Linkin Park: Live and Well

"Obviously, we've had a really good year," says Linkin Park rapper Mike Shinoda.

Tell that to 'N Sync, Destiny's Child, Britney Spears, Alicia Keys, Shaggy and everybody else who coughed on tour bus fumes as Linkin Park roared out of nowhere to become the top-selling act of 2001 when their debut CD, "Hybrid Theory," sold 4.8 million copies.

Actually, Linkin Park's good year dates back to the album's release in October 2000, when it opened at No. 16 on the Billboard album chart -- not bad for a band that had toured little outside its Los Angeles home base. "Hybrid Theory" has never topped the Billboard album chart -- its peak position was No. 2 -- but it's seldom been out of the top 20, and 66 weeks after release, it's currently parked at No. 3, with total sales of more than 7 million, having sold a million-plus during each of the past three months. Linkin Park became the first rock act to top Billboard's year-end sales chart since Alanis Morissette and "Jagged Little Pill" in 1996. They're part of the juggernaut Return of the Rock movement, as MTV has dubbed the music's resurgence.

Credit the band's work ethic -- they did 325 shows last year, including several dozen that guitarist Brad Delson played with a broken foot. There's also the group's uncommon accessibility. Until recently, Linkin Park's performances were mere preludes to post-concert fan fests that saw band members signing autographs until the venues chased them out or turned the lights off.

"Obviously, there are now a lot more kids who come to the shows," Shinoda says. "We still try to go down to the barricade where we can, but on this tour, most of the [contact] is going to happen at specific meet-and-greets that are a little more organized, so that we can be more efficient about signing stuff and meeting people."

Where the band once toured in an RV crammed with both their equipment and their road crew, they now travel on two buses and the homes that await them at road's end are owned, not rented. There should be plenty of room for the platinum awards from around the world -- another four million copies have sold overseas -- and possibly a few Grammys: Linkin Park recently earned three nominations, for best rock album, best hard rock performance and, prestigiously, best new artist.

Two years ago, nobody wanted to sign them. That's because the band's signature sound -- a synthesis of hard rock and rap with electronica flourishes -- had already grabbed the marketplace by the throat via Limp Bizkit, Korn and Rage Against the Machine. Linkin Park had been experimenting with that mix since 1996, with Delson and Shinoda going back even further. Buddies since the seventh grade, their after-school hours were spent at the Shinoda household looking for the perfect beats (in the album's liner notes, Shinoda thanks his neighbors "for putting up with us recording this screaming in my bedroom").

The band started filling out with drummer Rob Bourdon, a high school pal, and DJ Joseph Hahn, an art college buddy of Shinoda's. Bassist Phoenix, an original member, left before the band recorded "Hybrid Theory" to tour with another group, but rejoined a few weeks after the album was released.

The turning point was the arrival in 1998 of Chester Bennington, an Arizona punkster who had retired from music at 22 to log property maps on computers before hearing a demo tape and auditioning for the singer's slot. His powerful singing proved the perfect foil to Shinoda's kinetic rapping. "This band would have a very difficult time with any different configuration," Shinoda admits.

"We don't pride ourselves on the fact that we mix rock and rap together -- it's not something that somebody else hasn't done," Shinoda says. "The way we express ourselves, being able to write a good song, that's what we take pride in. That we come from and like all these different genres makes up what we do, but that's not really where the focus is."

So it's just as well the band changed its name: They were originally called Hybrid Theory to reflect their myriad influences, but another band had already claimed the moniker. Next up was Lincoln Park, after a public park in Santa Monica, Calif., and, presciently, a popular name in cities across the country. When getting that particular Web domain name proved prohibitively expensive for a fledgling band, they did the rock 'n' roll thing and simply misspelled it. Welcome to www.linkinpark.com.

Even before they were signed by Warner Bros., the band, whose median age is 24, was building a name for itself beyond California, developing a grass-roots fan base.

"We would get online with MP3s of demos we made on four-track, really inexpensive home recording equipment," Shinoda recalls. "We would go into chat rooms and ask kids to listen to them and tell us what they thought."

From there, Linkin Park sent out tapes and promotional materials to its rapidly expanding street force, which then funneled them to record stores, nightclubs, DJs and potential fans.

"That started the relationship and this community is still there," Shinoda says proudly of the band's 1,000-member street team. "Those kids are the people who are most excited with what's happened to us, who stay in contact with the band. And we often do have communications to let them know when something's going on, like the new DVD, which came out in December, or to dispel bad rumors, like we all drove off a cliff in a car wreck . . ." (circulating just this week thanks to a fake "cnn.com" URL).

Though sales show little sign of flagging, the band has started to write material for a follow-up album. First, they'll put out a remix version of "Hybrid Theory" in May, what Shinoda calls "a reinterpretation of the album, mostly sample-based."

The remix crew includes the Crystal Method and Ryu from Styles of Beyond, Orgy's Jay Gordon, Evidence from Dilated Peoples, DJ Z-Trip, Prince Paul, the Alchemist, Josh Abraham, turntablist crew the X-ecutioners (Linkin Park performs on their upcoming album) and Shinoda himself. Staind singer Aaron Lewis recorded harmony vocals for a spacey expansion of "Crawling" in the band bus during last fall's Family Values Tour.

Hopefully, no one will add cussing to the mix. One of the notable things about "Hybrid Theory" is that there's no profanity to be found in its dozen highly-energized tracks.

"It's something that we try to do to challenge ourselves to write more interesting lyrics, not to take a stand against cursing," Shinoda says. "There's other things that we'd rather worry about. It's something to take into account, but it's not the thing that defines Linkin Park. Think of all the bands out there that don't use cuss words in their music. Nobody seems to need to point that out about U2, you know what I mean?"