Linkin Park gets closer to edge of success through hard work
By Daily Bruin Staff
Feb. 1, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Warner Brothers Linkin Park, with two
UCLA alumni, will be playing at the Dragon Festival in San
Bernardino on Saturday.
By Mary Williams
Daily Bruin Contributor
Being signed by a major label at its first show at the Whisky,
then selling over 1 million copies of its debut album,
“Hybrid Theory,” makes it seem like success almost came
too easily for Linkin Park.
But with the band starting out on its fifth of a seemingly
never-ending series of nation-crossing tours, no one can say that
the group isn’t working hard for its fans.
“Now, when I get to Des Moines, I’m like, “˜Oh,
I’m here again,”’ said UCLA alumnus and Linkin
Park guitarist Brad Delson, in a recent phone interview.
“Places you’d never think to go to are suddenly really
familiar. Like, we’re in Sacramento, and I recognize the
pizza place. It’s really weird.”
Before the members of the band became so knowledgeable about the
ins and outs of America’s heartland, however, they were
putting in years of work under conditions that were less than
ideal.
In their college years, UCLA roommates Delson and Dave Farrell,
the original and newly returned bass player for Linkin Park, would
have to move their equipment from their dorm room or apartment to a
rented rehearsal space each night to practice, and then move it
back again.
“I would go to class, and then at night Dave and I would
pack all our gear into my Honda and we’d drive all the way
across town to Hollywood, to a really shady rehearsal space which
you’d rent out by the hour,” Delson said. “If
you’ve never been to one of these places, you don’t
want to ever go. It’s so sketchy.”
“We did that for years. So we’ve definitely worked
really hard for a long time,” he continued. “It’s
just that the last six months have been a kind of really steep
curve in terms of how much exposure we’ve been getting and
how much success we’ve had with our record.”
Along with Delson and Farrell, Linkin Park also includes
vocalists Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda, drummer Rob Bourdon
and DJ Joe Hahn.
In the early years of the band, before it began its first tour,
its members focused on songwriting rather than performing. Everyone
in the group takes part in the songwriting process, according to
Delson.
“Someone will come up with an idea, like (Shinoda) will
come up with a beat, or I’ll come up with a guitar part, and
people will come in and bring other things to the table, and then
the song will evolve as more and more layers get added to
it,” he said.
“Technology allows you to really flexibly move things
around and try different parts in different places in the song,
which allows us to perfect not just the parts but the song as a
whole, in other words, the structure of it and the
composition,” he continued.
This long and careful songwriting process is not entirely
foolproof, however. “We actually forgot to curse on the
record,” Delson said, laughing. “Mike and Chester had
worked so hard on the lyrics, really to express them as honestly as
possible, how they were feeling about certain things that were
happening in their lives, and afterwards they honestly realized
that they had forgotten to be obscene.”
The album is indeed entirely obscenity-free, although this may
give listeners the wrong impression of the band, Delson
explained.
“Some people go, “˜Oh, you guys are a Christian
band,’ because there’s no cursing, and then they come
to the show and they’ll definitely hear the f-word flying
around, and you’re like, “˜Oh wow,'” he
said.
Southern Californians can hear for themselves at the Dragon
Festival this Saturday. Linkin Park heads up a bill including GZA
and B-Real at the 11-hour concert in San Bernardino.
“It really embodies the vibe and the styles of music that
we’re interested in and the groups that we’re
interested in playing with,” Delson said.
“It’s just going to be an all-around awesome show
with an awesome vibe, and we’re not playing actually in L.A.,
so that’s the closest to a hometown show that we’re
going to do.”
The show is part of Linkin Park’s Street Soldiers
headliner tour with Taproot. Hip hop group Styles of Beyond is
opening the shows on the West Coast and rock group Alien Ant Farm
will be opening for the rest of the tour.
Linkin Park isn’t showing any signs of letting up after
its tour ends in late February on the East Coast. Immediately
following the tour, it plans to tour in Europe with the Deftones, a
band Delson cites as an influence for Linkin Park in addition to
being one of his favorite bands.
“It’s ridiculously great. I still feel like
I’m going to wake up and someone is going to tell me it was a
practical joke, and that we’re not really opening for them,
at which point I’d be like, “˜You know what? I
should’ve expected that,'” he said.
“We’re kind of blown away that they actually asked us
to tour with them just because we’re such big
fans.”
The band met the Deftones through a concert in Atlanta in which
both groups were playing.
“My manager was like, “˜Dude, go say hi. Give them a
CD,’ and I was so nervous I couldn’t do it. I swear. I
was holding the CD and I was thinking about how I was going to say
hi, and give it to them, and finally I just copped out and I gave
it to Mike. I’m like, “˜I can’t do it. Just go
give them the CD.'”
Fortunately for Linkin Park, Shinoda did give the Deftones the
CD, and now the group can add touring with its idol to its list of
hard-earned accomplishments.
MUSIC: Linkin Park preforms at the Dragon
Festival at the Orange Pavilion in San Bernardino on Saturday from
3 p.m. to 2 a.m. Ticket costs range from $20 to $50, and are
available through Ticketmaster.
