Linkin Park’s celebrated debut album 2000’s
Hybrid Theory would come out during the peak of the nu-metal’s popularity. Linkin Park over the next several years became
inescapable if you listened to rock radio or watched MTV. What came next is truly amazing. Linkin Park did something that so few bands
could do, their popularity eclipsed trends in music and they soon ventured into uncharted
territory, much to the chagrin of some of their fans. But sadly their nearly two decade run came
to an abrupt end following the death of frontman Chester Bennington. Today, let’s take a deep dive into the career
of Linkin Park. Linkin Park’s story begins with Rapper/vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist/producer
Mike Shinoda. Shinoda would be born to a japanese father
and a white mother with the musician telling Howard Stern that being mixed race resulted
in him not really knowing where he belonged in school. His mother would encourage him by the age
of 6 to take up piano lessons thinking it would look good on his college applications. In addition to music lessons Shinoda would
tell the shock jock that he he spent a lot of his time as a young child painting and
doing artwork with the idea that perhaps someday he’d become an artist It was by the time he became a teenager he
soon started to get into the blues, jazz and hip hop. Shinoda by the mid 80’s would be hugely
influenced by Run-DMC’s second record King of Rock and Beastie Boys' License to Ill as
well as LL Cool J's Bad in addition to Public Enemy and NWA. It would be the collaborations and blending
of rock and rap that gave Shinoda an idea of what he wanted to pursue musically telling
Rolling Stone “The first show I went to was Anthrax and Public Enemy. They did ‘Bring the Noise’ together, and
I was like, ‘That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard. Wanting to follow in the footsteps of his
music idols who sampled popular rock music in their songs he would ask his musical teacher
to teach him how to do just that recalling to to Rolling Stone. When I was about thirteen, I told my teacher,
Eileen, I wanted to get more into playing jazz and blues and maybe hip-hop. She said she couldn't help me out with that
because that wasn't her training. She said, "Maybe you just wanna get a keyboard
and start learning those things on your own." I thought that was really big of her to say,
and definitely led to an important point in my life where I bought a keyboard. Then I got a sampler, started making beats
and playing around with MIDI and digital-based music.” Shinoda would tell Stern that prior to Chester
Bennington fronting Linkin Park the seeds of the band began with him and a childhood
friend of his named Mark Wakefield who he first started making music with recalling
to the shock jock “the band was just originally me and Mark and i would mostly do all the
rap stuff and he would do most of the rock stuff and then we’d teach each other the
other side. Mark also happened to be living next door
to guitarist Brad Delson with Shinoda adding “Almost like a TV Sitcom they were next
door neighbours and there windows were across from each other…We’d be in mark’s room
playing sega genesis and you’d hear brad playing metallica on the guitar from the other
window.” Delson was also a schoolmate of Shinoda Agoura
High School in southern california. The trio soon recruited a bandmate of Delson,
drummer Rob Bourdon, who played with him in the band Relative Degree.“ Bourdon, got
his start drumming in the third grade after his parents took him to an aerosmith concert. Fun fact . (Bourdon’s mother, Patty, was
a high school girlfriend of Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer, who he credits with coming up
with the band name. It was following high school Shinoda attended
Pasadena’s California’s Art of College Design where he studied illustration. Shinoda would refer to the school as the harvard
of artschool during his interview with Stern. He would admit to Stern his submission package
to get into the school heavily consisted of figure drawings, music drawings and something
closely resembling dungeons and dragons. It was at artschool Shinoda met an aspiring
illustrator and DJ Joseph Hahn who shared his love of hip hop.. Hahn soon joined the band, while Bourdon who
attended UCLA during this time met and roomed with bassist Dave Farrell with both of them
graduating in 1999. Naming themselves Xero at the time, the first
incarnation of the band was born. Shinoda soon turned his bedroom into a makeshift
studio, with a four-track recorder and vocal mic to make the band’s early demos. Shinoda by his own admission experimented
with different sounds without knowing where he would end up revealing to Rolling Stone
I didn't know anything about old-school rock & roll or blues, but I'd hear a B.B. King song and just think it was the greatest
thing ever. I always ended up taking those influences
and making hip-hop beats out of them. So I put my bluesy piano to a sampled beat
and, eventually, I started rapping over it. The members of Xero would spend their nights
playing music with Shinoda describing his chaotic life attending school and being in
a band telling Rolling Stone “I’d do classes from nine to four, four to seven and seven
to ten at night I’d go from there to band practice in Hollywood for two or three hours,
then all the way back to my parents’ house and work on paintings until I couldn’t do
it anymore. Then I’d get up in the morning and do it
all again. In 1997 Xero put together and locally released
a four track cassette sampler. While Delson was in College he interned at
Zomba Music Publishing. Zomba would represent artists including Korn
and Limp Bizkit whose accolades were scattered throughout the office. Delson soon told his boss, Jeff Blue the head
of Artist relations about his band Xero. Blue would end up going to Xero’s show at
LA Whisky A Go Go, which saw them open for System of a Down Impressed by the show, Xero
soon got a publishing deal with Zomba music. It was over the next year the band played
countless showcases for numerous major and indie labels all of which passed on the band. Perhaps it was the subject matter the band
was singing about tha resulted in them getting turned down with Shinoda telling Rolling Stone
