Linkin Park Sued by Kyle Christner Seeking Royalties on ‘More Than 20 Songs’

[Hybrid1988]

Pay the guy for what he played on and move on. Warner isn’t hurting for cash enough to not toss what is realistically gonna be a relatively small payment. What numbers did HT20 and some LPU releases hit? Surely nothing staggering in terms of LP’s back catalog of core releases. 
 

I don’t see this being a huge trial or some massive pay off like some people are expecting. 

[Stranger]

14 minutes ago, Hybrid1988 said:

Pay the guy for what he played on and move on. Warner isn’t hurting for cash enough to not toss what is realistically gonna be a relatively small payment. What numbers did HT20 and some LPU releases hit? Surely nothing staggering in terms of LP’s back catalog of core releases. 
 

I don’t see this being a huge trial or some massive pay off like some people are expecting. 

 

if Warner pays this guy for nothing, surely this guy will keep coming back for more or another twist. big companies like Warner wont easily lose to some random guy who claims money after 2 decades. totally disagree with paying Kyle. 

[bloodbath]

1 hour ago, Stranger said:

 

if Warner pays this guy for nothing, surely this guy will keep coming back for more or another twist. big companies like Warner wont easily lose to some random guy who claims money after 2 decades. totally disagree with paying Kyle. 

They shouldn't pay him, because he will come back for more, sure. What about being paid for your job? Nah, that's crazy. If that happens, like you've said, Warner has enough lawyers to shut down is suppossed avarice.  

[Trumtram]

15 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

 

Isn't it a matter of songwriting credits vs performance credits and the latter is not guaranteed based on what was done at the time?

I'm not an expert in the legality of things concerning this distinction. I'm not saying that he should automatically get money for all his claimed contributions. But if he contributed bass lines for songs that got released (i.e. HT20) then it should be natural that he receives money for it IMO. As I understand it he should have writing credits for some of those songs (e.g. "Could Have Been") and therefore should be eligible for royalties from them. It needs to be clear what he contributed where and whether he in fact got "erased" from tracks he performed on (e.g. HTEP). Time will tell.

It seems a bit far-fetched to me, though, that he "will come back for more" because he can't claim anything more than what he in fact contributed (if so, of course). Why it took him 20+ years for this, I don't know. Still it needs to be evaluated.

[LPsMart]

6 hours ago, lpliveusername said:

9. Slip (1998 Unreleased Hybrid Theory Demo) Actually from 1999

Hot take opinion, nothing here proven right, but...

 

 

Wait weren't those recordings from a Xero CD but they had Chester and Mike re-record the vox? Sure, they're a different batch of songs than the audition tape, but the instrumental sound quality screams Xero 1998 to me, like not comparible with demos like Untitled or P&A. But then again we have Stick'n'Move with Chaz, which to me sounds like it could either be a polished Xero demo with updated samples, but at the same time also most definitely be from the HT pre-album era in terms of brighter, less muddy guitars. Do we still have this amazing time table you made, with all the songs an their dates from the JB book?

[Kirstie]

WB doesn't need lawyers when they've got you guys just writing their defence for them!

[SardonicallyParanoid]

22 hours ago, lpliveusername said:

No, the bass is the same. They didn't change any of the songs besides remastering the audio. The LPU reissue is just a little louder than the original 1999 version. That's the only difference.

Strange. The fuck was I thinking about? 

[LPLStaff]

3 hours ago, Trumtram said:

But if he contributed bass lines for songs that got released (i.e. HT20) then it should be natural that he receives money for it IMO. As I understand it he should have writing credits for some of those songs (e.g. "Could Have Been") and therefore should be eligible for royalties from them. It needs to be clear what he contributed where and whether he in fact got "erased" from tracks he performed on (e.g. HTEP).

The band was/is trying to pay him for royalties just on released work that he recorded, so performance royalties or mechanical royalties as people call it. But, he does not have writing credit on the songs. That is a different situation. Mike, Chester, and Brad wrote Could Have Been, for example. Just because you record on something doesn't mean you get a songwriting credit.

