linkin park

They are often considered the most famous and most commercially successful exponents of the nu metal genre, mainly due to their first studio album Hybrid Theory (2000), which has sold 20 million copies worldwide to date.

Band history

Early history

In 1996, MC Mike Shinoda and guitarist Brad Delson graduated from Agoura High School in the Los Angeles suburb of Agoura Hills, California. Upon graduation, the two men formed a band with their friend, drummer Rob Bourdon, under the moniker "SuperXero". Previously, Delson and Bourdon were in a band together for about a year called Relative Degree, Delson had also been part of a band called The Pricks.

The three members of SuperXero played archaic forms of their music together while at college. Delson attended the University of California, Los Angeles. Shinoda went to the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. While at UCLA, Delson met bassist Dave Farrell. Delson and Farrell were roommates and often practiced and played together. Previously, Farrell used to play in a band called Tasty Snax with Mark Fiore, who later changed their name to "The Snax". Fiore later became Linkin Park's cinematographer. While at the Art Center College of Design, Shinoda met Joe Hahn. Farrell and Hahn later joined SuperXero, and the name was shortened to "Xero". The five men were later joined by lead vocalist Mark Wakefield and, together, they recorded their first, self-titled demo tape. The tape was sent out to various record labels but it was never considered and the band was never signed. Shortly thereafter, Wakefield left the band.

After Wakefield left, Shinoda began auditioning for a new vocalist and at the same time Delson began interning for a Warner Brothers Records A&R representative named Jeff Blue as part of his communications degree. Blue alerted Delson and Shinoda to Chester Bennington, a young vocalist from Phoenix, Arizona who was looking to join another band, after being the vocalist for Grey Daze (formerly known as Sean Dowdell and His Friends) from 1993 to 1997.

Shinoda and Delson sent Bennington a tape containing an instrumental song and he recorded vocals for it. He then called Shinoda and played the song over the phone. This was the start of things to come as the band was instantly impressed by the vocal abilities of Bennington and it did not take long to realize the advantages of his voice and his ability to mould it to be both soft and thought-provoking as well as hard and attention grabbing.

Once Bennington had joined the group, they attempted to have the band signed. Unfortunately, the name was already taken by a 70s and 80s band from Australia so they changed their moniker to Hybrid Theory and the band's line-up solidified — almost. Farrell temporarily left the band due to previous commitments with The Snax/Tasty Snax and, as such, wasn't able to record bass for their first, self-titled EP. Instead, Delson and a bassist named Kyle Christner played bass. Released in mid-1999, only one thousand copies of the EP were pressed. Several copies were sent to various record labels, including Warner Brothers Records. The rest of the copies were given to early members of the band's newly formed street team. Farrell was temporarily replaced by Scott Koziol. Scott appears in the video for "One Step Closer" from the Hybrid Theory album.

The band was subsequently signed to Warner Brothers in 1999 thanks to Blue. However, they were forced to change their name again due to another copyright issue with a British electronic group called Hybrid.^{citation needed]} There were several suggestions for the band's new name, including Clear, Probing Lagers, Ten P.M. Stocker (an inside joke for the band since they were always recording and practicing material late at night) and Platinum Lotus Foundation.

Bennington eventually suggested the use of Lincoln Park because he would drive by Lincoln Park in Santa Monica, California (now known as Christine Reed Park), on his way to the recording studio every day when the band was recording demos for its debut album. Bennington thought that it would be a good name for the band because there are Lincoln Parks all over the country. He figured that the band would be recognized as a local band no matter where they went. He also liked it because the name had no meaning, allowing the music to describe itself. However, since the domain name "lincolnPark.com" was already taken and the band couldn't afford to purchase it, they changed the spelling from "Lincoln" to "Linkin" so they could purchase the domain name "linkinPark.com".

Breakthrough success

On October 24, 2000, Linkin Park's debut album, Hybrid Theory, was released in the United States. The only track cut from the album was the remake of "High Voltage", a hip hop song that appeared on Hybrid Theory EP. Several songs from the EP were re-recorded as demos for Hybrid Theory, but it is unknown whether the tracks will ever appear as official B-sides or not. The record's first single was "One Step Closer".