“For the most part, we made a lot of joke songs. Gangsta rap had just poked its head out, and
we made a lot of joke gangsta-rap songs. They were all about smoking weed and being
pimps, and those were two things we were totally unfamiliar with. Like with a lot of suburban kids, there was
an element of voyeurism there -- I had never been down to Long Beach, y'know?” Following a disastrous showcase in 1998 in
LA Mark was fired from the band. Mark would end up becoming the VP of Velvet
Hammer an artist management company with an impressive roster of artists including Korn,
Alice In Chains, Deftone sand the Smashing Pumpkins. On Linkin Park’s debut album Hybrid Theory
Mark would get writing credits on several songs. He would also be credited with designing the
front cover of Syste of a Downs album Toxicity The band was now left without a frontman with
Shinoda telling Kerrang “I wanted somebody in the band who had the same drive and passion
for melodic singing vocals as I had towards rapping vocals,” What followed was a 4-5 month search auditioning
singers. It would be Jeff Blue who suggested a singer
from Arizona named chester bennington he had heard about from a lawyer friend at a recent
music conference. Bennington was two years older than most of
the members of Linkin Park. Chester would take his inspirations from Stone
Temple Pilots, The Smith and Depeche Mode. He had long given up on his rock n’ roll
dream by the late 90’s. In fact a year before he received the call
to audition for Linkin Park in 1998 Bennington told his then wife he was quitting music.. His first wife Samantha would tell Rolling
Stone “He was screaming and yelling, ‘I’m not doing music anymore!’ “ “I looked at him and said, ‘I’m
not letting you quit. You owe me an hour of practice, whether you’re
singing to the radio or playing your guitar.’ I also told him, ‘One day, you’re going
to get a call from L.A. I just know it. You need to be ready.’ It was during the earlier part of the decade
Chester had played in the alternative outfit Grey Daze, who put out an album, got some
local radio play, nearly nabbed a record deal and opened for the likes of Bush and Suicidal
Tendencies and even headlined at venues that seated a few thousand people, but their popularity
didn’t extend much outside Arizona and not helping was his bandmates lack of focus and
drive. He would recall to Kerrang “Nobody outside
Arizona was interested,”. “It was very difficult to be the guy who
wrote and sang the songs and share the credit with people who didn’t really give a. Very few people will respect the opinion of
a 16-year-old songwriter fronting a band. I was pretty frustrated.” By 1998 the band was done. By 1999 Chester was married and secured a
stable tech job and was about to turn 23. It was in the middle of a surprise birthday
party for Chester he received a call from Jeff Blue saying “I’m going to give you
your big break. I have a great band for you.” The band was called Xero, and they needed
a singer. “
the following day received the demo featuring two tracks, one featuring the vocals of the
band’s previous vocalist and the other the instrumental track with the vocals removed. Chester would recall to Kerrang I noticed
that Mike’s rapping was really good, and I felt I could improve on the melodies as
far as their choruses were concerned,”“Something told me that this was the golden ticket to
get inside Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.” A few days later Chester added his vocals
to the demo and sent it back to Zomba Music. Jeff Blue would recall hearing Chester’s
audition tape “What I heard floored me,”“Every crack of his voice had a story to tell. It was genuine, vulnerable, urgent, beautiful
and hit you in the gut.” Several days later he flew out to Xero’s
rehearsal space in Los Angeles. Chester’s future depended on this audition. He quit his job back home, got the blessing
of his wife and brought along a handful of clothes and his favorite microphone. Despite thinking he already had the job, Chester
would soon learn he wasn’t the only one auditioning. ‘ Not helping was that he had become reserved
to working in an office and showed up to the audition wearing a silk bowling shirt. Appearance wise, he was anything but a rockstar. Chester would tell Rolling Stone “There
was a lot of fear,” We had a lot to lose – our credit to destroy, a relationship
to destroy.” ‘ But once Chester started singing, it was game
over and another person auditioning simply left after hearing him sing.Mike Shinoda would
recall to Kerrang “Chester was very hot and cold back then,” referring to his ability
to go from a quiet whisper to an all out scream adding “[His] talent stood out straight
away,” “I mean, it would be impossible to be in a situation with Chester and not
be in awe of his raw talent.” But that raw talent also came with a lot of
darkness. Born to a nurse mother and a police detective
father Chester Bennington grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and was the youngest of 4 children. It was at the age of 11 his parents divorced
and feeling abandoned by his mother, he went to live with his father who worked long hours
and investigated child abuse crimes. Bennington would recall his father not being
in the best frame of mind at the time as his work took a toll on him. It was over the next two years Bennington
would face abuse at the hands of an older male friend telling Rolling Stone “I was
getting beaten up and being forced to do things I didn’t want to do,”“It destroyed my
self-confidence.” Before he could channel his emotions into
music, the frontman wanting to soon explored hard drugs and alcohol at a young age telling
Rolling Stone “I was a lot more confident when I was high,” “I felt like I had more
control over my environment when I was on hallucinogens or drinking.” Bennington would end his relationship with
hard drugs before he met his first wife Samantha after coming face to face with a local gang
who barged into a place he was getting high and it resulted in his friends and himself
being assaulted and robbed. It was shortly after Chester joined the band,
Xero temporarily changed their name to Hybrid Theory before learning another band already
had dibs on the name with Shinoda telling Kerrang “I’m kind of glad we don’t call
