Linkin Park: Honoring Chester Bennington with 'Meteora' 20th Anniversary | Apple Music

was this the first album that the label didn't even come into the room until the end the first one they were meddling a lot yeah and we would have to like constantly have our defenses up on this record it was like okay we'll we'll call you when it's ready for you to hear it and they were like oh you guys know you guys know what you're doing unbelievable onions on you guys man [Music] when we were putting together the you know we just heard lost like this whole Meteora 20th anniversary thing um one of the

things that got sent to me that I hadn't seen or at least hadn't seen most of was the um there's like a 70-something minute documentary it's I call it documentary because there isn't a good way to describe it it's just like it's like almost like the on tour version of like home movies um it's just like footage you know all of this footage of us from the the era of Meteora the end of the touring cycle on Hybrid Theory and getting starting to write music and starting to write the album um so immature so ridiculous

like awkward as hell yeah um I know some of the guys like watched it with their families and watched it with their kids and their kids are like who is that that's me that's your dad like the best part about that for me I've got a couple teenage daughters and they're all over me about what I'm gonna say we but really about what I am wearing in some of these things I know and and the best part about it I'm like I was right there with you I'm I'm like they're like what are you doing

Dad I'm like what the heck is going on there and for me I'm just kind of like well that's my version of trying to be very cool but here's the thing that's how bad I was at it and that's why I gave up trying to be but here's the extra beautiful twist in that tale as most people get to pull those photos out of photo albums and share them with their teenage kids and say look this is what I wore at around 5 10 people in my circle right you were wearing that in front of

100 million people [Laughter] [Applause] the last ones to laugh at those photos you know what I mean if anyone finds them funny at all but what hasn't dated is the music at oh it's crazy and in fact I'm finding nuances to this music that I missed the first time around going back to Meteora in advance of our conversation reminding myself I'm like there's so much Martin Gore in this as well there's so much Depeche Mode in this cool I never really got that the first time around yeah yeah my brother was like um so mad

at me at that time because he was like he remembered when I got my driver's license and I was like um I would have to drive him and our neighbor to schools the three of us in the car and my rule was it's my car it's my music yeah you'd listen to what I wanted yeah right that rule hasn't changed by the way for the most part so it was Tribe Called Quest it was it was hip-hop it was all hip-hop yeah um and when especially when Meteora came out and I think there was even

a picture I think we had met Depeche Mode at some point yeah or something like that and he I remember talking to my brother he's like so mad at me Depeche Mode was my band I wanted so badly to play that on the on the on the ride to school yeah and you would not let me you did not like that music back then like what happened now you're like doing remixes for them yeah that's not fair I know so what happened how is it that the band that was the lowest on the playlist for

you on the right to school ended up having such a like like a little Chester idolized Depeche Mode first of all he did right I mean I feel like he would probably have said like this is my favorite band about maybe multiple bands and I'm sure Depeche Mode was definitely this is my favorite band yeah um I love I mean I love Depeche Mode I feel like Depeche Mode has this particularly strong influence on lost I really hear that I hear that as well influence I can actually it's I'm glad that you talked about Chester

in relation to Depeche Mode and he played an essential role in that um because once I figured it out and I heard it I couldn't unhear Dave and Chester and the similarities in the way that they are emoting they sing different but Dave Gohan and Chester Bennington are emoting from the same place I feel there's a yeah I I hear that I think that one thing that we always uh uh noticed and worked sometimes with and sometimes against um in the studio with chester was that he you know when you have an idea it comes

through different filters in your head like I feel like I I feel like when we have an idea for a part of a song it's almost like fishing like you're just waiting with your line in the water until something comes oh it's it's here yeah but then once it gets there it'll go through different filters sometimes they you sometimes it's like filters of this is what I want to do with it sometimes it's filters of fear of like well if I do this what will the fans think other times it's imperceptible things like favorite other

albums favorite other bands favorite things and and that one in particular he would in the studio sometimes sing a thing and I one of us or some of us would know okay that I know the where it's coming from his day this is his his this sounds like the Cure this sounds like Zeppelin this sounds like um Jane's Addiction this sounds you know what I'm saying so we do we we'd have these exercises probably more later on in our career yeah that weren't developed yet in the Meteora era and the exercises tended to be um