The band performed in its first nationally-recognized concert on December 17, 2000 as a part of KROQ Radio's Almost Acoustic Christmas concert special. Shinoda wrote a brand-new song entitled "My December" for the occasion. The song was released as a B-side on the single for One Step Closer and on several versions of Hybrid Theory released internationally. It was later featured on a Christmas album released by KROQ DJs Kevin and Bean.

In early 2001, Farrell joined Linkin Park once again and the band's second single, "Crawling", was released and won the band a Grammy Award for "Best Hard Rock Performance" in 2002. The band embarked on its first ever national festival tour, the Ozzfest, with other acts such as Black Sabbath, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot, and Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society.

In mid-2001, the band released its third single, "In the End". The song would prove to be the band's biggest hit and was one of the most-spun songs of 2001. The video for the song was directed by Nathan "Karma" Cox and Hahn, and featured the band playing atop a massive statue in the rain. The video had a massive amount of CGI compared to most music videos at the time.

On November 20, 2001, the band released its first DVD humorously titled Frat Party at the Pankake Festival. The DVD featured all of the band's videos up to this point in their career and featured a documentary of the band touring in support of Hybrid Theory. There are also a lot of hidden Easter eggs allowing viewers to access hidden videos on the DVD, including a studio performance of a demo of "A Place for My Head" from 1999.

In November, a friend of the band, Jessica Bardas, suggested forming a fan club. The band thought that it was a good idea, and the Linkin Park Underground (LPU) was born. Members of the fan club receive a package every year (assuming that they renew their membership) containing a T-shirt, a CD and several odds and ends, including guitar picks, stickers and posters. The first CD featured was a re-issue of Hybrid Theory EP, with new artwork.

In early 2002, the band put together its first headlining tour called Projekt Revolution. The first leg of the tour featured Adema, Cypress Hill, the Apex Theory, and DJ Z-Trip. During the course of the tour, Shinoda and Hahn collaborated with the X-ecutioners on the song "It's Goin' Down". Shortly after the tour ended, the band headed back to the studio for the first time since early 2000.

After being sent several remixes of Linkin Park songs, Shinoda decided to release a remix album. Initially, Shinoda only wanted to remix a couple of songs and release an EP. However, thanks to encouragement from his bandmates (Delson and Hahn especially), Shinoda decided to take the project a step further.

The project, which would take on the name Reanimation, featured one remix for each song from Hybrid Theory, as well as remixes of the songs "My December" and "High Voltage". Each song was remixed by a different artist and there were rumors that there were over fifty remixes that Shinoda received during the course of the project. Shinoda went through and listened to each remix, hand-picking the best ones. Only two of the remixes that didn't make the album were ever released, those being the Crystal Method's remix of "Points of Authority" (featuring on the CD of the second installment of the LPU) and Marilyn Manson's remix of "By Myself". The only other confirmed remix was of "My December" by Team Sleep. The remix was turned away because it made the song even darker; Shinoda went with the version on the CD because it made the song seem more up-beat and happier.

Artists featured on the album include Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, Stephen Richards of Taproot, Kelli Ali of Sneaker Pimps, Aaron Lewis of Staind, the Humble Brothers, Jonathan Davis of Korn, Aceyalone, Pharaohe Monch, The X-Ecutioners, Black Thought and Jay Gordon of Orgy.

The project was released on July 30, 2002, and its first and only single was "Pts.of.Athrty" ("Points of Authority") remixed by Jay Gordon.

In November, the second edition of the LPU launched as "Underground 2.0" and the second package was revealed. The new fan club-only EP features the Crystal Method's remix of "Points of Authority" and a song called "Dedicated". Also included is fifty-second instrumental track entitled "A.06". It was originally a demo for their future studio album, Meteora.

Meteora, Live In Texas, Collision Course

The band headed back to the studio in mid-2002 to record their follow-up to Hybrid Theory. The name of the album was kept a secret until December, where it was revealed to be named after Meteora, a series of monasteries high atop rock formations in Greece, which they learned about from looking at pictures in a travel magazine. "It's this really spiritual, mythical place," Delson said, "Just looking at those pictures was inspirational to us in terms of how epic it felt. I think some of the guys hadn't even seen the pictures when they heard the name Meteora, and they just really responded to the energy of the name. We think that suitably matches the spirit we tried to create with the record."^[1] The album's first single, "Somewhere I Belong", was released in February of 2003 to critical acclaim. On March 25, 2003, Meteora was released and debuted at number one on Billboard's music chart after selling 810,000 copies in its first week. It has sold nearly 11 million copies worldwide, more than a half in the US alone.