ourselves by that name anymore,” “Hybrid music is such a trend right now. It’s almost a joke to say that your band
is about mixing styles, since everybody is doing it.” The band went through a few more name ideas
before Chester brought up Linkin Park, taking inspiration from the park of the same name
in Santa Monica. Another reason for choosing the name was that
the website domain was up for grabs.. Despite nailing the audition and going all
in with Linkin Park Chester would admit to the LA Times he had some reservations recalling
“I was just thinking about how great my life in Phoenix was in comparison to what
I was doing out here. Even though I didn’t have a lot of money,
at least I had a job and a decent place to live. I didn’t have all my [stuff] in my car...adding
to Loudersound “I had basically decided to retire from music,” “I’d got a job
in real estate and thought that while I would probably still make tunes for fun, I would
need to find something else to do full-time..” Chester’s first few months in Linkin were
pretty rough. He was pretty much homeless so he would float
between friend and relatives couches in addition to sleeping in his car. Even during the hybrid theory sessions Chester
would sleep in his car if the studio was closed and when the studio opened he’d sleep on
the couch until the rest of his band showed up. With the band’s lineup solidified and the
internet becoming a more popular way for unsigned acts to promote their music, the band soon
hit music message boards and chat rooms. They soon started to see their fan base growing
and they enlisted their fans as a sort of street team to promote their music to the
masses. It was also during this time the band released
a six song EP titled hybrid theory that was given out to their street teams. What followed was a nine song demo that was
sent out to record labels with dozens of them passing on the band. One count was that a total of 45 labels said
no to the band. Chester would tell Loudersound about the band’s
inability to nab a record deal in their early days “I think we confused people,”. “Nobody really knew what to do with us. They were thinking, ‘How do we promote this? Where does this go at radio?’ I could see how they thought it was just too
much work. It was a pain in the ass, but it gave us time
to figure out who we were as a band, and gave Mike [Shinoda] and I time to get comfortable
with one another.” Seeming like polar opposites the core of Linkin
Park had always been Chester and Mike’s songwriting talents, Chester would discuss
his childhood problems with Mike who sometimes used those stories as inspiration for the
band’s lyrics. Despite Mike and Chester being the face of
the band Spin would write in their 2003 cover story on the group’s songwriting process
Linkin Park never jam. “There’s something to be said for doing
it that way,” Phoenix says, “but for us it’s just counterproductive.” Instead, they come up with ideas alone or
in pairs; the collaboration begins in the studio, where ideas are tweaked and focus-grouped
until everybody’s satisfied. “If one person’s not happy,” Shinoda
says, “you gotta go back and start over.” The band in a last ditch effort reached out
to longtime champion of the group Jeff Blue who had now moved to Warner Brothers His first
band he would sign at his new job would be Linkin Park in 1999. Keep in mind Warner Brothers had already passed
on the band 3x by this point in time. The band was far from living large after having
signed to Warner. There were plenty of tough times during the
making of their first album Hybrid Theory. Chester would tell the LA Times “I had to
work at coffee shops part time, just to have money to go eat at Sandy’s Burger across
the street from where we practiced. I went insane.... Sometimes at midnight I’d be knocking at
Mike’s door, ‘I can’t ... do this, I can’t do this, I gotta go, it’s just insane,
what ... was I thinking?’ “My option in life was to do this or just
work a 9-to-5 job. That was it.... But I was like, ‘All right, I’m not gonna
go back there, I will make it, and I might as well do it with these guys and we’ll
figure out how to make it work.’ ” The band soon butted heads with their label
over musical direction and band members. Early on. Execs at the label tried to get Shinoda ousted
from the band trying to divide and conquer the group telling Chester he should be the
sole face of the band. The label at one point trying to bring in
a rapper from New York to replace Shinoda, but It’s fair to say Chester didn’t react
well to the label’s suggestion being fiercely loyal. He would tell the label where they could go. The band soon found themselves shorthanded
with Bassist Dave Farrell playing on the road with his other outfit Tasty Snax, so Brad
Delson took up bass duties as well. Adding to the problems were that the band
and label initially struggled to find a producer to work with the band. A lot of producers didn’t want to work with
newly signed bands but the band and label landed on producer Don Gilmore who had previously
worked with Lit and Eve 6 to produce the band’s first record. Engineer Andy Wallace, had experience mixing
rap and rock having worked on the Aerosmith-Run DMC collab Walk This Way. Using a lot of the same songs on their demos
that were previously rejected by record labels, the band fine tuned, rewrote parts over a
several month period. But the band and Gilmore had some friction
between them. Commandeering the famous NRG studios would
sometimes clash over choruses or hooks not being good enough. Chester would recall working on one song telling
Loudersound “I just wanted to punch that dude in the
face,” recalls the singer. “I was so pissed – nothing I did was good
enough for him. I thought, ‘Man, everything you say to me
takes me one step closer to the edge… and I’m about to break.’ And then I thought, ‘Wait, that might actually
work!’ Other times the band would spend hours rewriting
lyrics with Chester admitting to Loudersound “We would rewrite lyrics, like, 75 times,”. “It was crazy. But because we didn’t take the short cuts,
it ended up meaning more. We believed in what we were doing so much,
and we were like, f***, why can’t anybody else see this?’ But when the album came out, I guess they
saw it…” Unlike a lot of bands, Linkin Park still had
