Linkin Park co-lead singer Mike Shinoda recently made an appearance on Mythical Kitchens’ “Last Meals” podcast to discuss the band and their new album “From Zero.” During their discussion, Shinoda revealed that early in their career music executives wanted to focus the band around the late Chester Bennington and push out the other members, but that Bennington denied the offer.
“They went to Chester [Bennington] 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,’” Shinoda said, recalling what their label told Bennington during the making of “Hybrid Theory.”
He continued: “Chester had come into the band with the understanding that he’s part of a band. I felt like what he wanted was that 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.”
“[Chester] 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?’ [Chester responded], ‘I told them to go f*ck themselves.’”
In an interview with Alt 98.7 late last year, Shinoda also talked about the push back Linkin Park faced from their label while making “Hybrid Theory,” saying:
“When we went in the studio and did ‘Hybrid Theory,’ though, we were doing great stuff, and we were really happy with a lot of stuff we were making.
“But culturally, it was a nightmare. We were miserable. The band was very aligned on what we wanted to make, but the label was fighting us every day; people kept throwing in opinions about, ‘Oh, it shouldn’t be this. It shouldn’t be that.’
“There were even suggestions the band shouldn’t have any rapping. [It shouldn’t have] any hip-hop-like production or influence in it. We just stuck to our guns, made ‘Hybrid Theory,’ and the rest was history. The thing about ‘Meteora’ was, we were like, ‘That sucked, that ‘Hybrid Theory’ process sucked.’”