 

I don't know how easy it is going to be for either side to come up with proof on these songs. You can already see the band offered to pay him for a batch of songs, then Kyle wants to know more about it and then claims he was on MANY more (some of which is just not true), then LP says "well we can only prove you are on Could Have Been", essentially. Kyle himself is who claimed the bass on the Hybrid Theory EP was dubbed over with other bass that was not his. What exactly makes that statement of his false now, as he claims?

 

Kyle is also suing for songwriter credits, according to the article, unless the article is wrong. There is absolutely no way he is going to win that.

 

7 hours ago, NJPLP said:

Did Kyle truly pay on the Hybrid Theory demo of "Stick N Move"? I always thought that that specific demo dates back to March 2000, based off the notes from Rob Bourdon about it in Hybrid Theory 20 book.

Not only that, but there's also the fact that "Stick N Move" is listed twice as a part of the songs that Rob tracked drums for at NRG from March 14-17 in 2000 in Jeff Blue's 'One Step Closer: From Xero To #1: Becoming Linkin Park' book.

 

March 2000 would have been 5 months after Kyle was fired from the band (around October 1999).

I had assumed the Stick N Move demo was from March 2000 at NRG (post-Kyle) due to the HT20 book and Jeff's book. But, our LPLive chat says it may be from January 2000 when they were recording tracks to get ready to go to NRG, because Don does not have a production credit on it (something he would likely get if this version was from NRG). So, either way, it's post-Kyle.

 

9 hours ago, lpliveusername said:

Originally released on LPU Eleven, Mike's notes about Slip said that this recording of the song originated from the same batch of songs as Blue and that they were among the first songs recorded with Chester. So Far Away has vocals by Chester, so it can't be from 1998.

 

The rehearsal video of Esaul shows the band performing a version of the song very similar to the Xero version, so it must had been filmed right after Chester joined the band. While some of the band members are out of frame in the video, the bass player can only be Kyle.

 

The way I see it, both statements are true. lol

 

Listen to our interview. He didn't even know Linkin Park had been releasing demos he recorded with them for 20 years. lol

If we can poke holes so easily through some of the songs Kyle claims, then I suspect it is going to be easy for their legal team to do even more. More so, what proof exists he played on song A versus song B?

 

My question is, because Slip was recorded with Mark and with Phoenix on bass before he left, then how would Esaul be any different with Chester? Wouldn't the instrumentalsbe reused?The Slip we have is Phoenix. Isn't Esaul the same instrumental with Mark and with Chester? Aka the LPU Rarities version - the one with the early early lyrics. I think Kyle is wrong on this track.

 

While Mike widely (and incorrectly) claims Chester joined in 1998 versus 1999, he would know much more about the bass situation than any fan or Kyle himself would. Remember how much detail he went into just about the HT bass during the HT20 interviews? He knows this stuff, especially if he sits down and looks at multitracks, notes, etc he has.

 

As far as what is owed, I wonder what the fan club situation has to do with it for the LPU reissue of the HTEP. He genuinely may not be owed anything for the LPU release - it depends what the legal deal is with fan club exclusives vs public releases. Remember there are obscure releases in the catalog too - Songs from the Underground has And One, Part of Me, and Dedicated. Is Kyle really on the HTEP? He says he was not and now suddenly changes his mind. Does Dedicated have live bass? Etc. It's going to come down to a track-by-track situation.

 

The short version of this is - if we are able to sit here and off the top of our head poke holes all over this argument from Kyle, then with the LP stash of proof, there is likely even more evidence to prove more of this wrong. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Did he record on more than just Could Have Been? Well yeah, he was their bassist in 1999 so he's on demos. Is it the entire list he is suing about? No shot. Does evidence/a record exist of the exact player on every song? Unlikely, as this was 1999. Does Mike know way more about this than anyone since he was the one running the operation? Yes.

[Trumtram]

Again, no expert on the legalities and I haven't dug deep into the details of those songs like other people did. In the end his claims need to be proven by him / his legal team. I honestly have no idea what qualifies as performance or writing credits in these cases and I don't know what he got offered as compensation. My gut still tells me that he deserves money from it (with "it" being stuff he contributed to) how little it may be. Let's see how this progresses.

