When they wanted to kick Mike Shinoda out of Linkin Park

It’s hard to imagine i Linkin Park without the contribution of co-vocalist of Mike Shinoda; but there was a time when someone from their label tried to make them move forward without him.

Shinoda reflected on that time and what happened during an appearance on Mythical Kitchens’ Last Meals podcast. According to the musician, this occurred during the making of the band’s debut album, “Hybrid Theory” released in 2000. “When you’re young and new to a label, they do their best to try to sell records. They want to get the thing that’s successful. During the process of making “Hybrid Theory,” they didn’t feel that. I can’t explain it. And yet we were convinced that it was good. Above all, we felt like we were on this record,” he recalled.

“They went by Chester Bennington and they took him into the studio by himself and said, ‘Look man, this is all for you. You’re the star here. Let’s build this project around you because we don’t understand what you guys are doing,'” he continued, recalling the episode.

At the time Bennington (who took his own life in 2017) was the last member of the band, but Shinoda says: “Chester came into the band with the knowledge that he was part of a group. I felt that what he wanted was for him to liked the band, wanted to be a part of it, and had a lot more loyalty to us than to them.”

As Shinoda recalled, “Chester came back from that conversation and immediately told us, ‘This is what just happened.’ And we said, ‘Oh no, thanks for telling us. I asked him, ‘What did you tell him? ‘ ‘I told him to go fuck himself’.”

Remembering that time Shinoda says. “There was so much strength and so many positive things that were happening. There were also frictions and disagreements. At the time, you were happy about the parts where things were going well and you were angry about the parts that weren’t going well, it was a turbulent”.

“So, for example, ‘Which chorus do you like best? Which verse do you like best? What melody should it be? Oh, I like these words. I don’t like these words.'” I think they called me “the glue” back then and it was a joke nickname. So the positive momentum, the negative feeling of friction, both things are actually very valuable to the band.”

“There has been an element of unity in all the adversity we have faced and having difficult discussions and overcoming them has been so valuable to our growth as friends and as a creative unit. I will speak on their behalf and I won’t say that for me, but I’ll say it for them: My opinion of them is that they are one of the smartest groups of people I’ve ever spent time with.”