Project Revolution

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Lore & Background

High school friends Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson and Rob Bourdon formed the rap rock band Xero in 1996. After their graduation, they recruited Joe Hahn, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell and Mark Wakefield to perform in the band. The band began recording and producing songs within Shinoda's makeshift bedroom studio in 1996, resulting in a four-track demo album, entitled Xero, released in November 1997. Delson introduced the band to Jeff Blue, the vice president of A&R for Zomba Music, who took interest but did not produce a record deal. After watching a Xero performance in 1998, Blue believed the band needed a different vocalist. Frustrated with the lack of label success, Wakefield and Farrell left the band. Blue recommended Arizona-based vocalist Chester Bennington, formerly of Grey Daze. Blue called Bennington on March 20, 1999, his 23rd birthday, and sent him tapes of Xero's unreleased recordings the following day. Bennington wrote and recorded new vocals over the instrumentals and sent the tapes back to Blue. By March 23, Bennington was in Los Angeles auditioning for Xero. The band auditioned numerous people for the vocalist job, with Shinoda later admitting the group's visual impression of Bennington initially led to concerns about his image, though Bennington clearly was the best performer among the candidates. As Delson recalls, "[Bennington] really was kind of the final piece of the puzzle [...] We didn't see anything close to his talent in anybody else." After Bennington officially got the job, the five members renamed the band Hybrid Theory. Bassist Kyle Christner was then recruited on a temporary basis. The band with these members released the self-titled EP Hybrid Theory. Through a street team, the EP was mainly promoted through internet chat-rooms and forums. In October 1999, Christner left the group. The vacancy was filled by Scott Koziol and Ian Hornbeck, who alongside Delson all contributed bass tracks for the band's recordings. Still unsigned, the band once again turned to Blue, who by that point had left Zomba and had become vice president of Warner Bros. Records; by November 1999, the band had been signed to a contract. The band changed their name again, deciding on "Linkin Park."

In Their Own Story

The music that would ultimately become the Hybrid Theory album was first produced by Linkin Park in 1999 as a nine-track demo tape. The band sent this tape to various recording companies and played forty-two different showcases for recording industry representatives, including performances for Los Angeles promoter and impresario, Mike Galaxy's showcase at The Gig on Melrose. However, they were initially turned down by most of the major labels and several independent record labels. The band was signed by Warner Bros. Records in 1999, due in large part to the constant recommendations of Blue, who had joined the label after resigning from Zomba. Despite initial difficulties in finding a producer willing to take charge of the debut album of a newly signed band, Don Gilmore ultimately agreed to head up the project, with Andy Wallace hired as the mixer. Recording sessions, which mostly involved re-recording the songs off the demo tape, began at NRG Recordings in North Hollywood, California in March 2000 and lasted four months. Shinoda's rapping sections in most of the songs were significantly altered from the original, while most choruses remained largely unchanged. Due to the absence of Dave Farrell and Kyle Christner, who took part in the 1999 extended play, the band hired Scott Koziol and Ian Hornbeck as stand-in bassists; Delson also played bass throughout most of the album. The Dust Brothers provided additional beats for the track "With You." Shinoda and Bennington wrote the lyrics of Hybrid Theory based in part on early demos with Mark Wakefield. Shinoda characterized the lyrics as interpretations of universal feelings, emotions, and experiences, and as "everyday emotions you talk about and think about." Bennington later described the songwriting experience to Rolling Stone in early 2002: "It's easy to fall into that thing — 'poor, poor me', that's where songs like 'Crawling' come from: I can't take myself. But that song is about taking responsibility for your actions. I don't say 'you' at any point. It's about how I'm the reason that I feel this way. There's something inside me that pulls me down."

Reader's Guide

The album eventually produced four singles. "One Step Closer," the album's second track and first single, was gradually recorded in increments after Linkin Park struggled with "Runaway," and features a guitar riff and electronic percussion in the introduction transitioning into a bridge with distortion-heavy guitars and aggressive drums. It is also famous for the "Shut up when I'm talkin' to you!" refrain screamed by Bennington one minute and 48 seconds into the song. The music video for "One Step Closer" was shot in a Los Angeles subway and became an instant hit, eventually receiving heavy rotation on MTV and other music television networks. Stand-in bassist Scott Koziol is shown performing with the band in the video. The second single was "Crawling," which Bennington described as "about feeling like I had no control over myself in terms of drugs and alcohol." "Papercut" was the album's third single, and its lyrics describe paranoia. The music video for "Papercut" features the band performing in a hallway opposite a completely dark room on the walls of which are scribbled the song's lyrics. Various supernatural themes are present in the video, and special effects are used to create eerie renditions, such as the "stretching" of Shinoda's fingers and the "melting" of Bourdon's face. The fourth and final single to come from Hybrid Theory was "In the End," released on October 9, 2001. The song prominently features a signature piano riff performed by Shinoda. His rapping also dominates the verses of the song and is later joined by Bennington's vocals in the chorus. The music video for "In the End" was shot at various stops along the 2001 Ozzfest tour and was directed by Nathan "Karma" Cox and the band's DJ Joe Hahn, who would go on to direct many of Linkin Park's future videos (the two also directed the music video for "Papercut"). Although the background for the "In the End" video was filmed in a California desert, the band itself performed on a studio stage in Los Angeles, with prominent CGI effects and compositing being used to create the finished version. Performing on a studio stage allowed Hahn and Cox to set off water pipes above the stage near the end and drench the band. The music video won the Best Rock Video award at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards. "Points of Authority," the fourth track on the album, was not released as an official single. However, a music video was filmed.

Did You Know?

• Hybrid Theory is the band's only album in which bassist Dave 'Phoenix' Farrell does not play, though he was credited as a band member and was a songwriter on two tracks.
• The album's title comes from the previous name of the band as well as the concepts of music theory and combining different styles.
• The music video for 'In the End' won the Best Rock Video award at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards.
• Stand-in bassist Scott Koziol is shown performing with the band in the music video for 'One Step Closer.'
• The band played forty-two different showcases for recording industry representatives before being signed by Warner Bros. Records in 1999.