[lpliveusername]

22 hours ago, NJPLP said:

Did Kyle truly pay on the Hybrid Theory demo of "Stick N Move"? I always thought that that specific demo dates back to March 2000, based off the notes from Rob Bourdon about it in Hybrid Theory 20 book.

Not only that, but there's also the fact that "Stick N Move" is listed twice as a part of the songs that Rob tracked drums for at NRG from March 14-17 in 2000 in Jeff Blue's 'One Step Closer: From Xero To #1: Becoming Linkin Park' book.

 

March 2000 would have been 5 months after Kyle was fired from the band (around October 1999).

14 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

I had assumed the Stick N Move demo was from March 2000 at NRG (post-Kyle) due to the HT20 book and Jeff's book. But, our LPLive chat says it may be from January 2000 when they were recording tracks to get ready to go to NRG, because Don does not have a production credit on it (something he would likely get if this version was from NRG). So, either way, it's post-Kyle.

I think there's no evidence whatsoever for when they recorded this take of Stick N Move. Could have been done anytime in 1999 or early 2000. The only thing I'm sure about is that it isn't the NRG version because the quality of the recording screams low quality demo, not a finished product recorded at a professional studio for their debut album. The quote from the Hybrid Theory 20 book seems to suggest that whatever instrumental they recorded at NRG simply became Runaway.

 

17 hours ago, LPsMart said:

Do we still have this amazing time table you made, with all the songs an their dates from the JB book?

This?

 

20 hours ago, Stranger said:

if Warner pays this guy for nothing, surely this guy will keep coming back for more or another twist. big companies like Warner wont easily lose to some random guy who claims money after 2 decades. totally disagree with paying Kyle. 

18 hours ago, bloodbath said:

They shouldn't pay him, because he will come back for more, sure. What about being paid for your job? Nah, that's crazy. If that happens, like you've said, Warner has enough lawyers to shut down is suppossed avarice.  

17 hours ago, Trumtram said:

It seems a bit far-fetched to me, though, that he "will come back for more" because he can't claim anything more than what he in fact contributed (if so, of course). Why it took him 20+ years for this, I don't know. Still it needs to be evaluated.

Right. This statement makes no sense whatsoever. The guy wants to be paid for his work and that's it. If they give him what he is owned, he can't possibly come back for more. He can't claim he worked on songs from the other albums. He was only a member of the band in 1999.

 

17 hours ago, LPsMart said:

Wait weren't those recordings from a Xero CD but they had Chester and Mike re-record the vox? Sure, they're a different batch of songs than the audition tape, but the instrumental sound quality screams Xero 1998 to me, like not comparible with demos like Untitled or P&A. But then again we have Stick'n'Move with Chaz, which to me sounds like it could either be a polished Xero demo with updated samples, but at the same time also most definitely be from the HT pre-album era in terms of brighter, less muddy guitars.

14 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

My question is, because Slip was recorded with Mark and with Phoenix on bass before he left, then how would Esaul be any different with Chester? Wouldn't the instrumentalsbe reused?The Slip we have is Phoenix. Isn't Esaul the same instrumental with Mark and with Chester? Aka the LPU Rarities version - the one with the early early lyrics. I think Kyle is wrong on this track.

I think it's entirely possible that for some of the demos they just reused the old instrumentals and recorded new vocals over them, however Blue is definitelly not one of those songs because Blue was written with Chester. Mark Wakefield and Dave Farrell have no writing credits for it. Even the bass style sounds different from Dave's.

 

Here's a list of the songs they could have reused the Xero instrumentals for (if anyone compares them to the Xero demos, let us know):

 

Esaul ("A Place For My Head" Demo)

Slip (1998 Unreleased Hybrid Theory Demo)

Forgotten (Demo)

Pictureboard

Stick N Move (Demo)

Carousel (Demo)

 

Again, I'm not entirely sure when Stick N Move was recorded. This is a completely different song from its 1997 version on the Xero tape. I'm not sure if this version was ever recorded while Mark Wakefield was still in the band (before Kyle joined).