a punk rock DIY attitude even after they got signed to a major label. Hahn and Shinoda would create the artwork
for Hybrid Theory, while Bourdan and Delson dealt with the financial and marketing side
of the band. Bennington meanwhile designs the band’s
merchandise. Farrell meanwhile writes the band’s tour
diary for the group’s website. The band played a whopping 324 shows in 2001. A lot of the press coverage of the band painted
the group as being straight edge with a hard work ethic. My favourite quote came from Spin Magazine
who wrote in 2003 about the band In a genre known for gratuitous nastiness, Linkin Park
are an exception—they’re the band you’d trust to escort your sister to a movie, except
they probably stand her up to log some extra studio time. The band would employ a strict no party, alcohol,
smoking or drug policy on their tour buses and dressing rooms. . Shinoda detested the rock n’ roll cliches
telling Rolling Stone “Even when I was in high school,” Shinoda says, “parties were
like, everything is just so played out. You go, people are drinking, people hook up,
you talk to the same people who say the same stupid crap. It’s boring. And rather than do that, I could go hang out
with my friends and write a new song. And who knows what that’s going to be like? Chester would recall in one interview the
band getting thanked by countless janitors in clubs for not trashing the place, allowing
the mto leave work early. However during the early days on the tour
there was strain between Chester and the rest of the band. Tourmates Papa Roach would sometimes take
Chester partying resulting in him heavy drinking with Chester telling Rolling Stone “I found
myself not saying no to other things, things that would have made me another rock & roll
cliche.” It would result in Chester traveling separately
from the rest of the band, but he turned things around. Also noted by the press courage of the band
was that their debut record didn’t contain profanity. The group’s first album despite being filled
with heavy guitars, and rage filled lyrics the album contained no profanity. Bennington would tell Rolling Stone “When
Mike and I sat down and wrote the lyrics,” “we wanted to be as honest and open as we
could. We wanted something people could connect with,
not just vulgarity and violence. We didn’t want to make a big point of not
cussing, but we don’t have to hide behind anything to show how tough we can be.”, While the band have always been vague about
the exact meaning of the lyrics, Hybrid Theory’s overarching themes dealt with mental l health
issues like anxiety, depression, paranoia and abuse Hybrid Theory alone touched upon
themes of depression, paranoia, anxiety and abuse. The band was a little more forthcoming on
the song Crawling which dealt with Chester’s substance abuse issues. Released on October 24, Hybrid Theory combined
elements of pop, hip hop, metal and electronica.. Unknown to the band at the time the album
would become a genre defining album for the decade. But there were warning signs of just how big
the album was going to be..Ahead of the album coming out, Warner Brothers previewed the
lead single One Step Closer at a radio convention, Radio programmers were floored. The song showcased the vocal mix of Chester
and Mike that the band became synonymous for. Released two months before Hybrid Theory’s
release The single peaked at No. 4 on Mainstream Rock, while the the video featuring the band
performing the song amidst floating ninjas became a mainstay on MTV. Crawling was issued as the second single in
March of 2001 peaked at number 3 on the mainstream rock charts. The song would prove to be one of the most
difficult songs to sing live for Chester as he would admit to Spin Magazine. The album’s fourth single in the end came
a full year after hybrid theory came out and proved to be the band’s biggest single from
the album. The track with it’s recognizable piano intro
spent a whopping 39 peaking number 2 on the hot 100 charts. Initially Chester was not a fan of the track
telling V Club I was never a fan of 'In The End' and I didn't even want it to be on the
record, honestly. How wrong could I have possibly been? I basically decided at that point I don't
know what the I'm talking about, The album debuted on the Billboard chart the
number 16 position moving about 50,000 copies. Chester would make a bet with a friend that
the album would go gold (which is 500,000 copies) sold by Christmas. In reality it went gold in less than a month. Even a year and a half after it’s release,
the album continued to sell 100,000 copies a week in the band’s native U.S.. It would
go on to sell a whopping 32 million copies worldwide making it the best selling rock
album of the 2000’s. Chester would talk about why kids related
to the band’s music and Chester’s childhood problems. “I think it’s a lot more common than people
think,”. “If you look at it, there’s almost two
different types of kids these days in this country. There’s kids who are really together and
then there’s, like, train wrecks. I see it all the time because I meet a lot
of kids. ..“I think people don’t get told enough
that they have the power to make themselves feel better. So if you can do that as much as possible.... I think that’s a positive thing, and I think
we do that with our music. As dark as it is, I think it’s very positive
and motivating.... Despite the band’s millions of fans they
also had their detractors and became a polarizing group. Metal pursuits wrote them off as merely being
a pop band, but it did little to faze it’s members. Some of the criticism even came from their
tourmates Deftones with it’s members slagging off Linkin Park during their early 2000’s
tour. In addition to that the band got some flack
for being more of a business than a band with Shinoda answering critics saying “We did
get a reputation for being a business rather than a band,” “But that was because we
were so focused on getting our stuff done. As the band turned their attention to what
came next, Chester would indicate to rolling stone that perhaps the success of the first
album would haunt the band for the rest of their careers recalling in 2002 We have the
Number One record of the year; we’re nominated for all these Grammys. Why did it have to be the first record? Now every record we make is going to be compared
