The Band Nobody Wanted: The True Linkin Park Story
A year before anyone knew his name, Chester Bennington was sleeping in his car. Then a record label made him an offer. Mike Shinoda remembers it word for word: "You're the star. It should all be about you." The deal was simple: drop the band, and you get everything.
So now Xero was like a getaway car with a...
Mike found a DJ named Joe Hahn at art school, and Brad's college roommate, Dave Farrell, played bass. Honestly, I think that's the least glamorous way any famous band has ever come together. They called themselves Xero, spelled with an X. Remember that name, because it's the very last word of this story. Brad was working as an intern for a talent scout named Jeff Blue. Jeff remembers Brad standing in his office, staring at a gold record on the wall like it was a promise.
Brad told Jeff "he was going to put a band together that would change the world." Jeff liked the band enough to give them a development deal, which is basically a label saying "maybe, but not yet." But one label after another passed on them, and then their singer, Mark Wakefield, quit the band.
So now Xero was like a getaway car with a great engine and nobody to drive it. Would you have kept going? They played a showcase on Sunset Boulevard that went so badly they started searching for a new singer. From everything I've read, that night nearly ended the band before it had even started. So there was a band without a singer in L.A., and a singer without a band in Phoenix. And the person who finally brought them together wasn't a manager, a producer, or some music business legend. It was a lawyer.
You may have heard the legend that Chester got his big break by pure luck, at a birthday party. The real story is less about luck, and a lot more interesting. An entertainment lawyer named Scott Harrington had seen Chester sing in Phoenix. He never forgot him, and for years he kept mailing Chester demo tapes from other bands.
Then, at the South by Southwest music festival, Scott told Jeff Blue, "I know how to save the band." So Jeff called Chester, and the timing was almost absurd: the phone rang right in the middle of Chester's surprise birthday party.
That's close call number two
"I'm going to give you your big break," Jeff told him. "I have a great band for you." Chester left his own party, went into a studio almost right away, and sang his own ideas over the band's demo. I can't think of a better way to spend a birthday than betting your whole life on one tape. But Chester was in Phoenix and the band was in L.A. So how do you audition for a band over the phone?
You call back, you carry the phone over to your stereo, you hold the receiver up to the speaker, and you press play. Jeff listened for a few seconds and asked just one question: "When can you be here?" Years later, Jeff wrote, "What I heard floored me. Every crack of his voice had a story to tell." I love that line. It's the best review a demo tape ever got.
Chester quit his job, and within days he was in L.A., waiting on the office steps at nine in the morning. If you ask me, that's the most hopeful image in this whole story. Jeff remembers who walked in that day: "a kid with Coke-bottle glasses; a glittery, button-down black shirt two sizes too big." For some reason, I find that detail perfect. But here's the cruel part. The band was still auditioning other singers, and Chester had to sit in that room and watch them try out for the spot he wanted.
Imagine quitting your job and leaving your home in another state, only to watch strangers audition for the thing you gave it all up for. That's close call number two. Chester had no job, no backup plan, and no home in L.A. But he didn't leave. His own explanation is so simple, and I love it: "I was the best thing they were going to find."
So he stayed. He slept on friends' couches, in his car, and on the cold floor of the band's rehearsal room. Even the band's name kept falling apart. Xero became Hybrid Theory, and then a legal problem took that name away too.
That's close call number three
So Chester suggested Lincoln Park, a park in Santa Monica. They changed the spelling so they could actually get the website, which is the most late-nineties decision I've ever heard. Now they had a singer and a name. But the labels were still saying no. And honestly, every no they'd heard was nothing compared to what a yes was about to do to them.
Jeff didn't give up. He kept bringing record executives to the band's rehearsal room on Sunset, a cramped space where the water pipes leaked. In that tiny room, Chester sang just inches from their faces. I still get chills at how Jeff described it: "You could feel his breath on your cheeks." Warner Bros. Records turned them down three times, and the band played more than 40 showcases without landing a deal. I think every no must have hurt more than the last one.
That's close call number three. If you're keeping score, it's 40-something labels to nothing. Then other labels tried to hire Jeff away, and he gave them one condition: the first band he signed would be this one. He ended up at Warner, the same label that had turned the band down three times. And one executive there, Joe McEwen, really loved them.
So Linkin Park finally signed. The band nobody wanted had a record deal, and for a moment, everything felt perfect. Happy ending, right? Wrong. Getting the deal turned out to be the easy part. Before work on the album had even started, McEwen left Warner, and the band lost the one real supporter they had at the top. Then, while they were making the album, the label quietly went around the band and went straight to Chester.
To be fair to the label, they had a reason. Their pitch started with, "Well, the singer's so good." Even Mike admits it: "they're right, he's incredible."
Watch the full Linkin Park story on YouTubeBut here's the part I love
If you're thinking the label had a point, I get it. Mike was afraid of exactly the same thing. "This is the beginning of the end," Mike remembers thinking. "I don't know if he needs us." Forty labels saying no hadn't broken this band, but one label saying yes nearly did. That's close call number four.