 

I'm including Carousel because, according to Jeff's book, there was a Xero version of Carousel and Dave Farrell was credited for the song (for the first time) on Hybrid Theory 20 (no credits for Mark Wakefield though). However, I don't know when this exact version of Carousel was recorded. It could have been recorded after the Hybrid Theory EP, which would mean that Kyle does indeed play on it.

 

14 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

I don't know how easy it is going to be for either side to come up with proof on these songs. You can already see the band offered to pay him for a batch of songs, then Kyle wants to know more about it and then claims he was on MANY more (some of which is just not true), then LP says "well we can only prove you are on Could Have Been", essentially. Kyle himself is who claimed the bass on the Hybrid Theory EP was dubbed over with other bass that was not his. What exactly makes that statement of his false now, as he claims?

This statement definitely hurts his case. What we, as the people who run Linkinpedia, have to keep in mind is that Kyle isn't a Linkin Park fan and made that statement 20 years after leaving the band. 20 years since the last time he heard those songs. He said the version he heard in 1999 didn't have his bass work. That could have been true. The band could have done multiple versions of those songs, some with his bass work and some without it. Who knows? He is credited for bass on the original EP after all. He also claimed that his bass solo was removed from Could Have Been. Maybe it was at some point, but the version we got still has it. Again, before we interviewed him, he didn't even know the band had released any songs with him on bass. There was no way he could possibly know which versions of those songs were released.

 

14 hours ago, LPLStaff said:

The short version of this is - if we are able to sit here and off the top of our head poke holes all over this argument from Kyle, then with the LP stash of proof, there is likely even more evidence to prove more of this wrong. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Did he record on more than just Could Have Been? Well yeah, he was their bassist in 1999 so he's on demos. Is it the entire list he is suing about? No shot. Does evidence/a record exist of the exact player on every song? Unlikely, as this was 1999. Does Mike know way more about this than anyone since he was the one running the operation? Yes.

I guess he could use the original 1999 version of the Hybrid Theory EP as an (maybe weak) argument for the 6 tracks in it, but he doesn't really have any proof for the other demos. His best choice would be to reach out to Jeff Blue as he has kept notes on everything the band did.

[gorast]

6 hours ago, Stranger said:

 

if Warner pays this guy for nothing, surely this guy will keep coming back for more or another twist.

That's not how this would work. There's a finite amount of material he can claim to have worked on, first off, based on the time he was in the band, so he can't come back over and over again regardless of how this suit goes - he's already listed the full population of material we know of that was made around the time he was in the band. (That this matches exactly to what was publicly released, IMO, doesn't help his argument very much.)

 

Beyond that, a suit like this, there is absolutely zero chance it goes to trial. None. This will be settled out of court, with very strictly defined settlement terms that will ensure Kyle doesn't talk about this ever again and ensures that he cannot come back around and be like "oh also I played on this and this and this...", because his attorney will sit down with Warner and they'll do exactly what Staff did in an earlier post and they'll figure out what he DID play on as accurately as they can, put together a flat settlement fee for those performances, and that'll be that. Cases like this go away very, very quickly when a dollar amount is put on the table. Whatever Warner offers is likely to be so substantial to a regular person that he'll never think about it again.

[Hybrid1988]

11 hours ago, Trumtram said:

Again, no expert on the legalities and I haven't dug deep into the details of those songs like other people did. In the end his claims need to be proven by him / his legal team. I honestly have no idea what qualifies as performance or writing credits in these cases and I don't know what he got offered as compensation. My gut still tells me that he deserves money from it (with "it" being stuff he contributed to) how little it may be. Let's see how this progresses.

That's pretty much my stance. Most people here would know more about the timeline of songs/members and supposed contributions. All I really meant to say was, if he played on anything that has been released, he should be paid accordingly. Not sure why that's a controversial opinion to some. If the worst case scenario of LP/WB completely stiffing this guy is true (personally, I doubt it) I still don't see him getting paid some exorbitant amount. If I had to bet, this will settle out of court. 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Hybrid1988

[Trumtram]

7 hours ago, Hybrid1988 said:

Not sure why that's a controversial opinion to some.

Haha, yeah, same!

