David Quantick, Q, Summer 2001
Are Linkin Park the pre-fabricated face of nu-metal? Drug convictions, obsessive fans and a festival slot alongside Slipknot would suggest otherwise. "We really don't give a shit," they inform David Quantick.
The Sheraton Hotel, St Louis, Missouri, shimmers and wobbles in the mid-Western summer heat. Outside, cats melt and insects explode, but inside, it's freezing, thanks to some sort of environment-munching air-conditioning.
Monks move about the hotel, attending a Friars Club Of America convention, unaware the Sheraton is also playing host to several metal bands on tour as part of Ozzfest 2001, a travelling metal festival advertising itself as "THE GREATEST FUCKIN' SHOW ON EARTH". Underneath headliners Black Sabbath are every other band on earth from Linkin Park and Papa Roach to lesser figures such as Crazy Town and Mudvayne. And while none of these bands are staying here, the monks' blood might chill if they knew that above them sleep the demonic figures of Marilyn Manson and Slipknot. Possibly even together.
In the restaurant, a matronly waitress asks us, "Are you going to sit here or are you going to sit with the wild and crazies?" She nods to a table which is occupied not by death-faced goths or clown-masked men in overalls, but six young and perfectly normal-looking people. They are Linkin Park and their fresh faces, clean clothes and good manners make them look like a bunch of trainee policemen rather than rabid metallers.
The PR asks Linkin Park if they would like a drink. "Coke?" she asks, innocuously.
"Hey!" says vocalist Mike Shinoda. "We're drug-free!"
He's being ironic. As is co-singer Chester Bennington, who promptly leads the band into an a cappella version of a recent Backstreet Boys hit.
"We're doing that one on our fifth album!" Bennington shouts.
"With guitars!" adds the band's DJ and sampler, Joe Hahn.
The boy band tune is, more than usually, ironic. Some of Linkin Park's press has made them out to be a nu-metal boy band and the word "manufactured" has been used pejoratively, but the reasons for this seem rather slender. Linkin Park are young (Bennington is the eldest at 25), pleasant and attractive. Their debut album, Hybrid Theory, is short (37 minutes and 53 seconds), snappy and hugely commercial. For a first record, it's catchy enough to be a worldwide hit and none of their songs, oddly for a rap/metal act, contain any swearing. In person they're polite, charming and have a tendency to praise their fans, other bands and, more worryingly, their label. It's of little surprise they're viewed by some as the most evil band in the world.
The band have been asked about this topic so often they cry tears of blood when it's mentioned, so Q broaches it subtly by asking: Are rock bands more "real" and "honest" than pop bands who, although manufactured, don't pretend to be anything they're not?
Bennington sounds a little terse as he answers, possibly because he's just heard the word "manufactured".
"Everybody has their own weird point of view on music," he says. "I try to stop joining the bandwagon of manufactured this or, We're more legitimate because we've been playing since junior high. I really don't give a shit."
He leans back. "You should enjoy music cos it's good. And if a Backstreet Boys does it or an Ozzy does it too, then there shouldn't be a problem with you owning Ozzy's record and the Backstreet Boys record. Listen to the music and don't worry about fitting into your buddy's idea of what's cool and what's not cool."
"I can listen to Al Green and get connected, or I can rock out to Pantera," says Hahn. "They're two totally opposite spectrums of music, but they still contain something similar and that's a connection with their lyrics or music. And that's the important thing."
Bennington grins. "That's going to be the description of the band: Al Green meets Pantera!"
But, apart from the fact that other bands on this tour seem perfectly happy to chum with Linkin Park in a brotherhood of rock way, it must be said that if Linkin Park are manufactured then they have been given a fabricated past that would make a KGB sleeper agent look a bit slipshod.
Formed in California in 1996 from the ashes of the appallingly named Xero, by Shinoda, Hahn, guitarist Brad Delson, drummer Rob Bourdon and bassist Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, Linkin Park — under their original name of Hybrid Theory — got a publishing deal after one gig and recruited Bennington on the recommendation of, er, their lawyers. Bennington, from Arizona, joined and suggested Hybrid Theory change their name to that of America's most common park. By altering the spelling, the band were able to purchase web space cheaply for a band site. Soon they were signed by Warner Bros, but fame would take a while. Even in countries with very long nights, Linkin Park's success hasn't been overnight.
"It was like a sloping thing," says Shinoda over a mineral water. "When we got a publishing deal we weren't even known in our home town. We furthered our career without anyone knowing…"
Shinoda claims the band used to get audiences by virtue of not attending the same colleges as each other. "We all had different friends and extended families," says Delson. "And they would all come. We made it an event."
"Dude, that's totally the way you sold it to people too," says Shinoda, in a Californian drawl. "You'd get like one person and then you'd be like, Hey, are you going? So-and-so's going. And just play everybody off against each other."
Then he adds, in case Q gets him wrong, "In a positive way."
Of course.
*
The piece of A4 pinned up inside Linkin Park's tour-bus reads: "Monday, 18 June 2001. You're in St Louis, Mo. And it is a Show Day. Q magazine will be on hand to cover this as a fly-on-the-wall type."
