During a recent appearance on the Mythical Kitchens‘ Last Meals podcast, Mike Shinoda revealed a fascinating “what-if” scenario for LINKIN PARK. He disclosed that the band’s initial concept, which would have excluded him from the lineup, nearly became reality.
This near-miss highlights how the band’s trajectory, particularly the dynamic between Shinoda and Chester Bennington, could have been dramatically different had their record label not ultimately embraced their vision.
Shinoda said: “When you’re young and you’re new at a label, they’re doing their best to try to sell records. They want to get the thing that’s the hit. In the process of making Hybrid Theory, they weren’t hearing it. I can’t explain that, we were positive that it was good. More importantly, we felt like this is us on this record.”
“They went to Chester and got him alone in the studio and were like, ‘Look man, this is all about you! You’re the star here! Let’s just build this project around you because, what you guys are making, we don’t get it.”
Bennington, the band’s newest member, was already deeply committed. As Shinoda recalls: “Chester had come into the band with the understanding that he’s part of a band. I felt like what he wanted was — he liked the band, he wanted to be part of the band and he had way more loyalty to us than he did to them.”
Bennington was straightforward. Shinoda remembered the exact response his friend had given to the label: “He went immediately from that conversation back to us and said, ‘This is what just happened.’ And we were like, ‘Oh no, thanks for telling us. What did you tell them?’ ‘I told them to go f**k themselves.'”
LINKIN PARK released their latest studio album, From Zero, this past November. This is LINKIN PARK‘s first studio album since One More Light (2017), marking the longest gap between studio releases in the band’s history. It also marks the debut of vocalist Emily Armstrong and drummer Colin Brittain, following the passing of vocalist Chester Bennington in 2017 and the departure of drummer Rob Bourdon in 2018.
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