if he was stuck in one of those where it really felt like the influence was coming through maybe too much this one I know on loss I don't think it's definitely not I but in the cases when it was too much you do this fun thing with him I'd go okay cool that sounded great um now do it like so and so like literally like do it like Adele do it like Michael Jackson do it like someone yeah and it would rip him right out of that thing and then he'd listen to it back and

go oh okay okay and then he'd sing it and because what we were looking for is for him to sing it like himself the thing that I remember about Chester my my prevailing top image in my head is this kid who could pull it out of him and deep like Lane Staley deep like oh like the tar that's in there but he's so goofy he was so goofy like his humor was so goofy and at times if he was in that mood he'd just be The Sensational like ah you know I've got too many jokes

and too many things and too many Impressions and too much of this and that's what I remember is this just like lightness but then you'd hear him and it'd be like this guy's got darkness and has to find it um and I that's a rare combination in music it was it was those extremes I think were a good part of what what I don't know it was a it was an element in the in the chemistry of the band for sure don't you feel like it was just meant to be and I'm not talking about

recent years but the beginning the meeting the thing I mean you didn't have a singer and he wasn't in your crew and you guys a lot of you grew up and came up together and don't you feel like like have you ever thought about that like that just tiny little moment in time that one person saying that one thing to meet that one person just chain of events it just unfolds yeah I mean I remember hearing his voice on the demo we had like a demo without vocals and I remember hearing I think it was

like picture board we were hearing his voice and it sounded like on the same song it sounded like almost like a girl singing like ver it was a very in the verse had a very vulnerable um delicate quality to it and then the chorus had like this guttural scream I think both of those elements are present in the song lost definitely I mean the verse is like so you're talking about you know dynamic elements of you know a personality there's there's the the delicacy of the verse in the song loss and then the chorus couldn't

be more you know eruptive eruptive um I should just have you with me all the time in case I can't find the one ironically I don't think that's actually a wood [Music] listen listen if Shakespeare could invent however were many words he invented then you definitely have a license my friend thank you my man it was definitely that and um but then that band was filled with that right I mean you and Chase that's what I was thinking yeah there was a when we needed when we needed to have a band like when the when

the songs and the concept of the album started to uh not album but the the approach yeah like started to come together we were all our already friends and then we didn't even have like it wasn't like oh we we I know 20 guitar players but like I I knew Brad like right you're a high school band yeah high school friends we all knew each other and it wasn't and it was we knew we got along and we knew this was what a style of music we all like this is the thing though that brings

me back to Meteora which is just such a it speaks to the achievement um here's what I loved when I heard Meteora for the first time so Hybrid Theory comes out people conveniently ignore the fact that most of the band have known each other for years and that you emerged from high school with an idea about what you wanted to be different name same idea ambition was strong you remember this everyone was just like manufactured put together that okay can we pause on that specific thing because this is part of the story of this album

It's the towards the middle and end of Hybrid Theory yeah the rumor began yes because the band was so popular I think we're about to say the same thing so I'm on it with you and I wanna I'm gonna ask you a question right now because I'm so so curious so this rumor started in Europe probably England in the press it was definitely in the UK right and they and they we I remembered reading it for the first time they're like oh this is a manufacturer band like a boy to King's College and and they

said yeah the band members didn't know each other they got assembled by a record label manager or whatever somebody else wrote the song it was his doctors most of their music's on tape and those kind of shows because again what I said when we before we were on the air you came onto that stage at King's College in front of 800 people it sounded like you're on stage at the Madison Square Garden like everyone was just like this is not what new bands come to the UK and do right so I smell a rat that's

what people say yeah yeah well we had I mean part of the the reason that this this 20th anniversary thing came together from from my perspective when the question was asked like should we do a 20th anniversary package for the second album I I was like I don't know like I don't wanna I don't wanna like feel like I'm like milking this thing right like the album was the album and everybody knows the story but we started to uncover the stuff that hadn't been released and one of the great things about it was you we

made a point starting mid Hybrid Theory we because of some of the things people were saying it sounded reactive to me like let's show you well they don't they just don't know like it's the only problem is that they don't know so let's show them Let's help them know and so we we brought our Dave's like childhood friend Mark out on the road with us he was like filming everything we were capturing more stuff and so that's why the meteor 20 package is what it is because we started capturing everything it's like other bands weren't

