues this charity until today, they help all the victims of catastrophes, the latest is Hurricane Sandy, they are also into educating people against global warming.”

Like, Linkin Parks’ songs, this unique pair of boots would surely be a classic. It is available in select cities worldwide, and in the Philippines there would only be a hundred pairs available selling for Php10,499.75.

Look for the Lp logo on the boots' soles. Photo courtesy of Sebago.