Following the release of the album, the band embarked on its second Projekt Revolution tour with Blindside, Mudvayne and Xzibit. "Faint" was released as a single toward the end of the tour. Following the second Projekt Revolution, the band joined Metallica on their Summer Sanitarium Tour 2003 with Limp Bizkit, Deftones and, once again, Mudvayne. The band also headlined the friday of the 2003 Reading Festival in the UK with co-headliner Blink 182, playing a highly energetic set to some 65000 fans (other headliners included Metallica, System of a Down, Blur and AFI.)

Shortly after the Sanitarium tour came to a close, the band released "Numb" as a single. They shot a video for the single in Prague, Czech Republic. Simultaneously, the band shot a video for the song "From the Inside". Oddly enough, the video for "From the Inside" was shot before the video for "Numb". Bennington became ill before the video for "Numb" could be completed, so the remainder was filmed in a church in Los Angeles.

On November 18, 2003, Linkin Park released a brand-new DVD/CD live set entitled Live in Texas. The footage was shot while on the Summer Sanitarium tour in Dallas and Houston, Texas. The DVD combined two live shows together; the video and audio from both shows was edited together. Because of this, the band had to wear the same clothing for both shows on consecutive days. The DVD featured seventeen songs and the CD featured a selection of twelve of those.

In November, the third edition of the LPU launched. The package's CD contained the five tracks that were cut from the Live in Texas DVD for its CD. This did not sit well with many fan club members, who claimed that the band should have placed rare songs on the CD (as with year two) instead of the live tracks.

At the end of 2003, the band performed at its third KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas concert. They headlined night two and played a seventeen-song set. At the end of Linkin Park's set, they played "One Step Closer" and were joined on stage by P.O.D.'s frontman, Sonny Sandoval.

At the beginning of 2004, the band set off on its "Meteora World Tour" with P.O.D., Hoobastank and Story of the Year. The band claimed that this was the final leg of the world-wide tour that the band had been on since Meteora was released.

During the tour, the band's video for "From the Inside" was released internationally. Following the "Meteora World Tour", the band began work on their most ambitious music video to date. The video, which was to be based around the song "Breaking the Habit", featured Japanese-style animation by the same studio that created the animated scenes in Kill Bill, Production I.G., and was directed by Kazuto Nakazawa and Hahn. The video featured Bennington's soul travelling through an old apartment building visiting various people struggling with various habits that they were trying to break. Some of the habits included were drug and sexual abuse. Prior to the release of "Breaking the Habit" as a single, "Lying From You" was released to radios to serve as a radio-only single.

Linkin Park then set off on its third Projekt Revolution tour. It would prove to be the band's most ambitious tour as it included two stages and what the band called the Revolution Village. The tour was very similar to the Ozzfest and the Vans Warped Tour. The main stage featured Linkin Park, Korn, Snoop Dogg, the Used and Less Than Jake while the second stage featured Ghostface, Funeral for a Friend, M.O.P., downset., No Warning, instruction and Autopilot Off. DJ Z-Trip also travelled with the tour, serving as the between-sets entertainment. During the hip-hop sets, Ivan the Urban Action Figure danced on stage. The Revolution Village featured lots of entertainment, including video game kiosks, miniature skate Parks, batting cages, remixing stages and more. Projekt Revolution 2004 was the biggest-selling tour of the year.

At the end of 2004, Linkin Park announced a collaboration with Jay-Z at the request of MTV. The resulting EP, Collision Course, was released on November 30. It featured mashups of seven Linkin Park songs and six Jay-Z songs. The EP's first single, "Numb/Encore", peaked at number twenty on the billboard charts and remained in the charts for six months, going on to win a Grammy. The album itself debuted at number one on the charts.

The fourth edition of the LPU launched in November. The CD that shipped with the package featured two new songs; one was a roughly two-minute long instrumental piece called "Sold My Soul to Yo Mama" by Mr. Hahn, and the other a song called "Standing in the Middle", a collaboration with Motion Man. "Standing in the Middle" was originally recorded in 2001 as a "practice" song for Reanimation. Motion Man was eventually featured on Kutmasta Kurt's reinterpretation of "In the End", "Enth E ND".