really filming everything at the time yeah filming wasn't super easy you didn't have camera phones yeah yeah so yeah so we're filming and you were documenting it so it was a document almost protect the the future Legacy of the band from this but but it wasn't we went we may have started from maybe of a defensive kind of position right but it it quickly became something else like it was a the idea of work in progress became one of the themes of the album it's like yeah we are a work in progress our music is

working progress yeah all the stuff that we're making you know like we were aware like maybe in 10 years we won't love it as much as we do right now but we love it right now so let's just show people what we're doing I think part of the whole just to finish the thought I think part of the the what was what was it a comfortably convenient element of that false narrative was that Chester had come in late and was such a powerful voice and a powerful part of this experience that people thought oh they

shop for members right until they get the perfect formula because Chester was just so ready made for this from a from a Fan's point of views like this guy looks amazing he sounds amazing he carries these songs like no one else can like who finds this guy and everyone's like well people find this guy right groups of people that's how you find people that good you know just it's not like you stumble across them on the playground or in a rehearsal room you know what I mean and so it it it it it was just

so incredible watching you come out like that people couldn't yes here's the headline people couldn't they couldn't absorb it it's too ready it was too big and that's why it was so successful I think what's like remarkable about Meteora looking back on it now is it really was it was a good problem to have and yet it was a problem that Hybrid Theory did become the biggest album in the world and we were like 10 years old yeah yeah and we were like I mean we were just talking about meeting you and we when we

Flew Over the UK like there's video of us in this package like with our faces in our spaghetti you guys would be paid a bit you weren't you were I was not no you were not I remember you were very grounded you were trying to make the jokes but I just felt like you were like no no no no come on come on come on we're in the UK we're doing press come on come on come on come on we're gonna start but a few of you were definitely like I didn't even know what I

didn't know would be like that um I didn't even know what jet lag was like we were so young and we did have so much success and the question was always like what are you gonna do now yeah is there a lot of pressure and we'd answer a lot we suck man we'd answer like no you know but like the reality was like there was a lot of pressure and it's not made better by the fact that you know people kept asking that yeah and so to actually like have that platform and have that challenge

and to be able to like create this album that we were so proud of was kind of like miraculous like it it was miraculous it happened with Hybrid Theory like it definitely exceeded like we just wanted to get signed which was hard speaking of Chester like we still even when Chester was in the band we showcased for every label no one signed us yeah yeah and um yeah our goal is really to like get signed and make an album yeah your Mentor had to get a high level job add a label to get you in

through the back door yeah no no one actually like saw us and like at that point had signed us and so um yeah so to be able to make this record and kind of solidify our identity as a band was was really kind of triumphant and it's amazing yeah 20 years later that we're still here talking about the album it sounds so sick man when I put it on the other day I was reminded by just not only did you did you prove your point but you did so by taking risks just some of the

scales you were using the sounds you were using I mean you know strange odd samples and cool things well that was the point I think a point of one of the things as I listened back to it and as I've been talking with people about it this month I think that um I had forgotten that we had this intention of going you know Hybrid Theory was our first stab at saying we're taking these different things that we like to listen to yeah that are very specific you know um and they're on and at the time

very unusual to put these things together and then now it's just called music right but when you ask people back then what do you listen to they would say a genre they would say I like this type of metal like this type of rap and they didn't like other things yeah but but you make a really good point right so at this point I'm a big like rap music fan right like and I always have been and and it's it's a big part of what I chose to build my identity around at blah blah um

and you guys come out and your album opens with a break beat and everyone was dancing around break beats like oh you know I use a break beat and I use a break beat and we've got a DJ we've got a DJ and um I gotta find this album man it's like your first album should be Straight Out The Gate here we go and so you guys come out and the first thing I hear is this and I'm like that's a real break beat like that's not these guys aren't like tourists here like someone in

this band knows how to sample properly and program properly and do this and make this sound good and then this happens that's weird that's emotional oh this is gonna be fun like there was so many things wrapped up in what you were doing and you maintained that that weird combination like you never ever got away from the emotion of your music people go hard all the time but they don't always bring the emotion along for the ride I think what the with the with Meteora there were layers to expanding the palette like Hybrid Theory had