[LPLStaff]

It definitely is logical and fair to pay him for the publishing of the songs/demos for his performance on them. What isn't clear is, was he really even owed *any* money before the Hybrid Theory 20 box set? And if so, what does that look like? Him saying he wasn't paid a dime for 20 years.... what exactly was he even owed? Sure, some of the 99 stuff ended up on singles or EPs but is he even on that material? Was LP/the label even *wrong* for not paying him before HT20? It's going to come down to if he's on the HTEP songs or not, which should be a center point of the case.

 

What exactly did he even play on? Not even we are sure about that and we archive a lot of information better than Kyle or LP does (in certain situations). And that's what the lawyers/label will try to figure out.

 

He definitely does not deserve and will not get songwriter credits 23+ years later on these songs where songwriter credits were established from the early beginning of being combinations of Mike, Mark, Brad, Joe, etc.

 

Questions I have:

1. Is Kyle really on the HTEP or not? What makes him in 2020 suddenly say he is, after saying he was not for 20 years? If so, then And One and Part of Me were on Songs from the Underground. Is there even any live bass on Dedicated? 

2. Are fan club exclusives (sold for cheap) subjected to the same thing regular albums to the public are? Does the band get paid, or how does the band get paid, for pressing 1,000 HTEPs for the LPU only? A Decade Underground is another digital exclusive only for the LPU.

3. Does the band have records that can tell which exact songs Kyle recorded bass on? It is somewhere in-between what Linkin Park claims (just Could Have Been, but I understand their argument for only saying that song when he came back to them questioning them) and what Kyle claims (he is pretty off with his list and is wrong on at least 7 songs minimum, very likely more).

 

[lpliveusername]

59 minutes ago, LPLStaff said:

1. Is Kyle really on the HTEP or not? What makes him in 2020 suddenly say he is, after saying he was not for 20 years? If so, then And One and Part of Me were on Songs from the Underground.

It's not like he has been "saying he was not for 20 years." He claimed it publicly once, 21 years after the EP was recorded, and according to the article the Linkin Park team did offer to pay him for the EP (24 years late).

 

59 minutes ago, LPLStaff said:

2. Are fan club exclusives (sold for cheap) subjected to the same thing regular albums to the public are? Does the band get paid, or how does the band get paid, for pressing 1,000 HTEPs for the LPU only? A Decade Underground is another digital exclusive only for the LPU.

I think so. The band do get paid for publishing of those songs as evidenced by the fact that they were all registered on BMI when they were first released to the LPU. If you go through their BMI catalog you'll see several songs which are still exclusive to the fan club.

[bloodbath]

Serious question, could the content of the interview you did with him, be used on a trial? 

[lpliveusername]

Just now, bloodbath said:

Serious question, could the content of the interview you did with him, be used on a trial? 

For sure.

[LPsMart]

On 11/15/2023 at 3:44 PM, lpliveusername said:

Esaul ("A Place For My Head" Demo)

Slip (1998 Unreleased Hybrid Theory Demo)

Forgotten (Demo)

Pictureboard

Stick N Move (Demo)

Carousel (Demo)

Mark vs Chester in terms of instrumentals:

Esaul, Pictureboard and Forgotten share the same instrumental with little tweaks in vocal/instrumental ratio. Those three, I believe, were from the Instrumental tape Chester got.

 

As for the other three we have nothing to compare them with. There's also either Part of Me or Step Up (can't remember, most likely the latter) on a Xero CD. Also I remember Slip (with Mark) was on a Hybrid Theory Demo, but I'm not sure. This would be a hint on how long the Xero song stuck around.

 

My theory is that Slip and Stick'N'Move were recorded alongside the tracks from the audition tape, with Stick'N'Move having evolved to the instrumental we hear on Chester's version. I even think (depending on whether it was a 3-Track or 4-Track tape they sent Chester) SnM on HT20 could have been from the audition demo as well as the three mentioned above.

If we add Carousel and possibly Part of Me (or whatever song I can't remember) to this session, they might have used those instrumentals for the 7/8/9-tracks as well.

[NJPLP]

1 hour ago, LPsMart said:

Mark vs Chester in terms of instrumentals:

Esaul, Pictureboard and Forgotten share the same instrumental with little tweaks in vocal/instrumental ratio. Those three, I believe, were from the Instrumental tape Chester got.