Keeping Chester and dropping Mike would have been like keeping the chorus of a song and throwing away the verses. Which, of course, is exactly the kind of idea I'd expect from a record label. So what did Chester do with the offer of a lifetime? His answer is the reason this band still exists. He took the band aside, told them everything the label had said to him, and then told them exactly what he'd said back. That's why I call it the bravest no.
And the moment Mike had feared was "the beginning of the end" turned into something beautiful. In his words: "That was the start of all for one and one for all." Next came the hard work of writing the songs. Their producer, Don Gilmore, kept sending Chester's lyrics back to be rewritten, over and over. I imagine every page felt like another rejection letter. While recording one song, Chester got so frustrated that he stopped singing and screamed "shut up," and that frustration stayed on the finished record.
That song was One Step Closer. Radio programmers started demanding it, so Warner rushed it out as a single. A few weeks later, Chester was on vacation in Mexico when a girl spotted the flame tattoos on his wrists and told her friend, "That's the guy in the video!" Remember the car Chester had been sleeping in? That was only the year before. That's how fast all of this happened.
Their debut album came out under the name they'd lost to that legal problem, Hybrid Theory, and it became the best-selling album in America that year. It was a dream come true, and honestly one of the happiest success stories in music. But here's the part I love: it never reached number one. It got stuck at number two, behind Creed.
Remember the boy who was left alone at 11
Then their single In the End got stuck at number two as well. It was like a runner who keeps winning the race but losing the photo finish. Billboard later called Hybrid Theory the best-selling rock album of this century, with more than 10 million copies sold in the U.S. So Warner, the label that said no three times, ended up selling it. And the singer that label wanted on his own had chosen his band for life. Perfect. I love that.
Getting famous had been hard, but surviving fame together turned out to be much harder. So what does fame cost a band like this? Their second album went straight in at number one. But on those huge tours, Chester was drinking heavily, and he felt lonely and cut off from his own band. Remember the boy who was left alone at 11? Here's why that matters now.
Chester didn't hide that childhood. He put it into his lyrics, and Mike got to know his past by writing songs with him. As Mike put it, "It was a weird way to get to know each other." The same man who'd been so sure he was "the best thing they were going to find" also said, "I felt like I was doomed to be this lonely person." That one hurts. When Chester got sober, he gave the credit to the people around him, and I find this part beautiful: "Everybody came to my rescue."
The band kept changing their sound, and they kept going to number one anyway, which almost never happens to a band that keeps changing its sound. Their last album with Chester, One More Light, went to number one too. Two months after that album came out, Chester Bennington died. He was 41. It's the saddest, most painful sentence I've ever had to write.
Four days after his death, in the middle of their grief, the band posted a letter that started with "Dear Chester," and its first line was, "Our hearts are broken." In my opinion, one line in that letter goes straight back to the beginning of this story: "It was the way you sang about those demons that made everyone fall in love with you in the first place."
The label offered Chester Bennington everything
They signed it, "Until we see you again, LP." I've read that letter more times than I can count, and it still breaks my heart. A few months later, at a tribute show at the Hollywood Bowl, Chester's microphone stood alone in a white spotlight, covered in flowers, while the band stayed in the dark. They played Numb, and more than 17,000 people sang Chester's part for him. I can't watch it without crying.
Years earlier, the label had wanted Chester without the band. That night, the band played without Chester, and the crowd carried his voice for him. How do you even follow something like that? For a long time, the answer was silence. Seven years went by without a new Linkin Park album, which is longer than it took them to get from Xero to Hybrid Theory. Then, after all that time, the band went live online, played a new song, and introduced a new co-lead singer, Emily Armstrong, along with a new drummer.
Rob, their original drummer, had stepped away, and Brad now stays behind the scenes. I think that says everything about how much the loss cost them. And the comeback album is called From Zero, a nod to Xero, the name of the band nobody wanted. Mike calls the title "a double entendre." It means starting over, and it also means going back to where they began. I love that.
And here's something I noticed when I lined up the charts: From Zero went to number one in the U.K. In America? Number two. Again. Just like the first time. And Joe Hahn, the DJ Mike found at art school, has even directed a film about the comeback, called Unshatter. I think that's the perfect word for what they did. So why did Chester, the new guy who'd been sleeping in his car, turn down everything the label offered?
Because he had already nearly lost this band four times, and he wasn't going to lose it to an offer. The label offered Chester Bennington everything. But he already had it: the band nobody wanted.
FAQ
What is this Linkin Park story about?
A year before anyone knew his name, Chester Bennington was sleeping in his car. Then a record label made him an offer. Mike Shinoda remembers it word for word: "You're the star. It should all be about you." The deal was simple: drop the band, and you get everything.
What was the turning point for Linkin Park?
So Chester suggested Lincoln Park, a park in Santa Monica. They changed the spelling so they could actually get the website, which is the most late-nineties decision I've ever heard.
How does the Linkin Park story end?
Because he had already nearly lost this band four times, and he wasn't going to lose it to an offer. The label offered Chester Bennington everything. But he already had it: the band nobody wanted.
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