Recent events

The year 2005 marked a rather quiet year for Linkin Park. The band established Music for Relief, an organization dedicated to helping those affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. It has since expanded to become a program dedicated to helping those affected by a number of natural disasters, including Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The band played two shows in 2005, one in California for Music for Relief, and one during the Live 8 series of concerts at the Philadelphia, PA venue. Chester Bennington also played in ReAct Now: Music & Relief, which was a four and a half concert played on television on almost all broadcasting channels, in which a number of artists played. Chester Bennington performed a song which he wrote himself called "Let Down," a slow and sad song. Jay-Z joined them to perform most of the Collision Course EP.

In May, the band demanded to be released from its contract with Warner Brothers on the grounds of "a lack of confidence". The band was recently in negotiations with the label over a new record contract. Linkin Park had four albums left outstanding on its 2000 record contract. In December 2005 the band announced that they had finally reached a settlement with Warner Brothers Records.

In July, Shinoda announced a hip-hop side project, Fort Minor. Shinoda explained the project as a way for him to return to his hip-hop roots. He enlisted the help of his best and closest friends in the business, including Styles of Beyond (who are now signed to Linkin Park's label Machine Shop Recordings), Black Thought of The Roots and Common (some of whom also helped produce the Reanimation album). The debut album, entitled The Rising Tied, was released on November 22, 2005. It was mostly ignored until Summer 2006, with the surprise hit Where'd You Go which reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The follow-up single Remember the Name reached #66.

Shortly after Shinoda's announcement of Fort Minor, Bennington was also revealed to be working on a solo project of his own. The project features Amir Derakh and Ryan Shuck of Orgy both playing guitar (as well as producing). Little is known about Bennington's side project other than its name, Snow White Tan. One of Snow White Tan's songs, "Morning After", is a remake of a song that Bennington wrote before he joined Linkin Park. Bennington is also involved with Julien-K, a side project of Derakh and Shuck. It is unknown as to how exactly Bennington is involved. Bennington also has a cover band called Bucket of Weenies. The release date for Snow White Tan's debut album is currently unknown.

Linkin Park's fifth installment of the LPU fan club launched on November 21, 2005. The CD shipped with the fifth fan club package featured live tracks from the band's performance during Live 8 plus several songs with Jay-Z.

In November, it was revealed by Farrell that Linkin Park had recorded a new song for the Machine Shop Mixtape series. The song has still yet to be publicly heard. In December of 2005, Mike Shinoda was confirmed as the co-producer for the next Linkin Park album. Shinoda produced the Hybrid Theory EP. On February 8, 2006, Linkin Park announced the producer for their third studio album would be Rick Rubin, who has worked with such bands as The Beastie Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, System Of A Down and countless others.

During the Grammy Award Ceremony 2006 Linkin Park performed with Jay-Z and Paul McCartney collaborating on the song "Yesterday". During the Grammy awards, Rolling Stone had an interview with Chester Bennington, he stated that the new album will be different from their previous albums, which fused hard rock and rap. "It's dark and spooky, poppy and very melodic," says Bennington. "Not a hard, heavy rock record. What it is, is fucking insane!" Linkin Park has already come up with fifty new tracks and are in the recording phase of the album [1]. A report in the New York Post said that Linkin Park is likely to leave their current agent, "The Firm" [2].

On June 9, 2006, a trailer for a series of new "LPTV" episodes leaked via YouTube and was brought to public attention by a member at the Linkin Park Underground message boards. There will be 10 episodes and they will feature footage from their Meteora World Tour and their work on the new album in the studio, all of which will be found on the band's official site soon. A reported update from Mike says the band is currently narrowing down the songs from 100 to about 15, which will result in the album, whose title is currently unknown.

The official website recently was closed down for remodeling. However, fans were treated to being able to watch "Making of..." videos, the whole Live in Texas concert and all the music videos (excluding all of the rare Reanimation videos except for Pts.Of.Athrty) that the band has produced to date, as well as use the message boards and read news about recent events concerning the band.

Linkin Park performed live in August 2006 at Summer Sonic, hosted by Metallica in Japan. A new song, tentatively codenamed QWERTY, leaked on numerous websites after being played at the concert. The song was significantly different from their previous work; it has a strong heavy-metal sound to it that is a step away from their previous works.

