Linkin Park has been among the world’s most famous rock bands. They have been known for their uniqueness with the type of music they are playing. They eventually became very famous with the release of their debut album titled Hybrid Theory in year 2000 which sold out 4.8 million copies that made it achieve platinum for ten times. They were named as the Best Hard Rock or Metal Band of the year.
The Members
Chester Bennington
He is the vocalist and the song writer of the band. He was born and grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. He is short and lanky and he usually wears black horn rimmed glasses. And he changes his hair color and style frequently. He really has high range of voice that’s why he can produce high pitched sounds which is very noticeable on him. Most of the songs of the band were trademarked with his screams. (“Biography Base”)
Rob Bourdon
He is the drummer and the youngest member of the band. He was born an grew up in Calabasas, California. His mother was friends with Joey Kramer who was the drummer of the band Aerosmith. So he started playing drums after he had watched an Aerosmith concert. He had his first band around the age of nine. (“L.P. Association”)
Brad Delson
He is the lead guitarist and was known to be one of the founding members of the band. He was born in Agoura, California. He was actually a Jewish. He usually wears large earphones on stage. The first instrument he learned to play was the trumpet. During his college days, he named himself as ‘Big Bad Brad’. (“Biography Base”)
David “Phoenix” Farrell
He commonly called ‘Phoenix’ and he is the bassist of the band. He was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts. He knows how to play electric guitar, bass guitar, violin and cello. His first band was Tasty Snax which is a Christian punk band.
Joseph “Mr.” Hahn
He was commonly known as ‘Mr. Hahn’. He was a turntablist and director best known as the DJ and sampler of the band. He was considered ad the most creative member of the band. He was born in Dallas, Texas. He was the first Korean to receive a Grammy Award when Linkin Park won the Best Hard Rock Performance Award in 2002. He directed some of the videos of their band like Numb, From the Inside, Somewhere I Belong and many more. (“L.P. Association”)
Mike Shinoda
He was the rhythm guitarist, keyboardist, vocalist songwriter, rapper of the band. He was born in Agoura, California. He started writing songs in his 9th grade. He was the one who designed the album for the Hybrid Theory cover. (“IMDB”)
History
First Years
Linkin Park was originally composed of three members, Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson and Rob Bourdon. They met during their high schools in Agoura High School. They were considered as the foundation of the band. After they finished their high school degree, they focused their selves in their music career. They started recruiting new members and they were Joe Hahn, Dave Farrell more commonly known as Phoenix and Mark Wakefield. They named their band Xero. The first recording they made was in 1996. Though they lack funds in order to afford recording and producing singles, they still continue working things out in Shinoda’s make-shift recording studio. Unfortunately, the first recording they produced made no deal. This brought them frustration and much discouragement to pursue their music career. Due to this unfortunate event, their current vocalist that time, Wakefield, left the band to search for other projects. After sometime, Farrell also left the band in order to play with Tasty Snax and rock bands.
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After some considerable time searching for an alternative to Wakefield, the band recruited Chester Bennington from Arizona as their new vocalist. Bennington was referred in March 1999 by Jeff Blue, the VP of Zomba Music. He was a former member of Grey Daze. He was accepted in the band because of his unique style in singing. The band name Xero was changed into Hybrid Theory. The band experienced great revival since the superb chemistry between Bennington and Shinoda began. Because of this revival, they were inspired to make a new album. The bands renaissance led to the change of band’s name, from Hybrid Theory, they changed it to Linkin Park. The name came from the play and homage to Santa Monica’s Lincoln Park. Despite of these changes, the band still struggled to make a deal with their recordings. They experienced rejection from different recording companies. They asked help from Jeff Blue, now the VP of Warner Bros. Blue help the band to sign a deal with the company. Finally, in year 1999 they successfully made a deal with the company and the following year they were able to produce their first album entitled Hybrid Theory.
