LPLive Visits Jeff Blue

[LeonardoMF93]

Do you guys really think the band will ever be interested in releasing old demos after the lineup change?

I’d love to see those demos, but I think, commercially speaking, it wouldn’t make sense for them to focus on the old lineup.

 

In my opinion, the HT20 and Meteora20 releases only happened because of the hiatus. After all, those could have been released on the 10th anniversary of those albums. Well... Let’s see what happens for the 20th anniversary of Minutes to Midnight.

 

I think the only chance of those demos seeing the light of day is if they somehow get leaked. Until then, I hope Jeff takes good care of those CDs.

 

15 hours ago, bloodbath said:

Man, regarding Jeff, after reading all the comments, I kinda feel bad for him. He seem to me like a father who has better intentions than idea about raising his son and after many mistakes his kid doesn't even want to speak with him anymore. He feels tremendously guilty years after and collects every single thing his son has done when he was in good terms with him. I don't know, maybe is a douchebag, but seems honest to me. 

 

Best possible description.

[bloodbath]

47 minutes ago, LeonardoMF93 said:

Do you guys really think the band will ever be interested in releasing old demos after the lineup change?

I’d love to see those demos, but I think, commercially speaking, it wouldn’t make sense for them to focus on the old lineup.

 

In my opinion, the HT20 and Meteora20 releases only happened because of the hiatus. After all, those could have been released on the 10th anniversary of those albums. Well... Let’s see what happens for the 20th anniversary of Minutes to Midnight.

I agree with you on that, hate to play the IFs game, but if Chester would still be alive, they would be too busy with whatever thing to be wasting time with anniversaries of any kind, the celebration would be something in the vein of APFMH in Paris 2010, they played HT at Download just for the money, basically. 

 

Regarding MTM, if the album would have came out in 2005, you can be sure that we wouldn't have anything, but in 2027, when the new lineup will be well established and perceived as proper members and not usurpers (people are gonna people), then we might get a chance. 

[thigolpbr]

It will be very sad in my opinion if nothing else is released from the Chester era, especially the MTM20 and ATS20 box sets.

Maybe, as was said, in 2027 the band will be more consolidated with the new line-up, so at least the MTM20 box set could happen.

[mrfox]

18 hours ago, bloodbath said:

Another boxset would be a cash grab, to be honest.

 

billion versions From Zero isn't a cash grab? I Would rather pay for old unreleased music.

[LeonardoMF93]

2 hours ago, bloodbath said:

Regarding MTM, if the album would have came out in 2005, you can be sure that we wouldn't have anything, but in 2027, when the new lineup will be well established and perceived as proper members and not usurpers (people are gonna people), then we might get a chance. 

 

Yes, it makes sense. I think it also depends a lot on what they’ll be doing in 2027. If there’s an album planned for 2027, I think the chances are practically zero, but I hope I’m wrong. I believe Minutes to Midnight must be an album with a lot of interesting content to be shared.

I think they’re not even thinking about it at the moment.

 

1 hour ago, thigolpbr said:

It will be very sad in my opinion if nothing else is released from the Chester era, especially the MTM20 and ATS20 box sets.

Maybe, as was said, in 2027 the band will be more consolidated with the new line-up, so at least the MTM20 box set could happen.

 

Honestly, I’m more excited to see an A Thousand Suns 20th-anniversary edition than anything else. That would be really interesting too!

 

 

19 minutes ago, mrfox said:

billion versions From Zero isn't a cash grab? I Would rather pay for old unreleased music.

 

Well, their plan worked. They "grabbed" a lot of my money. 🤣

[unksoldier2000]

5 hours ago, LeonardoMF93 said:

Honestly, I’m more excited to see an A Thousand Suns 20th-anniversary edition than anything else. That would be really interesting too!

 

i'm way more excited about MTM20, imagine how much amazing stuff was there, stuff that got cut for being "too oldschool" like Qwerty (not that it was part but you get what i mean)

we know about Blackbirds, Chance of Rain, Pretend To Be, What We Don't Know, Pale, Across the Line and No More Roads Left being cut, but we don't know about all the rest... is insane.