Indeed we are. As the bus moves through invisible walls of boiling air and into the backstage area of the Riverport Amphitheater, the band get ready to hit the heat. Hahn walks past Bennington and does a DJ scratch "wakka wakka" on his cropped head. Other members emerge from bunks and pile out into the heat to sign autographs. It's apparent they're diligent about being nice to their fans.
"These are all people that support you," says Hahn earnestly. "Without these people we wouldn't be where we are."
"Big up yourself!" adds Bennington, confusingly. "On our first tour, we were playing for free and driving an RV," he says, reminiscing. "Maybe one kid had heard of us as Hybrid Theory and he had to drive 600 miles to catch that one show. Now we show up and there are kids wearing our hairstyles and dressing up like me, Shinoda or Joe."
Tour manager Bob Dallas ushers a line of fans through the tent. "One item per person!" he barks, as people queue with either CDs or old T-shirts. The tees that are signed or worn here include a lot of Ozzfest: Got Blood? designs, Anti Crombie, St Mary Magdalen Parish School, Brendan Missouri and, worryingly, It's All Right To Be White (presented to the band, bravely, blank back first).
"You guys are number one!" roars a fan. "You guys are number one!" Chester roars back. "You give me a reason to live!" shouts another. A third is reluctant to queue, because he's Met The Band Before. "Hey Chester! Remember me?" He sees a woman. "Hey lady!" He sees Q. "Hey guy!" Q moves away and turns its attention to the bands on stage. The Disturbed are a cross between Classix Nouveaux and Alice Cooper. They demand the audience make Devil signs. "Phone your radio station and ask for our single now," they yell. Crazy Town turn out to be as unpoppy as can be. They thank Black Sabbath for the chance to play and reveal to the audience that they used to be drug dealers (Crazy Town, not the audience).
Then it's Linkin Park's turn to take the stage. A short set that manages to fit in most of the album fails to energise a sluggish crowd, but does fit in a lot of swearing. Bennington yells "motherfucker" in the set more times than most people say the word "and" in a day. Hahn spins records impressively while the band reveal themselves to be loud, forceful and drilled.
"Before we did the album, we'd rehearse the songs for eight hours a day," says Bennington. "Then we'd record the album and then we'd make sure we could play the songs live." It works. The crowd begin to wake up from their heat-induced lethargy as the set ends. As Linkin Park are replaced by Papa Roach and head backstage to hang out, Bennington produces a scooter (a proper one, with a seat) and fetches food for himself and his wife, Sam. The two married when Bennington was only 20. "When I get sick, he plays his guitar to me," she tells Q, charmingly.
A little dog called Moose runs around the grass, delighting Bennington. Ozzy Osbourne's teenage son Jack ferries people about in a golf cart and members of Crazy Town — who appear to be big chums with Linkin Park — try (and fail) to let off fireworks on a scooter (not a proper one). It's all rather idyllic. The rest of the band are absent, doing band things. Q notes Shinoda and Bennington don't appear to spend much time together. Perhaps Shinoda is gripped by a wrathful Robbie-and-Gary-type jealousy. "He's doing phone interviews," says the PR. Damn.
The next day's venue presents a very different environment. Sandstone Round Theater, near Kansas City, Missouri is normally a large, pleasant venue surrounded by woods, fields and blue skies, but today the weather is the kind expected at your average British rock festival, i.e. shit. In the sky, clouds form like bad indie bands and rain smashes down during a thunder storm. As the tourbus nears the wet festival site, Linkin Park are undeterred. They have work to do.
"Ozzfest is cool," says Bennington, "cos there are people who haven't been exposed to our kind of music. Serious metal fans may not have necessarily heard bands like us, Crazy Town or Papa Roach."
"We want to reach out to different kinds of people with different kinds of music," agrees Hahn.
Bennington takes up his acoustic guitar and performs a medley of songs by his favourite band, Stone Temple Pilots. Then, for variety's sake, he has a go at the old Cars hit 'Just What I Needed', but loses his way in the second verse. "Something, something, something… as long as it was deep," he emotes powerfully.
It's horrible here. In the parking lot, next to cars with SLAYER licence plates, soggy pages from someone's Bible litter the ground. The band enter the sodden venue, sign more autographs and then make their way to a stage ringed by wet, muddy people. Their set today goes down better, possibly because wet, muddy people who have paid many dollars to get wet and muddy are keen to be entertained. And today we see why Linkin Park are a band going places. Their always commercial, always imaginative mixture of metal and rap and hints of "industrial" music, like Depeche Mode and Ministry, gels into a crowd-pleasing heap of energy. The band look happy, despite Hahn's claim that they think of their music as "therapy".
This may be related to the fact that their producer told them, "I want to be entertained, I don't want to hear about your problems."
Bennington, a reformed drug user with a conviction for marijuana use, nods cheerfully.
"Well, we just tried to figure out the best way to express our feelings in an entertaining way. Which was really difficult. But it did make for an album that expresses a wide range of emotions.
"What we want to do with our music is entertain people," he says. "But we also want people to be able to connect with what we're talking about." He becomes more serious, reflecting on the motives behind Linkin Park. "It's a lot harder to connect with the crowd emotionally when you're talking about partying and stuff," he says, purposefully. "You have to be honest. And being honest in an entertaining way can be a difficult thing."
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