had our first you know we we got 12 songs at defining the palette to you and then one of the benefits of having a second album is to double that number like to say okay cool you understand this much about us let us fill in a lot of gaps and and add a whole bunch of other colors so all of a sudden you have um you know programmed elements on the record like um faint oh yeah like uh some of the sounds on numb some some of us and then especially nobody's listening which is a

rap song based on based on a Japanese flute sample you've got session with which references like Aphex Twin and square Pusher and electronic music we like right can they have and then most importantly most importantly you've got Breaking the Habit which when we made that we said we're gonna do a a song that's gonna be dark emotional it's a single it's going to be uh no heavy guitars it's gonna be no screaming it's just gonna be a powerful Linkin Park song and we I remember how hard we went you remember how hard we went with

the label to say like you guys can do other singles and stuff but this one has to be a single do you remember that that was like a it was a real kind of like they like we're looking at each other going like yeah like you guys are known for the other thing it's a great point because it's easy to think about how Meteora connects with Hybrid Theory and it's also easy to forget like how risky that was and how expensive diverges from to yeah Breaking the Habit perfect example that never could have been on

our first album you know I look at Breaking the Habit lyrically and I read through it it's like many of the lyrics that are written and performed by Chester and yourself heartbreaking at times a lot of self-reflection a lot of searching for identity through pain and um but what was interesting for me about Breaking the Habit going back to it is it's almost theatrical it's almost like a high level Tony award-winning theater production you know to the point when you're repeating that you know I'm breaking the habit I'm breaking it's like that classic thing of

like we're gonna carry this Cadence over until we we've reached some kind of emotional high point but we can get higher and we can get higher and we can get higher and then we will land this thing and I'd never heard anyone in modern rock music at that time take on all of the elements you just said and and pull it off I think to the element we're leaving out which Breaking the Habit like when you say Breaking the Habit you actually like I see Breaking the Habit yeah it's it's extremely visual for me and

so I think the element two that we're leaving out in this so far is the visual element of the band was never like the second thought of like oh how are we gonna bring this music now to life and and have a visual component like Mike and Joe went to Art Center which is one of the best art schools in the country I I took High School classes with Mike there so you could tell where my ceiling has reached um and working even working with with Frank at Warner Brothers who we've worked with for forever

and and Delta um on the Meteora wall like the visual art was was always primary um in the band's mind and um I think this is one of the most kind of beautiful expressions of that I always as a joke I always tell people you know Young Artists Young Musicians whatever what's the what's a big piece of advice I always tell them get a visual artist in the band I've been we're just lucky enough to have two because it is such a I see so many bands that either don't enjoy that don't look at look

don't look at it as being important or just don't have anybody directly in the band who can really like steer that ship because it's it's huge to be able to not have to completely hand that over to someone else and then say like here's my vision now you go create that visually but for us we've always had this I think we take it for granted well you know we've got that that interior in the band of with Mike and Joe both where like Breaking the Habit as a video being a great example like Joe was

able to take that work with those guys at no point did I ever feel like concerned that this wasn't going to be coming from a voice in the band well actually a collective voice and the cool thing about the way you did it was that Lincoln Park became the focus because you were able to build art and visuals and ideas around the band and around the collective work and it didn't just become the mic show or the Chester show as it often does when you put this in the hands of other people they zero in

on the obvious common denominator which is the singer perfect put him up front sell it you always made Lincoln Park the headline yeah we especially I think especially back then it was a little bit of a fight I remember being I remember having a couple conversations with our publicist at the time saying that they wanted Dave to be the focus I mean you get that I did it right yeah I mean it's obvious like if you're listening to this you want to sell something yeah I always measure the most important member of the band on

who doesn't speak to me and he stops speaking to me after Hybrid Theory straight up just didn't take my call stop speaking to me too yeah it was it was definitely like a like a conversation about it's a band six guys like we you know like we don't want to see just me and Chester on the cover if we can if we can help it and um the you know the the other side is saying well we sell more magazines if it's fewer people and if their faces are bigger in fact by the way like