 

Song 72 had an amazing piano melody tho

Edited January 9 by unksoldier2000

[LeonardoMF93]

31 minutes ago, unksoldier2000 said:

i'm way more excited about MTM20, imagine how much amazing stuff was there, stuff that got cut for being "too oldschool" like Qwerty (not that it was part but you get what i mean)

we know about Blackbirds, Chance of Rain, Pretend To Be, What We Don't Know, Pale, Across the Line and No More Left being cut, but we don't know about all the rest... is insane.

 

Song 72 had an amazing piano melody tho

 

In terms of content, MTM should really have more interesting things.
The interest in ATS is something personal. It’s my favorite album, and I really like its visual art.

[PartOfMe]

I'm happy with the slight chance of these things being released one day, I hope...

[Hybrider]

4 hours ago, unksoldier2000 said:

i'm way more excited about MTM20, imagine how much amazing stuff was there, stuff that got cut for being "too oldschool" like Qwerty (not that it was part but you get what i mean)

we know about Blackbirds, Chance of Rain, Pretend To Be, What We Don't Know, Pale, Across the Line and No More Left being cut, but we don't know about all the rest... is insane.

 

Song 72 had an amazing piano melody tho

Not adding Across the Line to the album was the biggest mistake. It's way better than some songs in album.

 

I never heard Song 72. It's the first time I hear this. Wow. I hope they will release it in MTM20. It really has amazing piano melody.

[bloodbath]

On 1/9/2025 at 7:12 PM, LeonardoMF93 said:

 

In terms of content, MTM should really have more interesting things.
The interest in ATS is something personal. It’s my favorite album, and I really like its visual art.

MTM could have two discs with completely different music. Whereas ATS, while also my favorite, all the songs would be more "cohesive" and similar. I don't know If I explained myself properly

[felipeintheend]

On 1/8/2025 at 7:32 AM, Trumtram said:

I feel like the whole situation with Jeff and the band is strange in a way. I have no fixed opinion on Jeff. He is super proud of his work in the industry and the artists he helped to push, as he should be. To me, it seems like he was stuck between a rock and a hard place once he joined Warner. Let's not forget that we are talking about the record industry in the late 90s. There were certain ways of handling artists, and he describes these problems in his book. He was forced to apply "label rules" in his function and had to please his new employer. At the same time, he was this big fan of the band which he advocated for. He tried to strike a balance, but the band seemed to think that he wanted to sell them out to the label. They probably felt betrayed and offended by his input after a certain time (which is natural when stuff like taking Mike out of the band is proposed). Once they became a worldwide sensation, they had the means to demand stuff, and they didn't want to repeat what happened during the making of HT. So they cut Jeff out.

 

There is probably stuff we don't know about, but I think it's super harsh to not even acknowledge Jeff and his immense contribution, even after 25 years. Without Jeff, there wouldn't be Linkin Park because he took the risk of making it a condition that LP gets signed with him to Warner. Even if everyone in the band agrees that his handling of things was not good, he deserves a lot of credit for discovering and believing in the band. Personally, I can't recall one positive mention of Jeff by anyone from the band when it comes to the band's history. It's not the best look in my books, but it is what it is.

 

That being said: It's super cool that he is inviting people like LPL-staff to check out all this stuff he has because it is a GOLD MINE. So, thanks for everyone involved here and looking forward to what the future brings.

 

I agree totally with you!

[prototype]

On 1/7/2025 at 8:20 AM, Astat said:

We kind of skimmed over this when it first happened because we didn't want it to get lost in the flood of From Zero-related news, but back in September, while in town for the first show of the From Zero World Tour in Los Angeles, LPLive staff members Mark (Hahninator), Dylan (RogueSoul), and Anthony (Astat) had the chance to spend an afternoon hanging out and filming some content with Jeff Blue! There's more of this stuff in the works, so be sure to follow Jeff on his socials so you don't miss out on anything! You can find him at JeffBlueMusic on Instagram, X/Twitter, and YouTube, as well as at jeffbluemedia.com.

