Rock Sound

Don't Stand So Close

'This band are gonna be the next Korn or Slipknot' claims a message on Linkin Park's web site, and rightly so. Hailing from California this five piece are gonna blow your mind.



These are indeed exciting times for rock. Over the past couple of months we've witnessed the arrival of some truly spine tingling new music from some truly great new bands and Linkin Park sit firmly on the top of the pile with their stunning debut album 'Hybrid Theory'.

Currently doing the business in the States with their first single 'One Step Closer', the UK release date of the album was brought forward thanks to the power of the net. "Everything's going really well," says vocalist Chester Bennington. "Radio over here's been really responsive to the song, which is kinda overwhelming 'cos a lot of the stations picked it up before we'd even released the song to the radio."

Combining elements of hip-hop, rock and electronica, 'Hybrid Theory' is a truly awesome piece of work. Originally from Arizona, Chester hooked up with the rest of the band after his attorney passed on a tape of their music. Originally called Hybrid Theory they were forced to change their name because another band had already taken the moniker. The name Linkin Park evolved from a local park name but the name Lincoln was too expensive to register on the net, hence the current name.

"I don't come from a musical family," admits Chester, "it's just something I've always been interested in. I started singing for fun, I just went around the house trying to mimic my favorite band. I always dreamt about being the fifth member of Depeche Mode. I dreamt that they flew their plane out to my grade school, picked me up and took me on tour with them," he laughs. "I would say that the band who's probably had the most influence on me in my career," he continues, "would be Stone Temple Pilots. I just love that band, I think Scott Weiland is one of the most amazing frontmen to watch live. He's got a great voice and every one of their records is different."

In fact Chester himself possesses a mean set of vocal chords himself, not too dissimilar to Mr. Weiland, which sound extremely effective when combined with co-vocalist Mike Shinoda's rapping. So Linkin Park - the next Korn or Slipknot?

"The funny thing is about our fans is that each one of them pulls a different style from our music. There's a lot of different styles - we have electronic, hip-hop, rock y'know? I think that Slipknot and Korn are great bands and for people to think that we can hang with bands like that is really cool."

Linkin Park utilised the internet and the troubled Napster site to help launch their career. Chester explains more. "We're very tied to the internet, we're totally into the fans. We started, before we even signed to Warner Bros, by just going on the web talking to kids, putting our stuff on MP3 and then getting people to check it out and tell us what they thought." Are you worried that fans might just download the album and not buy it? "I know kids that have downloaded our entire record off Napster but they're like 'we're gonna go out and buy the record.'

People are aware that bands can get screwed if people just start downloading their stuff, that is the whole beauty of being a fan. I'm a fan myself, I love to buy records. When 'Kid A' came out we were like 'Oh My God' and ran out and bought the record, played the CD and looked at all the artwork and stuff."

Limp Bizkit's Fred Durst recently said in an interview that there were a lot of hot new bands that were going to knock Limp Bizkit off the top. Do you think you're the ones to do it? "I don't wanna be the end of anybody's career, I hope everybody has a long and prosperous career but if we happen to be the band that comes in and knocks everybody out - I'd love that. We're basically focused on our music and our record and we just want as many people to experience it as possible. If 250,000 kids go out and buy the record over the next year then great, but if 200 million do then even better.