Instagram Facebook Tick Tock ever they'll tell you the same thing like the bigger the singular face is in the Square the the better it performs so we had a you know it's a push and pull I think I think you make a great point though which is like not not I mean musicians are called artists right and so I think and when you when someone goes to a concert they say like I'm gonna go see a band right like most people like visual like is their primary Sense store and so um it you don't always

you don't always have a very clear like not all musicians are artists right they don't always have like a three-dimensional uh vision and so I like I love the point you're making Zane which is that like by really creating a visual oh this was this album Meteora had a whole visual world so that's what you think of what do you think of the band if you don't have that then of course you have to put the the face we only have a limited amount of time and if you don't tell me what I should experience

through your lens I'm gonna pick it and chances I'm gonna go to the loudest most visible thing out there and we joke around but most people it ain't Dave and it ain't you know it's like that person right and I need Linkin Park to be a band in order to to be to come to your Festival if I'm going to believe in your taste and believe in your brand and to come to project Revolution I'm gonna have to believe in the band right that's how it goes and I think you got that right entirely that

being said how's Chester dealing with with yeah you're a band but he was always a compelling interesting person and his music and the way that he sang your songs Drew people into that Curiosity in a big way how is he handling that from memory I mean the the story that I go to immediately just because it's a it's a me and him it's exemplary of the way he saw our Dynamic was that during Hybrid Theory there was a question from the label like will he the singer so good like they even went at a certain

point they kept having trying to meddle in our creative process and change the DNA of the band and at one point there was a suggestion well maybe like you just have the singer sing and you don't do any rapping which to all of us was like an offensive suggestion but they went they kind of back doored it to him and went directly to him and and the cell the the pitch was we're gonna build a new thing all around you you are the star you already are the star like it should be all about you

and it's to speak to the end to figure it out whatever like whatever about these other guys like we're not we don't need them we understand you yeah and you're important you're the most important and he I remembered coming you remember we sat in the kitchen at NRG studio and he like took us aside and he's like hey you guys like you need to know they did this to me today they said these things to me and this he recounted the whole conversation and we were all like holy in my mind I'm like oh boy

like this is the beginning of the end right because they're right like he's incredible and we need him yeah like I don't know if he needs us so they went to him and they said these things we were like what did you say and he goes I told him to go themselves like I was like yes like okay he has our back we have his back that that was the start to me that was like a real galvanizing moment that was the start of you know all for one and one for all the thing too

that came out of that I think Chester was on board first and foremost maybe even leading the charge on it is like let's do it our way or let's not do it like that he was a champion for that in so many ways even coming into Meteora and and we would all fight amongst ourselves but at the end of it it was like let's figure out how we want to do it and if that's not gonna work then we don't want to do it like let's make sure that we love it and then and then

we can put it out there and be confident in the fact that at least the six of us are on board and we hope you like it yeah we hope you love it but if not we've done all we can do instead of like the reverse of that which is kind of listening to the outside ideas and kind of getting that weird feeling in your stomach of like I don't know if this is I don't know if this is how I want to do this or I don't know how if this I want to create

or approach this process I think I think that's one thing that's really special about this moment in time for us with Meteora I'm just now remembering yeah man saying you you um with Hybrid Theory um have you considered doing this professionally Never by the way am I gonna get a bill for this no um I might bill you Brad Hybrid Theory was like us against the world like with the story Mike Mike and Dave are recounting it was like having to fight just to get our our actual authentic point of view across and what was

like both so liberating and terrifying about Meteora is like we no one no one left with us on Meteora we got away with it it was like okay you guys did it now what do you really want to do and like this album was the total pure expression of just like this is us like delivering you know what what we want to make and um it was really a a fun album to make like Hybrid Theory was stressful this album was awesome like it was so it was like so so great question was was this

the first album that we got like creative control to the extent that the label didn't even come into the room until the end it was it was very it was very different yeah yeah like the first one they were meddling a lot yeah and we would have to like constantly have our defenses up and like have like little like sidebars with each other and be like okay they said this like what do we all think about that yeah yeah on this record it was like as I remember it might have been the first one and

it this happened with each of our records it where we were like okay we'll we'll call you when it's ready for you to hear it and they were like you guys know guys know what you're doing unbelievable onions on YouTube man and I this is yeah your app that is the right that by the way that was the appropriate response I didn't show this like sorry that's what happens when you go around go read Rick rubin's new book like that like it's the Artistry and the like you gotta impress yourself first you gotta make the

songs that you go damn that's a good song like if no one else likes that song I know I'm on good footing because I think it's but see this these are the decisions they get made that grow the tree a little a few more feet toward the Sun that allow the artists in 2023 who'd have that attitude to sit beneath the shade and you didn't have that that's why I say the onions on you like who was doing that after their debut album before you very few artists would have done that you're in the Warner

