Brief history of the Band

Brief history of the Band

For those of you Linkin Park buff's here is an interesting history of the band's rise to their ultimate. Let's begin with the early years of Linkin Park. The bands foundation was laid by Brad Delson, Mike Shinoda and Rob Bourdon - three close high school friends from Agoura High School. Their musical interests reached its full bloom after graduating and they added Joe Hahn, Dave Farrell, and Mark Wakefield as members to their band, which was then titled Xero.

In their initial years, they lacked enough resources. However, they started recording and producing songs within Shinoda's makeshift bedroom studio in 1996. Frustration and tension was getting over them as the band lost a record deal. This bad patch continued and ultimately Wakefield - band's vocalist and Farrell left the band in search for other projects.


The band found the surrogate of Wakefield in Arizonian vocalist Chester Bennington, this new team was referred to as 'Hybrid Theory'. Bennington became favorite for his unique and intense style of singing.


The new-sprung chemistry between Shinoda and Bennington resuscitated the band and motivated them to innovate new material. This revival climaxed with renaming of Hybrid Theory as Linkin Park - a play and in honor of Lincoln Park of Santa Monica.


These changes were not enough for the band to sign a record deal. The rejections continued from several major record labels. Finally, Linkin Park decided to request Jeff Blue, the vice president of Zomba Music, to join them for additional assistance. Jeff Blue, the then vice president of Warner Bros. Records, helped Linkin Park sign a deal with the company in 1999. Soon the band released its breakthrough album Hybrid Theory with Warner Bros. Records.

Linkin Park Photos

Likin Park Photos

Great moments

Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory had its nomination for three Grammy Awards - the best new artist, best hard rock performance (for Crawling) and best rock album. The band received MTV awards for best direction and the best rock video.

The Grammy Award Ceremony 2006 saw Linkin Park performing the song "Numb/Encore/Yesterday" with Jay-Z and Paul McCartney. They won the Grammy award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.

Linkin Park Photoes

The band saw its and first beginings in emcee/vocalist Mike Shinoda's small bedroom studio, where he and Brad Delson recorded the band's first material in 1996. The two had attended high school together, where they met the band's drummer, Rob Bourdon. Shinoda hooked up with DJ Joseph Hahn while studying illustration at Art Center College in Pasadena. Meanwhile, attending UCLA, Delson shared an apartment with bassist Phoenix, who left the band after college and returned a year later. At this point, they named themselves Xero and recorded several demo tracks. They never got signed, and the project floundered. Then Shinoda decided to hire a vocalist, and put out an ad. They got Chester Bennington, a transplanted Arizona native who started making records when he was 16. 'When I was two, I used to run around singing Foreigner songs - there's tapes of me doing that... since I learned how to talk I've been telling everybody I was gonna grow up to be a singer.' laughs Bennington.

The band called itself Hybrid Theory after the addition of Bennington (the idea being that they were a hybrid of rock and rap), however, due to a trademark issue with a band called Hybrid, they were forced to change their name. Some discarded ideas (serious or not) were Clear (the band's favorite), Probing Lagers (which they thought was the lamest), Ten PM Stocker (because they would record every night at 10 pm at a place on Stocker Street) and Platinum Lotus Foundation. Eventually, they settled on Lincoln Park, suggested by Bennington because after band practice he would have to drive past there to get home. However the domain 'lincolnpark.com' cost more than the band could afford, so they changed the spelling to Linkin Park. However, it has also been suggested that the name 'Linkin Park' was suggested so that the band would appear right next to Limp Bizkit at record stores