In a recent chat with Complex (seen below), Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda recalled some of the potential missteps the band avoided earlier in their career by standing up for themselves and not just taking label suggestions provided for their Hybrid Theory album.
One would have definitely impacted how you view them as a live band, while the other could have changed how their breakout album sounded and perhaps not put the best foot forward the band was wanting.
In reflecting on those early years, Shinoda reveals that their signing was met with more of a ‘wait and see” approach than with absolute confidence and that their label had suggestions. But the band avoided the trappings that some young bands fall into with just being happy to have reached the point of being signed and actually stood up for their vision.
“We spent a lot more time on ourselves and our foundation than trying to get fans,” he explains. “The more we wrote, the more we record and honestly the more we stuck to our guns, cause we would get suggestions from the label about doing things differently, and usually we told them no.”
In the End Nobody Throws a Shoe
When asked about how things changed over the making of their first album, Shinoda recalled, “On the funny side, there was the one time an A&R guy asked, cause we were still getting comfortable onstage and working out that part of things, and he had us meet with this guy who choreographed and helped stage stuff on rap and R&B shows.”
“This dude comes in and he’s basically like a choreographer and he literally suggested, ‘You need to have a thing onstage, like a gimmick. For example you could come up to the microphone, step out to the side and step out of your shoes … or kick a shoe off.’ We were like, ‘What the fuck?’ That was a literal suggestion,” he added.
“I don’t want to make it seem like he was a crazy person. He was shooting from the hip and it was something that just popped into his head,” said the Linkin Park co-vocalist.
Obviously things would have looked a little different if Linkin Park were hopping out of their shoes at shows.
No Theory for ‘Hybrid’
On a more serious note, the band had a clear vision of how they wanted their album to sound and that included who they wanted to mix their breakout effort.
“A real thing that happened as we finished Hybrid Theory, we were like the only person who is going to mix Hybrid Theory is Andy Wallace. Andy Wallace mixed these records over here (Run-DMC’s Raising Hell, Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled album and Evil Empire) that blend samples of rock music and industrial sounds in a way that feels very modern to us.”
“It’s full, it’s expert level mixing. We love this,” he added. “And he also, by the way, mixed Nirvana’s Nevermind. He’s an icon. He does huge records too. He’s the only one who can mix Hybrid Theory,” explained Shinoda.
But it could have very easily not have happened had they not spoken up.
“The next thing we knew, our A&R guy had done a test mix with somebody else. It was because of politics and stuff going on on his side,” revealed Shinoda. “We were scared to death that this guy was just going to take our record and do his own thing with it and they were going to put it out that way.”
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“Those were the places where we had to put our foot down and have difficult conversations with people and fight for our own vision,” he concluded.
Linkin Park’s Initial Hybrid Theory Success
It turns out that Linkin Park made a lot of right moves early in their career. Thanks to the breakout single, “One Step Closer,” the band’s Hybrid Theory shot up the Billboard 200 Album Chart upon its release, eventually peaking at No. 2.
The band quickly started getting invites to perform on Ozzfest and the Family Values tour and toward the end of their album support for Hybrid Theory they were able to put together their own Projekt Revolution package tour, with no free standing shoes needed.
The album yielded four singles, though “Runaway” would also chart at radio and “Points of Authority” would later be remixed by Orgy’s Jay Gordon and would become the centerpiece single from their Reanimation remix record.
Hybrid Theory has gone on to reach the rare Diamond certification for over 10 million units sold in the U.S. (it’s actually now past 13 million total) and it’s one of the more influential albums released during the nu-metal era.
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Gallery Credit: Chad Childers, Loudwire