Brothers Machine kids you gotta do as you told to some degree no disrespect but we're a business now yeah you want to go and play around on your own time do it on your own time and so you were doing on that time that's sick and that's why that album doing what it did but it's interesting you know like the success of that album I'd imagine threw up some other questions just for you as a unit what were some of the challenges that meteor threw up for you looking back on that that I I feel

like I really feel like this album was liberating I really feel like it was liberating for us because it it's easiest to compare it to Hybrid Theory Hybrid Theory was all you know pushing the rock up the hill like with people actively pressing against us um and even with the success at the end of the Hybrid Theory like the documentary that Mike referenced in this Meteora 20 package kind of starts at the end of Hybrid Theory how long was hybrid how long is Hybrid Theory the 40 years 18 months with the album length oh it's

like 40 minutes yeah less yeah so so it's 30 38 or something yeah it's lean it's lean and we were we had at the end of the Hybrid Theory cycle we were like in we were headlining Arenas yeah and they would be we'd be like okay great like what you know this promoter would come in and say like what's the plan would be like you know what's the how long do you have like slotted for us to play he'd be like 90 minutes and we'd be like um uh what you know like how are you

a headliner when you only have 37 minutes of material yeah and like we could do the album twice yeah and so if you what you're doing is you you're actually speaking to an audience you realize you haven't put your trousers on that's what that is so with Meteora we tried that you tried that we tried that as part of our 90 minutes that was the dark time because we're talking a lot about the studio and yet the majority of our time in that era was on the road yeah you two would relentlessly we toured relentlessly

I think we toured like two and a half years on Hybrid Theory and maybe two years straight on Meteora and so having actual material to play on stage I mean it just made us I think this album helped solidify us as a touring band once you after four years of just grinding touring I know that the energy and the touring and the fun and the success and it's great and blah blah blah but I mean it's there's only so much internal space that you have I think Brad and Dave were the ones who towards the

end of the Meteora album cycle probably starting earlier but really but really like coming in the focus of the end of that album cycle that said hey Our Lives just changed a lot you guys like we were one minute I was like literally making beats on a cassette four track and my mom and dad's house and now we're here and we like we've got an album a thing that is happening with Jay-Z like his this is uh we're in an entirely different not only phase of life but like something happened that's very big and we

need to take some time to like reflect on it and talk about it and no one else is going to be able to like guide you through it it's going to be the six of us with each other and the six of us looking at inside looking at ourselves it wasn't without its challenges you know I would hear reports that you know Chester was struggling I don't know if other people were struggling and if so how they were struggling and what was going on and and I just sort of Wonder like looking back on that

now how you did navigate through those choppy Waters and perhaps where it was kind of at its most difficult youth oh you ignore it youth well there's a lot energy right I'm saying like young people man like a 22 year old yeah who could just send them out into the world yeah right I mean but it was no it's a fair answer I I think I think youthful exuberance was was the strength of ours I think having like a real Brotherhood the six of us to keep each other grounded was a huge plus and I

think ultimately we we did you know as Mike mentioned really talk about like you know we need to cool it you know we can't you know you could always play more shows is that part of the reason why you love the idea of working with Jay-Z apart from the fact that he's Jay-Z was that there was some mentorship there subconsciously perhaps I don't think that was the thing I think we got that we got a little bit out of that as a byproduct yeah um I think that's why we worked with regrouping though like I

think we I think we headed in to meet into Minutes to Midnight and into that relationship with Rick because he knew we knew he he was a well of yeah information beyond music and what did he what's one of the prevailing sentiments or observations or philosophies that he saw that you kind of needed and imparted with you at that time that really helped you through that time when he met with us he very um kind of gently um opened up the possibility for us to do something completely different than what we had done before and

