Rocker Chris Cornell eschewed a solo jaunt this summer to participate in Linkin Park [ tickets ]'s Projekt Revolution tour and, judging from comments made during a recent teleconference, he couldn't be more thrilled.

Cornell, whose former bands Soundgarden and Audioslave played Lollapalooza's main stage three times, said in order to have a successful traveling festival, "somebody has to keep their eye on the ball" and "focus on getting some interesting combination of bands."

"I think Projekt Revolution is a great one because Linkin Park [ tickets ] is on top of it," Cornell said. "They're excited about it, passionate about it and that's what it takes to make it great."

Besides Cornell, the fifth Projekt Revolution tour will include performances by founders Linkin Park as well as 10 Years, Armor for Sleep, Ashes Divide, Atreyu, Hawthorne Heights, Street Drum Corps and The Bravery. The tour kicks off July 16 in Massachusetts. See below for the itinerary. "This is the fifth year that we've done it and each year we try to do something exciting for the summer," said Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda, during the same teleconference. "I think originally we were inspired by the great festivals that happened in Europe and the ones that we've played overseas. You know, they're a lot of fun and there are a number of different touring festivals that go on in the States that are cool, like, I'd love to go see them, but I think that there is definitely a certain niche that we feel that this tour fills, and a lot of our fans seem to agree."

Shinoda explained that Projekt Revolution, Ozzfest and Warped Tour aren't similar. He calls Warped Tour a "screamo-emo-punk thing" and Ozzfest "metal."

"And those words I wouldn't use to describe this tour," Shinoda said. "I think--although there are elements of those things in some of the bands on the bill--consistently, over time, Projekt Rev has showcased a lot of variety.

"And to be totally blunt, I think this is the kind of music that our band listens to. That's why we reach out to these bands in the first place to put these bills together. … Also, actually I want to mention it's not all about Linkin Park fans. On this tour, there are a lot of bands, and we like the fact that people may be coming who aren't familiar with Linkin Park, who aren't familiar with The Bravery or Chris Cornell and they come for other bands and then they get to see everybody. To come from the beginning to the end of the show, you get a lot of different sounds and you get a lot of different experiences, and that's what makes it fun."

Linkin Park has already toured at least three times in support of its 2007 "Minutes to Midnight" album, so it is planning on mixing up the set a bit. Shinoda suggested that the Street Drum Corps may perform with Linkin Park.

"As far as the Linkin Park set goes, we've been trying to build in as much wiggle room for improvisation and kind of screwing around with existing songs, as much of that as possible, and we'll continue to do so," Shinoda said. "We haven't actually, at this point, figured out what the set for the summer is going to be. But I feel pretty confident saying that we'll be working more toward that end."

Cornell said he's going to try to work in a couple new songs from his as-yet untitled forthcoming album, produced by Timbaland. And The Bravery singer Sam Endicott explained his band will perform songs from "The Moon," a reworked version of 2007's "The Sun and the Moon." The Bravery has been playing those songs during its headlining tour, and the response as been excellent, Endicott said during the teleconference.

"We're going to start putting in these new versions, kind of like remixed versions of the songs," Endicott said. "So we'll start busting out a bunch of those on this tour."

For the second year in a row, the rap element is missing from Projekt Revolution. However, Shinoda explained this is not a permanent move.

"I think maybe in the future we'll have some more hip-hop artists back on the bill, but last year and this year we didn't find the right rap groups to put on the show," Shidoda said. "There weren’t any that we felt would mix well with everything. And I think, for this one, it's pretty much an all-rock bill and there''s a ton of variety this year. I think this is a really diverse bill, as far as rock goes."