to this. Between their first album and the group’s
full length follow up the band would take a blade to Hybrid Theory releasing the 2002
remix record Reanimation, which proved to be another success becoming the 4th highest
selling remix album of all time. Linkin Park began working on ideas for their
second LP Meteora during Ozzfest in 2001. The album’s name would take its inspiration
from a beautiful landscape in Greece. As for the album’s iconic artwork the person
on the cover is not a member of the band, but rather a dutch artist named Boris Tellegen
who also is known by the name Delta. Tellegen was helping the band on their album
artwork and originally the cover of the album was supposed to be a giant mural painting
but it was instead replaced by a shot of Delta working on the artwork.Mike would explain
in the short documentary about the album artwork saying
"We chose the image of Boris for the cover of the album because of that quiet power of
it," It was between their downtime of playing Halo
multiplayer they would come up with song ideas in a studio they had on their tour bus. In fact the band would travel with two tour
buses. One was outfitted with a studio so they could
record ideas on the road, while the other is where the band members lived and slept
in between gigs. Some ideas would be half finished songs, melodies,
samples, loops or just a riff. One of those early songs would be the track
Somewhere I belong whose intro chester came up with playing acoustic guitar, but after
some discussion between the band members loved what chester had come up with, but felt the
acoustic guitar felt too folky. Instead Shinoda and Hahn added effects to
it and reversed it with Shinoda explaining on the making of meteora documentary "Since
I reversed it, it was playing 4-3-2-1. The chord progression was reversed. Then I cut it into four pieces, and I played
it 1-2-3-4. And that's why it has that sweeping sound. The lyrics proved to be problematic for the
band with Mike telling Spin magazine “we tried 40 choruses. It was just agonizing—you can’t even imagine
writing ten, and we were writing the tenth one, and in our minds, it was done. And people would come in and say, ‘Yeah,
it’s cool.’ and that’s not the response you want. You want, ‘That’s the greatest thing I’ve
ever heard!’ In our heads, we were thinking, ‘Damn it—we
gotta go on writing.’” Other songs like Faint were born in a similar
way. The inspiration for the song came from Brad
Delson who was playing the riff to a metronome at 70 bpm. Mike would take the riff, speed it up and
after the band discussed the changes Mike’s alterations stayed in place. The band once against commandeered NRG studios
and brought back producer Don Gilmore. Gilmore would tell billboard magazine “They
were rock stars at that point,” how are they going to follow that up? Meteora’s lyrics tackled isolation, love,
loss and death. Mike would tell Howard Stern that due to the
success of Hybrid Theory the band had cart blanche to literally do whatever they wanted
on their second record without much interference from their record label and it soon became
a balancing act of giving fans who loved their first record more of what they wanted and
at the same time surprising them. Being more of a natural evolution than a complete
departure Meteora was a tighter and more experienced band. Once the tour for hybrid theory was over,
the band headed into the studio and started pre-production ensuring the music was as solid
as possible. By August of 2002 the band had written upwards
of 80 songs, which had to be narrowed down to 13. Don Gilmore would tell Loudersound “There
was a trust element that was there on Meteora that maybe wasn’t quite there [before…,”
remembers Don Gilmore. “But on the Meteora sessions, not so much
… if I asked them to do stuff that was outside of their comfort zone, they were fine with
going there and trying to find those special moments.”. Released in March of 2003 the nu-metal scene
appeared to be on it’s way out. Limp Bizkit record REsults May Vary was a
commercial disappointment while Korn’s album Take A Look In The Mirror saw the band unable
to match it’s album sales from a few years prior. Chester would tell Kerrang in 2003 about the
changing musical landscape “I hate to say it, because I love both of those bands, musically
and as people, but there is an up and down cycle in everyone’s life and career,”
the singer reasoned. “If our fans don’t like our album, I think
we should take it as a sign [they] don’t like our [second] album. I think we should take it as a sign that we’ve
lost touch with our fans and we need to regain that trust.” “This band works better under pressure,...“We’re
not going to worry about outselling Hybrid Theory, because you cannot count on those
things. You just have to go in and write songs you
like and do things that make you happy. If you can do that, then you’ve succeeded. We never imagined this kind of response and
it’s a great thing to be part of. To attempt to match this for that sake alone
is ridiculous.” Meteora’s First Single Somewhere I belong
was intentionally released as the lead single to satisfy the band’s fans by giving them
a familiar sound. IT was Linkin Park’s label that chose the
first couple singles from the record but the bandwas adamant that at some point they wanted
to have the song Breaking the Habit released as a single. Breaking the Habit had a long history with
Mike having spent five years working on the track long before him and Chester met Despite
the song’s subject matter it was not written by Chester, instead being written by Mike. Standing in sharp contrast to the band’s
catalog at this point, the song contained no screaming and more programmed beats and
was more indicative of the music the band created later on in their career. It would be the band’s more experimental
and newer sounds including the instrumental track Session would get them nominated for
a grammy giving the band a vindication or assurances of where they were headed in the
right direction. The album would also contain a rap song called
No One’s Listening that sampled a traditional japanese flute. The album closer Numb would go on to become