 

As for the other three we have nothing to compare them with. There's also either Part of Me or Step Up (can't remember, most likely the latter) on a Xero CD. Also I remember Slip (with Mark) was on a Hybrid Theory Demo, but I'm not sure. This would be a hint on how long the Xero song stuck around.

 

My theory is that Slip and Stick'N'Move were recorded alongside the tracks from the audition tape, with Stick'N'Move having evolved to the instrumental we hear on Chester's version. I even think (depending on whether it was a 3-Track or 4-Track tape they sent Chester) SnM on HT20 could have been from the audition demo as well as the three mentioned above.

If we add Carousel and possibly Part of Me (or whatever song I can't remember) to this session, they might have used those instrumentals for the 7/8/9-tracks as well.

The other song was "Step Up", not "Part Of Me".

[lpliveusername]

1 hour ago, LPsMart said:

Mark vs Chester in terms of instrumentals:

Esaul, Pictureboard and Forgotten share the same instrumental with little tweaks in vocal/instrumental ratio. Those three, I believe, were from the Instrumental tape Chester got.

We have the Rhinestone instrumental from the audition tape. Wasn't it a little different from the version with vocals? Also, wouldn't Chester's audition recordings have only his vocals (without Mike)?

 

1 hour ago, LPsMart said:

I even think (depending on whether it was a 3-Track or 4-Track tape they sent Chester) SnM on HT20 could have been from the audition demo as well as the three mentioned above.

I think it's safe to assume all singers received the same tapes from the band, so that would be only 3 tracks.

 

1 hour ago, LPsMart said:

There's also either Part of Me or Step Up (can't remember, most likely the latter) on a Xero CD.

Step Up. Same disc as Carousel. Now that I looked at the tracklist, Stick N Move is in there too, so maybe that was the second version of the song, similar to the HT20 version.

 

1 hour ago, LPsMart said:

Also I remember Slip (with Mark) was on a Hybrid Theory Demo, but I'm not sure. This would be a hint on how long the Xero song stuck around.

Right, that's so weird because the disc has a lot of very early demos they did with Chester, but Points Of Authority, Super Xero and Untitled are there as well. I think the first mention of those 3 songs in Jeff's book is from the August 1999 demo. Yet, Slip still had Mark's vocals even though Mike supposedly took Slip with Chester from the first batch of songs they did together alongside Blue (another track in the disc).

 

On a side note, Fiends with Mark was in there as well. I wonder if they ever recorded it with Chester since he eventually sang on Slip.

[Hybrider]

5 hours ago, lpliveusername said:

Now that I looked at the tracklist, Stick N Move is in there too, so maybe that was the second version of the song, similar to the HT20 version.

This version of Stick N Move is similar to from what we can hear in Xero Demo Tape. It has different instrumental unlike Stick N Move with Chester. We can hear instrumental parts from both versions of them - on a Hybrid Party Of A Thousand Things and LPU9.

Edited November 17, 2023 by Hybrider

[lpliveusername]

7 hours ago, Hybrider said:

This version of Stick N Move is similar to from what we can hear in Xero Demo Tape. It has different instrumental unlike Stick N Move with Chester. We can hear instrumental parts from both versions of them - on a Hybrid Party Of A Thousand Things and LPU9.

How do you know? This was late 1998, so they might had a different version of the song by then. We don't know the exact period when the LPU 9.0 demo was created or even if it's dated correctly (could easily be from 1997).

[Hybrider]

3 hours ago, lpliveusername said:

How do you know? This was late 1998, so they might had a different version of the song by then. We don't know the exact period when the LPU 9.0 demo was created or even if it's dated correctly (could easily be from 1997).

I was talking about Stick N Move from Xero Demo CD. It should sound similar to the tape version and I think parts of it are in a Hybrid Party Of A Thousand Things.

[c3bebuilder]

On 11/15/2023 at 9:44 AM, lpliveusername said:

I think there's no evidence whatsoever for when they recorded this take of Stick N Move. Could have been done anytime in 1999 or early 2000. The only thing I'm sure about is that it isn't the NRG version because the quality of the recording screams low quality demo, not a finished product recorded at a professional studio for their debut album. The quote from the Hybrid Theory 20 book seems to suggest that whatever instrumental they recorded at NRG simply became Runaway.