 

You're probably already aware of who Jeff is if you're part of the LPLive community, but here's a short summary: In 1997, while working at Zomba Music Publishing, Jeff was also giving lectures on the music business at UCLA. In attendance at one of these lectures was a young Brad Delson, who met with Jeff a short time later and convinced him to hire him as an intern. Jeff subsequently attended the very first Xero show at the Whisky a Go-Go in Hollywood, and signed them to a publishing deal. Over the next three years, the band played showcases for every record label imaginable (many of them on multiple occasions), nearly split up following a particularly disasterous performance in December of 1998, saw Dave Farrell leave the band in early 1999 and spend the next year and a half recording and performing with numerous bassists (Kyle Christner, Ian Hornbeck, and Scott Koziol most notably), replaced vocalist Mark Wakefield with Chester Bennington, changed their name to Hybrid Theory, finally got signed to Warner Brothers after Jeff was hired to their A&R department, changed their name AGAIN to Plear...for about a week, before deciding Linkin Park was a better option, and finally, in October of 2000, released the album that would change all of their lives: Hybrid Theory. Jeff served as an executive producer on Hybrid Theory, and continued his A&R role with the band through the end of the Hybrid Theory touring cycle in 2002.

 

Given that Jeff was basically the only person other than the band themselves who was involved with their entire pre-Hybrid Theory journey, he amassed a huge collection of material from the band during his time working with them, and having visited with him, we can tell you that the guy has held on to ALL of it, both for archival purposes and out of a genuine love for what the band was doing. Every demo tape or CD, set of lyrics, photo shoot, contract, piece of artwork, etc. that the band produced between 1997 and early 2002 is still in his possession, and a lot of it is stuff that the fans have never seen. In fact, Jeff may be the ONLY person who still has a copy of some of this stuff! Jeff utilized this archival material to write his book, One Step Closer - From Xero to #1: Becoming Linkin Park, which was published in 2020 and documents his time working with the band.

 

It goes without saying that as archivists ourselves, we share a massive mutual interest with Jeff when it comes to this stuff, and it was an amazing experience to go through a bunch of it with him. After the 20th anniversary edition of Hybrid Theory was released in 2020 with previously-unheard tracks like "Dialate," "Could Have Been," "Pictureboard," the Xero version of "Esaul," and the Chester version of "Stick N Move," some of us thought that we may be getting pretty close to having all of the band's pre-Hybrid Theory material, but the information in Jeff's book and our visit with him confirmed that there's still a LOT of stuff in the vaults. Obviously, we can't release any music without the band's permission, and neither can Jeff for that matter, but here's hoping that the rest of the world will get to hear songs like "Ashes," "Deftest," "Turn to Grey," and the various unreleased demo versions of other songs someday!

 

As far as the content we made together, Jeff has been uploading bits of it on social media recently. His first video features him meeting us for the first time, a brief summary of all the stuff he has, the story of how he met Brad and decided to sign the band, and some cool tidbits such as an early copy of the Xero demo tape (with "Dialate" as the second track instead of "Rhinestone," as well as artwork that differs from either the "baby" version we all know and love, or the more rare "shopping cart" version), Jeff's letters to Danny Hayes (the band's lawyer for many years) and Richard Blackstone (Jeff's boss at Zomba) regarding signing the band, and some details on other artists Jeff worked with during the same time period (check out that copy of Korn's "Neidermayer's Mind" demo tape!).

 

 

Jeff's second video focuses on his massive binders full of lyrics and song notes. In addition to having copies of the lyrics themselves, Jeff would often have Mike write summaries of what his mindset was when he was writing them. Jeff wanted to be able to explain what kind of place the band's writing was coming from when pitching them to record labels. You can see some glimpses of demo lyrics (both typed and handwritten) in here, and just from the size of the binder and the equally-large one under it, it's clear that even in their primitive state, these were songs that had a lot to say to the world.

 

 

Video #3 touches on the differences between his roles as a music publisher with Zomba, and an A&R executive with Warner. These typically aren't roles that are occupied by the same person, Jeff just happened to make signing the band part of his employment contract when he was hired by Warner (since the band kept getting rejected by record labels otherwise), so he naturally became their A&R guy as well.

 

 

Again, we have more content planned from our visit with Jeff, so keep checking back! A HUGE thank you to Jeff for inviting us into his home to check this stuff out, we're hoping we get to visit with him again in the future!

Hi, did you find anything new?
Like a demo that no one has heard of before?
And what are Jeff Blue's plans for the future?
Are these things coming out soon or was it just a visit  and no release date set?