Their Breakthrough
In October 2004, they released their first album, Hybrid Theory. The album consists of songs composed and worked on by the band for almost five years. Don Gilmore, a music producer, did the editing and polishing of the album. The album did catch the people’s ears. They sold more than 4.8 million copies of their album during its debut year. Their singles Crawling and One Step became top songs in alternative music’s playlists during that year. Their songs were even featured in some movies. Some of the movies were Valentine, Little Nicky and Dracula. Their album was amazingly nominated for three Grammy Awards. They were nominated for Best New Artist, Best Hard Rock Performance and Best Rock Video. Their single In the End was rewarded by MTV as Best Rock Video and Best Direction. Because of these great achievements, the band indeed reached its peak of success and they became well-known in the music industry.
They started receiving offers for performing in tours and concerts. Some of these were KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas and Ozzfest and Family Values Tour. They had their first own tour called Projekt Revolution. Some of their features artists were Snoop Dog, Cypress Hill and Adema. In one year, the band were able to perform in 320 concerts. All their concerts and performances were documented in their first DVD, Frat Party at the Pancake Festival, which was released in November 2001. When the bassist of the band, Dave Farrell rejoined the band, they made remix album entitled Reanimation which includes singles from Hybrid Theory and Hybrid Theory EP. The new remix album was released in July 30, 2002 which features other artists like Aaron Lewis, Jonathan Davis and Black Thought. The album sold almost 270,000 copies during its debut year and it made second place in the Billboard 200.
Release of Meteora
After the great success of their two albums, Hybrid Theory and Reanimation, Linkin Park paid much time on conducting concerts all over United States. Though their schedules were too tight because of their tours, they still made effort to produce another album. In December 2002, they told the public about their upcoming album which was inspired by a historic monastery in Greece, Meteora. In this album, they included revivals of their previous nu-metals and rapcore styles. They used a Japanese flute bamboo called Shakuhachi and other new music technologies. Meteora was finally released in March 25, 2003. The album sold more than 800,000 copies during its first week of release. It became the top selling album in Billboard hit charts. Their singles Numb and Somewhere I belong had magnificent music videos. By October 2003, the album sold more than 3 million copies. Because of their album’s success, they made another Projekt Revolution which featured other artists like Blindside and Xzibit. They were also invited by the famous heavy metal group, Metallica, to play at the Summer Santinarium Tour 2003. Linkin Park released an album entitled Live in Texas which includes some of their performances during the Tour 2003. Their single from Meteora, Somewhere I Belong won the Best Rock Video in MTV awards and the single Breaking the Habit won the Viewer’s Choice Award. In year 2004, the band won as Artist of the Year and Numb as Song of the year in Radio Music Awards. Meteora was the third best-selling album in America during 2003.
The band’s other side
Linkin Park focused on conducting tours and sideline projects instead of producing a new album. Bennington participated in DJ Lethal’s State of the Art while Shinoda worked with Dépêche Mode. In year 2004, they started working with a remix album with Jay-Z entitled Collision Course. The album was released in 2004 which includes mixtures of lyrics of both artists’ tracks. Shinoda forms a new band named Fort Minor as his sideline. Because of some financial issues with their recording company Warner Bros., their relationship with the company started to decline. Fortunately, in year 2006, after persuading the recording company, they made another album deal.
Linkin Park also participated in some charity events like the fund raising for the victims of Hurricane Charley in the year 2004 and the Hurricane Katrina in year 2005. They also conducted charity concerts for the victims of tsunami and they even establishes a charity called Music for Relief. Another thing was their participation in Live 8 which was a global awareness society.
In year 2006, the band spend most of their times working on their third album. They planned to stay away from the usual kind of muscical tones they were playing which is already very predicatable for their usual listeners. They want some twist and change in their music style. (“L.P. History”)
Music Genre
Linkin Park’s most music fall into alternative metal, nu metal and raprock. They were somehow influenced by hiphop, alternative rock and electronica.
Discography
2000 – Hybrid Theory
2001 – In the End
2003 – Reanimation
2003 – Meteora
2003 – Somewhere I Belong
2003 – Live in Texas
2004 – Numb/Encore
2004 – Collision Course
2004 – Breaking the Habit
2004 – From the Inside
2007 – Minutes to Midnight
2007 – Shadow of the Day
2007 – Bleed it Out
2008 – Songs from the Underground
2008 – Road to Revolution: Live at Milton Keynes
2008 – Leave out All the Rest
2008 – Given Up
2009 – New Divide
2010 – The Catalyst
– A Thousand Suns
(“Linkin Park”)
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