 

This?

 

Right. This statement makes no sense whatsoever. The guy wants to be paid for his work and that's it. If they give him what he is owned, he can't possibly come back for more. He can't claim he worked on songs from the other albums. He was only a member of the band in 1999.

 

I think it's entirely possible that for some of the demos they just reused the old instrumentals and recorded new vocals over them, however Blue is definitelly not one of those songs because Blue was written with Chester. Mark Wakefield and Dave Farrell have no writing credits for it. Even the bass style sounds different from Dave's.

 

Here's a list of the songs they could have reused the Xero instrumentals for (if anyone compares them to the Xero demos, let us know):

 

Esaul ("A Place For My Head" Demo)

Slip (1998 Unreleased Hybrid Theory Demo)

Forgotten (Demo)

Pictureboard

Stick N Move (Demo)

Carousel (Demo)

 

Again, I'm not entirely sure when Stick N Move was recorded. This is a completely different song from its 1997 version on the Xero tape. I'm not sure if this version was ever recorded while Mark Wakefield was still in the band (before Kyle joined).

 

I'm including Carousel because, according to Jeff's book, there was a Xero version of Carousel and Dave Farrell was credited for the song (for the first time) on Hybrid Theory 20 (no credits for Mark Wakefield though). However, I don't know when this exact version of Carousel was recorded. It could have been recorded after the Hybrid Theory EP, which would mean that Kyle does indeed play on it.

 

This statement definitely hurts his case. What we, as the people who run Linkinpedia, have to keep in mind is that Kyle isn't a Linkin Park fan and made that statement 20 years after leaving the band. 20 years since the last time he heard those songs. He said the version he heard in 1999 didn't have his bass work. That could have been true. The band could have done multiple versions of those songs, some with his bass work and some without it. Who knows? He is credited for bass on the original EP after all. He also claimed that his bass solo was removed from Could Have Been. Maybe it was at some point, but the version we got still has it. Again, before we interviewed him, he didn't even know the band had released any songs with him on bass. There was no way he could possibly know which versions of those songs were released.

 

I guess he could use the original 1999 version of the Hybrid Theory EP as an (maybe weak) argument for the 6 tracks in it, but he doesn't really have any proof for the other demos. His best choice would be to reach out to Jeff Blue as he has kept notes on everything the band did.

I compared the Esaul Xero Demo with the Esaul 1999 Hybrid Theory Demo with Chester on vocals. Both instrumentals are the exact same and so are the bass lines when I isolated them. So both instrumentals are the same. For the other demos I haven't checked but I would assume they are also the same (Forgotten, Pictureboard etc). 

[lpliveusername]

6 hours ago, Hybrider said:

I was talking about Stick N Move from Xero Demo CD. It should sound similar to the tape version and I think parts of it are in a Hybrid Party Of A Thousand Things.

Me too. We can't possibly know. We haven't heard that CD. We can't assume it's similar to the 1997 version just because the LPU demo (which is the beat of that version) is listed as a 1998 demo. The Hybrid Party Of A Thousand Things leak had the beats for both versions of the song.

 

1 hour ago, cubebuilder said:

I compared the Esaul Xero Demo with the Esaul 1999 Hybrid Theory Demo with Chester on vocals. Both instrumentals are the exact same and so are the bass lines when I isolated them. So both instrumentals are the same. For the other demos I haven't checked but I would assume they are also the same (Forgotten, Pictureboard etc). 

We discussed it in the LPLive group and came to the same conclusion. A lot of people here seem to think the same too. I guess that settles it. The versions of Esaul (from LPU Rarities), Pictureboard (from Forgotten Demos) and Rhinestone (LPU Rarities) with Chester were all recorded with Phoenix, not Kyle. He surely played those songs at rehearsals, showcases and live shows, just not in the studio versions on HT20, which is what he is claiming.

 

Are there any songs without live bass that I left out of my list? Dedicated? She Couldn't? Step Up? We were told at least the verses of Carousel is all synth instead of live bass, not sure about the rest of the song.