the biggest single off the record peaking at number 11 on the hot 100 charts. The song would be written a month before the
band hit NRG studios in the summer of 2002 and was originally built around the intro
hook. Mike would recall “It’s kind of about
those times when you’ve got no feeling left or you just don’t care,” “It’s almost
like exhaustion or something which funny enough is how we felt after touring [Hybrid Theory]
last year.” It was during the last month and a half of
working on the album Chester fell ill and had to wait to record some of his vocal parts
while the rest of the album was being mixed. Mike would tell Howard Stern that the band’s
reissue of Hybrid Theory was so successful that the label and those close to the band
pushed them to do something similar fo Meteora. Shindoa would admit he was a little on the
fence about the idea not wanting to make a habit out of doing 20th anniversary projects
for each album, so initially the band agreed to look at the material they had from those
sessions. The band found 3 unreleased songs with Chester’s
vocals on them in a nearly complete state. According to Mike who told Howard Stern the
track Lost, which was recently released as a single didn’t make the record because
the song Numb was already on the album and the songs had a similar energy. By the time the group got to the next album
they were looking to reinvent the band so the song was shelved. Meteora produced four huge singles with Somewhere
I belong, Faint, Breaking the Habit and Numb. But despite all the commercial success the
band only got a grammy nomination for the instrumental track session. It was something that upset Chester as he
told Launch Radio Networks. “I personally feel that this record is better
than Hybrid Theory," "I think there are certain songs that definitely exceed the quality of
even Crawling. And to not even be nominated for a track that
was an album track - I mean it was an instrumental, like an interlude — personally, I'm kind
of insulted. I think I'd rather be not nominated for anything
than to be nominated for a track that's not even a band track.” Critical reaction to the album was mixed with
some claiming the band played it safe. Meteora would end up selling over 7 million
copies in the states and 16 million copies worldwide. Linkin Park would return in 2004 with a collaboration
album with rapper Jay-Z that was spearheaded by MTV. The network had asked the rapper who he’d
like to work with on a rap-rock collaboration and he chose Linkin Park. It was in early 2004 Linkin Park was on tour
promoting Meteora that word of the collaboration got back to the band. It was over several days on the tour bus Shinoda
would compile some ideas of what a collaboration would sound like. The rough sketches were sent to Jay-Z who
took a liking to what he heard and the two parties soon hit the studios in the later
part of the year. Released in November of 2004, Collision Course
would become the first EP since Alice in Chains’s 1994 release Jar of Flies to top the billboard
album charts. The album was a commercial success selling
over 2 million copies despite mixed reviews from critics. That disappointment that Chester felt from
the lack of recognition from the grammy’s on meteora would go away when Numb/Encore
won a grammy award. It was following the band’s collaboration
with Jay - Z members took a break from Linkin Park with Chester playing with Dead by Sunrise,
while Mike started the group Fort Minor. But the band also underwent some turmoil in
their personal life with Chester divorcing from his first wife Samantha in 2005. He would recall to Rolling Stone “I drank
myself to the point where I couldn’t leave the house and I couldn’t function. It was following his divorce Chester went
to rehab. Four years would pass until Linkin Park would
release their 3rd LP and rumors were rampant that the band had broken up as the album was
plagued by several delays. Linkin Park would return in 2007 with their
third record Minutes to Midnight which saw them go in a more pop and and experimental
direction, changing up producers bringing in Rick Rubin. The band wanted to shed their so called nu-metal
or rap rock sound the press had bestowed upon them. Chester would tell Kerrang in 2007 “Calling
us nu-metal now is, to me, like saying, ‘You suck.’” with mike adding “People kept wanting to
label us rap-rock,” “We thought, ‘Fine, you’re pissing us off. We’re going to make something so different
that you can shove nu-metal up your ass.’” The album proved to be an enormous undertaking
with the group spending the more than a yeari n the studio and Rick Rubin giving the band
a lot of tough love. Mike would tell Kerrang “It’s frustrating
to have someone dismiss something in 30 seconds that you’ve been working on for days,” “Having your lyrics rejected is like being
punched in the face.”The album while more ambitious in scope was also more political
in it’s lyrics. The lead single What I’ve Done took aim
at humanities impacts to the planet while also finding a silver linng The the track
Little Things give you way is a seething indictment of the Bush administrations disastrous response
to Hurricane Katrina.The Lead Single What I;ve Done dropped in April of 2007 and it
ushered in a new era for the bands. The album would have some heavier tracks with
no more sorrow, bleed it out and given up, while the album also contains more softer
and popier sounding stuff with leave out all the rest and shadow of the day. Despite the change in sound all five of the
album’s singles would all chart on the billboard hot 100 and the album moved 5 million copies
worldwide. It was the same year the band was enlisted
to have their music featured in teh transformers movie franchise starting with What I’ve
Done and in 2009 the band recorded the track New Divide for Transformers: Revenge of the
Fallen soundtrack. The song was a massive success peaking at
number 6 on the hot 100 charts. The band would have several more songs in
the later part of their career featured on the franchise’s soundtrack. Minutes to Midnight gave fans a glimpse of
what was to come in the Linkin Park’s follow up release 2010’s A Thousand Suns - a concept
album dealing with the fear of nuclear war, something that seems remarkably timely given
what we’re seing happening in the world today. the title was taken from nuclear scientist
