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Linkin Park's Unknown Bass Player: Mike Elizondo


hahninator

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At this year's NAMM show (National Association of Music Merchants), Mike sat down with top mixing engineer Dave Pensado and producer Herb Trawick in their weekly show, Pensado's Place. A full video of the episode can be seen below. Mike discusses a wide variety of topics, including the new approach to Linkin Park's upcoming studio album.

 

 

At 47:50 in the video, you'll see Dave and Herb say that coming up on Pensado's Place will be Mike Elizondo.

 

Mike responded with, "Make sure you ask Mike Elizondo.... Mike Elizondo at one point for a very short period of time was the bass player for Linkin Park. Ask him about that story. Phoenix left us for a short time and Elizondo at that time was our top candidate for bass player. We asked him to be "on it"...we were doing it, and he said at a certain point... 'Man I don't know what to do. On one hand, you guys are doing so well and I love the music and on the other hand, Dre wants me to work on this new album with him and he's offering me points on the new record. It's this white kid from Detroit....Eminem.'" Mike told him to go work with Eminem and said Elizondo had "great options" in front of him....work with Dre and Eminem or be the bass player in Linkin Park.

 

 

elizondo.jpg

It sounds like when Mike said "on it", he was referring to Elizondo recording bass for Hybrid Theory (album). If this is true, this might be why there are three different bass players that ended up recording bass on the album (more information below). It doesn't sound like Elizondo ended up recording anything with the band...if he did, it has remained unreleased or we simply don't know about it, but it does sound like the band made the decision to pick him.

 

You can see a full list of Elizondo's works on his Wikipedia page. He ended up recording bass for many popular songs, and co-wrote The Real Slim Shady. Elizondo has gone on to work with bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Maroon 5, Switchfoot and more.

 

Linkin Park, as you probably know, went through quite a few bass players for a short period of time in 1999 and 2000 as Phoenix toured with The Snax. Phoenix was in for Xero and Hybrid Theory (band), but had to leave for a while to finish his touring commitments with The Snax, who Mark Fiore (LP's videographer) was in as well. Kyle Christener recorded the bass on the Hybrid Theory EP. Scott Koziol toured with the band in 1999 and 2000 as you can see in some of the older 2000 videos of Linkin Park performing and is in the music video for One Step Closer. Ian Hornbeck recorded bass on Papercut, A Place For My Head, and Forgotten, while Brad recorded bass for the rest of the songs on the album. Even though Phoenix didn't record bass for Hybrid Theory (album), he still has a few writing credits on it.

 

Just another interesting fact about the band! Thanks Geki for the heads up!

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Pretty sure he's the guy on the left in the photo of Xero with Jeff Blue. He's obviously a lot older now, but compare the facial expressions and such from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bBAGI4xwlg

With the guy on the left in this photo: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/__jQsivzZqbU/Spz2ttbO4LI/AAAAAAAABzI/oj6PhLpVKQI/s400/xero.jpg

In which case Mark Wakefield would have to be the guy in the back, wearing the hat.

Wouldn't surprise me if Mike's bass work is on some demos. The tone of the bass on Blue in particular really stands out as unique. The verbiage Mike uses seems to indicate that he was in the band before Kyle or Scott.

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At 9:19 he was asked about Linkin Park:

 

 

Quote
They were called Hybrid Theory at the time and Mike came over to my house and played me some demos. I'm like "oh, this is like my dream band, this was exactly the band I'd love to have been in." But, you know, it is what it is and obviously they've done amazing. And I think I had made a good choice at the time.

 

It's interesting to note that Mace Beyers from Grey Daze and Jay Kereny from Lemon Krayola said they auditioned for Linkin Park. Source.

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I wonder if, had Elizondo stayed with the band through Hybrid Theory, he would've ended up being their permanent bass player. Mike seems to respect him a lot more than Koziol or Christener.

 

Probably not, though. Elizondo made the right choice with his career in the end.

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I wonder if, had Elizondo stayed with the band through Hybrid Theory, he would've ended up being their permanent bass player. Mike seems to respect him a lot more than Koziol or Christener.

 

Probably not, though. Elizondo made the right choice with his career in the end.

 

He did make the right choice, if that was what he wanted to do. Mike (Shinoda) really implied that Elizondo would have been "the guy" for LP...THE bassist......maybe when he dropped out and they couldn't find someone they brought Phoenix back and the story has just been "Phoenix left temporarily, etc"? Who knows.

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