On August 29, 2006, the entire catalog of Linkin Park, including their collaborative work, was added to the iTunes music store. Linkin Park had been one of the few remaining major-label bands not selling digital versions of their music.

Mike Shinoda said recently in an interview with KROQ that the band expects their new album to be released towards the beginning of 2007. This was reconfirmed in an interview with MTV.com [3]. For more information, see Linkin Park's third studio album.

The Oct. 5th issue of Rolling Stone Magazine says the band has currently cut more than 100 songs for the new disc, which will be produced by Rick Rubin.

Both Linkin Park & Fort Minor were in Louisiana from September 7−September 12, 2006, to hand out school supplies to 17 different schools affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Linkin Park appeared on MTV's Total Request Live (TRL) on Wednesday, September 27, 2006. Chester Bennington was recently interviewed by MTV. It was stated Linkin Park's new album will not be the same nu-metal style they have produced in the past. "We're straying away from a lot of the predictable sounds we've had in the past, but there's no question in your mind when you hear it that it's Linkin Park," Bennington said. "We've always said we write the music we write so that we can spread our wings as far as we want and try new things and go anywhere. I think we're really going to prove that with this new record." Chester Bennington stated. [4] The third album is a mix of punk, classic rock, vintage hip-hop beats, added Bennington.

Trivia

• The song "Figure.09" was featured in the 2003 movie S.W.A.T.
• "In The End" was used to open the original airing of the Without A Trace pilot, as well as its use in the second season of Mile High.
• "One Step Closer", "Points of Authority" and "Pushing Me Away", were used respectively in the soundtracks for Dracula's Legacy, Little Nicky and Valentine.
• The instrumental song "Session", is also part of the soundtrack for the movie Matrix Reloaded.
• In the trailer and opening sequence of the 2006 movie Miami Vice, their collaboration with Jay-Z, Numb/Encore, was used.
• During Summer Sonic 2006 the band played a new song under the working title of QWERTY, which they wrote on the flight over; it is unknown whether this will be an album track or not.
• Mike and Chester have done a number of collaborations: Mike with DJ Vice (only known as Freestyle) and Lupe Fiasco (Instrumental/Never Lies), and Chester with Mötley Crüe (Home Sweet Home (remake for Katrina relief), DJ Lethal (State of the Art), and both of them on Rock and Roll (Could Never Hip Hop Like This Part 2) on The Handsome Boy Modeling School's White People album.

Band members

Current

• Chester Bennington - Vocals (1999-present)
• Mike Shinoda - Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Keyboard, Samples, Beats (1996-present)
• Brad Delson - Guitar (1996-present)
• Dave "Phoenix" Farrell - Bass Guitar (1996-1999, 2001-present)
• Joseph Hahn - Turntables, Samples, Beats (1996-present)
• Rob Bourdon - Drums (1996-Present)

Former

• Scott Koziol— Bass Guitar (1999-2001) Stand in Bass player in the Hybrid Theory album. Records on the song One Step Closer and appears in the video.
• Kyle Christener— Bass Guitar (1998-1999) Stand in bass player during Phoenix's absence from the band during the Hybrid Theory EP.
• Mark Wakefield— Vocals (1997-1998) Original vocalist who left in 1998. He was later replaced by current member Chester Bennington. Wakefield now manages for Taproot.

Discography

Main article: Linkin Park discography

Music videos

Main article: Linkin Park videography

Linkin Park has developed an extensive music video catalogue. Band member Joe Hahn has directed a number of them.

The majority of Linkin Park's music videos are extremely cinematic, taking advantage of computer animation, cinematography, and special effects. Some of the videos involve plot lines portrayed by hired actors in addition to vignettes of the band's performance. The music video for Breaking the Habit, well-recognized for its use of anime, won the Viewer's Choice Award at the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards.

Many of the music videos for the remix album Reanimation are rare and were shown only on MTV2's Playback program for a week, following the album's release date. Otherwise, they were only available on the internet and to membership-based fan clubs. The completely CGI music video for Pts.Of.Athrty was, however, officially released to several music television stations.

Notes

External links

• Linkin Park's official site
• Linkin Park at Last.fm
• Linkin Park at All Music Guide
• Linkin Park at MTV.com