J. Robert Oppenheimer, who in 1945 described the atomic bomb as being “as bright as a
thousand suns.” a line used in the lead single The Catalyst. Linkin Park bassist Dave ‘Phoenix’ Farrell
would warn fans ahead of the album’s release “we’ve known [the album was] going to
be different, and if fans were expecting Hybrid Theory or Meteora, they’re going to be surprised. It’s going to take people some time to figure
it out and know what to do with it.” To kick off a new decade Linkin Park’s fourth
record unlike there first three album’s didn’t seem to be reminiscent or an improved
version of what was popular on the charts at the time. 2010’A Thousand Sons stood on it’s own. It also proved to be Linkin Park’s most
polarizing album album at that point in time. The band also did a promotional tie in for
the lead single the Catalyst with Electronic Arts new game Medal Of Honor which was rebooting
their long time franchise. The band also had several songs from the record
on Guitar Hero and Waiting for the end on rock band as DLC. By the way did anyone pay the single player
campaign in Medal of Honor i remember it being one of the more memorable single player campaigns
out of any war game I’ve played. MTV would poll fans on their website upon
the Catalyst being issued as a single and published several stories asking whether the
Catalyst was too big of a departure for the band. A sizeable chunk of those who answered the
poll felt the song was too big of a change from the band’s trademark sound. Looking back at the album Mike would tell
Anthony Fantano when asked the band’s most polarizing album "A Thousand Suns which was
our fourth record, it wasn't as commercially successful as the earlier ones because nothing
could be - that would be impossible," says Shinoda. "It was very polarizing. It got one or five stars by everybody, so
we ended up with three-star ratings all over the board because half the people hated it
with all of their heart and soul. "Now we're at a point where if you ask the
average person who's relatively familiar with the band what their favorite record is, a
lot of them say that one," said Shinoda. "It's changed, the whole relationship with
the band has changed." Despite the split opinions on the record it
would give the band their fourth number platinum record. The band would return in 2012 with Living
Things, which saw them bring back elements of their sound from their early records while
also stripping away the political undertones of their last few records. Rick Rubin would return as well having produced
the band’s last three albums Chester would tell Rolling Stone "with this [new] album,
we've incorporated a lot of guitar work with big choruses and the heavier electronic stuff
to give it that really big wall of sound feeling without getting too metal. This will be more familiar to people than
A Thousand Suns was, where we were like it, we're just going to go bonkers." Bennington also said that the new album's
lyrics would be personal and avoid being political, adding "We've been writing a lot about relationships. The band’s influences were wide ranging
on the album including bob dylan all the way to punk rock groups like pennywise. Once again the band teamed up with EA to have
their song Lies Greed Misery" in a cross promotion with Medal of Honor Warfighter. Living Things would give the band their fourth
number one album, narrowly edging out soccer mom band Maroon 5 by 1,000 copies. Linkin Park worked at frantic pace for the
rest of the decade coming out with 2014’s The Hunting Party which proved to be the band’s
lowest peaking album premiering at hte number 3 spot on the charts despite the band going
back into a heavier direction. In between the release of Living Things and
The Hunting Party Chester would get his dream gig fronting Stone Temple Pilots. It was during his time as a teenager that
local Arizona radio station KUKQ hosted a festival that STP headlined. friend and bandmate of Chester’s from Grey
Daze would recall to kerrang “When Stone Temple Pilots came on, that
was a game-changing moment for all of us there,” “Chester was at that show – everybody
was at that show – and I think that was a big imprint on every one of us. We thought, ‘These guys are so different
and so amazing.’ Watching Scott Weiland onstage was amazing
in itself, so I think that was a huge influence on all of us. And really, Chester loved Stone Temple Pilots. Mike would tell Howard Stern he was a little
concerned when Chester started fronting Stone Temple Pilots feeling that sometimes Chester
would commit to more than he could handle and it could take too much time away from
linkin park admitting that sometimes chester was too busy to work on linkin park material. However Mike would admit things for the most
part went smoothly. in 2015 Chester announced he was leaving STP
to focus more on Linkin Park. 2016 proved to be a rough year for Chester
as friends told Rolling Stone he suffered a relapse in August after going on a 3 day
bender was drinking as recently as the following October. He would enter rehab againt. Linkin Park would release their finaal album
‘One More Light’ the following year in May lof 2017. Considered a betryal by some fans and skewered
by critics, One More Light saw the band enlist outside songwriters and collaborators and
go in a much more pop and polished direction, ditching anythin reminiscent of a heavy guitar
sound. Critics and fans accused the band of selling
out and Those close to Chester claimed the criticism deeply upset the frontman who lashed
out against critics in various press interviews. One More Light went in reverse order from
how the band typically wrote music for their albums with the vocals being tracked first
with the music coming last. Despite the negative reaction to the album
the album topped the album charts and the title track and Heavy both did well on the
singles charts. The same month as the album’s release Chester’s
close friend Soundgarden frontman Chris cornell would be found dead in his hotel room in Detroit
following his band’s show the previous night. Bennington would sing hallelujah at his funeral
and paid homeage to his friend on twitter Your voice was joy and pain, anger and forgiveness,