and that never would have even it wouldn't have it wouldn't have entered my mind like I would have seen our trajectory as like a line and I think he saw it as you know three-dimensional yeah I actually remember it differently I that's so interesting because I remember us sitting in his in his Library meeting with the polar bear the first time there's a there's like a bear I remember I went to that house that he was a beautiful house um so yeah I remember him asking us what do you want to do and I remembered

all of us every single person when they listed off you know this this this every single person said I wanna reinvent the band like I want to do something that kind of like wipes the Slate clean and and do something different but he was and I remember him I know he said at the end of the conversation that is the reason I want to work with you he's like I wasn't you know to be honest I'm always making up my mind whether or not I want to work with somebody when you said when you all

said that that was the that's the moment and then he went up to the Rings jumped up and did a few flips and we had those rings in his music I never saw him through the ring I never saw him through the Rings and then the polar bear came to life to life and attacked Dave Rick chai tea and sauna time buddy um I think too like so what you're asking about on Meteora and all the process of going through that I always think back like it's easy to look back on things from any perspective

and and then kind of like reverse engineer it you know these are the things that were happening this is why blah blah and this is why it was a smart decision etc etc but if I put us back into those moments I just think you know we were a set of guys who were kind of going through a lot of crazy stuff and trying to figure it out as we went we'd come out home off of these huge world tours yeah and it would be like nobody's picked up the dog in the backyard for two

months yeah that's now my job and it was a really quick re-entry into like life you're not in a rock star band right now like you're good you've got to go do the chores yeah and that was like the there was aspects of that yeah yeah you know we would get off stage and Mike would make fun of my parents like it was always they would actually make me clean up the dog crap at his house which I thought was weird because I had no relationship with his dog I didn't even like his dog yeah

bring a lot of ill will from college he's just sitting up there in the top bunk just like not doing anything anyway Brad Brad go clean up the dog Brad um listening to loss was emotional obviously uh for me and I'd imagine when you found it again I actually I didn't feel you didn't feel it I felt like I described as people as like finding a photo you forgot you taken like I felt so good because I remembered the song it was it was an important song while we were making the record it was the

song the album ended up being 12 songs and that was close and it was number 13. that one I can imagine that was I'm wrestling into the very last time I think what's so interesting about the song is it wasn't like the 13th it wasn't because it was the 13th best song on the album it was one of our favorite songs we went to New York we were at Andy Wallace's studio and we mixed all the songs and we would always do the sequencing like during mastering so that comes next yeah and so Our intention

with Hybrid Theory with Meteora with Minutes to Midnight with all of our albums was always to make an album the album the album was our medium like certainly each song was important and we wanted the album to tell a story so it wasn't like oh these are just the best and it's the most fun track listing is fun putting in order and giving it a sense it's one of my favorite things so what was so weird is the song that we loved when we were working on I I recollect when we were working on the

sequence we didn't know where it didn't make sense where it would go like I have a theory as well I think because numb's the last song on the conventional album I think that that it's sort of it made your decision for you because it's like well if that if it doesn't make it before numb it can't go off to them right and it and it had a some kind of DNA emotional DNA that numb has right and so definitely we like didn't the weird thought was like okay let's actually hold the song off the Record

because you know not we have nom nom nom will hopefully have its moment in the Sun and then maybe at some point this this song lost will have its moment and then we actually forgot we made the song so we moved into that other phase that we were just talking about which is Don't Look Back rewrite the DNA the band go to Malibu figure it out as soon as you're in that phase you're like everything else we've ever written doesn't exist right the streaming era so just putting a song out on a deluxe blah blah

blah that's not a reality back there it needs to be attached to something or the label is not going to put resources behind it blah blah blah so it sits on a shelf you bring it out I actually love that you were able to experience it I loved it from a point of place it felt so good because I had the same feeling that a lot of fans had which was like oh man that is a moment in time like what a what an incredible little time capsule but I just went back and started listening

to the lyrics to it and I was reminded how there was just few people on this planet and still to this day who are able to um draw a correlation between the things that we get told you know we should talk about and you'd bury that he found a way to bring it out of him and I think that in a lot of ways was apart from the personal loss and the sadness of losing somebody was the hardest thing for us all as fans was to realize that the person who did such an incredible job

of making us feel like we weren't alone couldn't get past it and that is just heartbreaking yeah you know what I mean obviously you do I mean it's just yeah I think into what you were saying for me with lost you know I hadn't heard that song Maybe in in 20 years right like that fits the timeline and so I had kind of in the back of my head forgotten about it um and so that when I heard it you know I think did you find it Mike found it on a hard drive somebody found