love and heartache all wrapped up into one. I suppose that’s what we all are. You helped me understand that.” Chester who was now 41 in 2017 seemed told
his social media followers following cornell’s death he was feeling creative and had written
half a dzoen songs. Rolling Stone would report he told one of
his friends around this time and i quote “We have to stick together, and we have so much
to live for.” Chester was planning in September of 2017
to reunite with his pre Linkin Park band Grey Daze for a tour.He had also texted friend
former Guns n’ Roses drummer Matt Sorum to play as part of his all-star covers band
Kings of Chaos Linkin Park would play a number of dates in Europe in June and July that summer
with the band’s director of touring telling Rolling Stone We saw the most alive and present
Chester of my 15-and-a-half-year history with the band,“He was arguably in the best physical
condition of his life.” But there were warning signs to those close
to him. Chester would tell his Dead by Sunrise bandmate
guitarist Ryan Schuck that he was nearly half a year sober by June of 2017. Shuck who also suffered from substance abuse
would tell Rolling Stone “He was describing an hour-by-hour battle with addiction. When I look at it now, it’s horrifying. He was telling me, down to the detail, what
he would do in the first hour he wanted to drink: ‘I basically just take it hour-by-hour
every day.’ ” Linkin Park were scheduled ot kick off a nearly
40 date US tour in late July, but ahead of the trek Bennington had been on vacation in
Arizona with his wife, Talinda, and his family. He would come early from vacation on July
19th with Linkin Park scheduled to do a photoshoot the next morning. He wouldn’t make it to the photoshoot as
Chester took his own life and was found by his housemade. Alcohol would be found in his system, but
no drugs. Chester’s second wife Talinda would tell
Anderson Cooper that Chester’s depression, isolation and hopelessness was just a regular
part of their daily life telling the anchor "Sometimes, some signs were there more than
others," she continued. "Sometimes, they weren't there at all." adding that when they were on vacation We
were on a family vacation, and he decided to go back home to do a television commercial,"
"This was not a time where we or any of our family suspected this to happen, which is
terrifying. ... We thought everything was OK." Talinda would admit Chester had at several
times throughout their relationship tried to end his life several times. Bennington would be found dead on Chris Cornell
53rd birthday and while some have pointed to Cornell’s death as the last straw for
Bennington others have brushed it off as a coincidence. Shuck would tell Rolling Stone It could be
a part of it, but it’s a small part of it,” Shuck says. “I think that it’s just another horrible
event that gets put in your subconscious. It’s kindling, but the fire was already
burning.” adding We don’t know how much [he drank],
but it doesn’t take much when you’re that advanced an alcoholic and an addict and you’re
battling to the extent he described to me,”“You don’t need much to lose your mind for a
minute.” Mike meanwhile would tell Rolling Stone the
final time he saw Chester wa a few days before his death recalling . “He wanted me to meet
this kid, Watsky,” who was a rapper and poet Chester was a fan of adding “He loved
Watsky, and he had mentioned him enough times that I was like, ‘Well, let’s meet him.’ We went over to the studio that we had been
working at, and Watsky came down and said hi, and we met him and one of his friends. And then they took off and Chester and I just
kind of hung out there for a couple hours, just doodling around on some music. We were basically playing around with some
mediocre music and talking about the shows coming up with Blink-182 that we were going
to do. It was nothing remarkable, really.” Mike would tell Howard Stern that Chester
was always cagey about what drugs he was using and rarely talked about specifics with his
bandmates. Shinoda would claim that by the band’s third
album and after that Bennington was doing pretty good staying sober and he really put
in an effort to go to therapy and seek help. It was following Bennington’s death the
band would issue an open letter and tribute to their friend. We’re trying to remind ourselves that the
demons who took you away from us were always part of the deal. After all, it was the way you sang about those
demons that made everyone fall in love with you in the first place.” We’ve all heard of the five stages of grief
denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Shinoda would tell Rolling Stone what surprised
him the most about dealing with loss “I always thought it would happen in some
kind of order and you could analyze it,” he says. “But they don’t happen in order. And if your family or friends are feeling
the same thing, and they’re all experiencing those different emotions at random in real
time, that’s where the chaos happens. In late 2017 Linkin Park would host a tribute
show to Chester with a number of special guests in Los Angeles The band most recently is reissuing Meteora
to commemorate the album’s 20th anniversary. Mike would tell Howard Stern that the band’s
reissue of Hybrid Theory was so successful that the label and those close to the band
pushed them to do something similar fo Meteora. Shindoa would admit he was a little on the
fence about the idea not wanting to make a habit out of doing 20th anniversary projects
for each album, so initially the band agreed to look at the material they had from those
sessions. Mike who told Howard Stern the track Lost,
which was recently released as a single didn’t make the record because the song Numb was
already on the album and the songs had a similar energy. By the time the group got to the next album
they were looking to reinvent the band so the song was shelved. In 2018 Mike would tell an interviewer "I
know the other guys, they love to be onstage, they love to be in a studio, and so to not
do that would be like, I don't know, almost like unhealthy." adding "It's not my goal to look for a new
singer. If it does happen, it has to happen naturally. As recently as last year Mike gave an update
stating that there are no future tours planned or new albums coming from Linkin Park.