it somewhere it would be me or Ryan I don't yeah it was the discussion of like has this ever been released like I we didn't even necessarily know if it had gone out somewhere and then it came back like no this has never gone out into the it's never been on a fan club CD it's never been on a Japanese B-side extra track it's never been in any of these places that sometimes you use these cool and it's really good most people pull this out and it's just like ah it's 70 that's why I didn't

make the album like right really good yeah so all that stuff goes into me then saying like Okay I need to listen to this song like be have that recollection of what it was and I listened to it and I was like okay obviously I immediately remember the song and it was a weird mix for me of so much excitement hearing it kind of like almost as the first time because it had been so long and just hearing like Chester's voice in that presentation and not having you know a deep connection with it yet or

at least having 20 years removed from that particular moment in time of his recording that song but then also having like that it kicks up that feeling of like man like I just missed this guy you know and so there there is that I think of a lot of our fan base has that kind of a conflicted feeling also just conflicting it's beautiful to hear but it's that yeah it's that and it's um the fact that you can listen to it and that's part of the experience and not the whole experience is this real sign

of growth and it takes time to find life when life changes right and life does change all the time and we're always one step behind it was there a period in time when you just couldn't listen to your music like after Chester lift like did it get what how did it affect you Brad in terms of your your feelings about Lincoln Park as a part of your life yeah I mean it's definitely easy it's definitely easier to listen to things now um having had some space from that moment and I think um we did we

did celebrate the 20-year anniversary of Hybrid Theory and I think it was that was more uh like painful charge of emotion um yeah there's more like lightness and joy for me personally like in revisiting this album at this moment in time yeah and with the song Lost in particular I'm just really proud of the song like I'm proud of the work we did back then um I'm proud that we you know we've one of the goals of when we were making this album was like to make something that was Timeless like we we if we

said that in like our interviews like we want to make a Timeless album and like it's kind of like Moxie to say like who's you know like who are who are you what does that even mean and um you're 20. what does that mean Timeless you know well I loved it because you doubled down on the on the on the distrust you got at the beginning you were like well you know I'm not gonna apologize we're gonna make a better record and so the fact that we're actually here 20 years later not only like celebrating

this this moment time in this album really like celebrating a new old old new old new song it's like is it it does sound like it's it it sounds like it's of the period it sounds like it's an integral part of this Meteora experience and it also feels like right now to me it does and so like I'm just like I love the song I listen to it probably like 50 times when when we first you know Unearthed it um I listen to it a lot yeah like currently yeah so that I don't know if

that answered your question yeah it does it does and it's beautiful that you can that you can do that I I can't imagine how challenging it is when you're in a your life is going in one way at a certain pace and you work hard to get there and then you have to rethink and figure out like how does life go on without someone I really care about in it you know it's a it's it's a part of the life life experience um sitting here with you now having the three of you and uh you

know love Joe love Rob love them love all of you you know it feels so right to me um and I didn't know how I was going to approach this you know this conversation because I have so many questions and so many of them aren't my business you know what I mean and so and so I want I will tell you that in the in what five six years you are the only person who has said it that way so thank you for that that was very kind well I love you as people when I

people don't say like hey I realize I my job is to ask these things yeah and I'm gonna ask you stuff that's not in my business it's none of my business and also it's okay to say that and also I I really care about you as people I mean you made the records you gave us the gift we have those that would that trade is complete thank you thank you for the albums and thank you for the shows and thank you for the songs in the moments like the ribbon is on that too soon but

it's it's on like we get it you gave us more than anyone could have asked for if you think about the reach and the and the distance that your band has had in the music that you make you've affected millions and millions and millions of lives and you will continue to affect millions and millions of lives it will never stop there's no end to this so it's incredible I'm so glad I'm in this life I'm so glad we're still here and Miss Chester as a fan I didn't see him enough I always loved him and

it's great to see you and I appreciate you always really do it's great to see you it's great to spend time with you thank you for being such an integral through line in our whole journey and like it's just amazing to share this kind of celebratory moment with you so like thanks for all your thoughtfulness yeah it's really awesome beautiful