Astat

At worst, it only could have been due to the..."impending" success and money. Phoenix rejoined the band the same month Hybrid Theory was released.

Not publicly, but Jeff Blue is also a musician/songwriter who's co-written songs with other bands, so he'd at least have enough of a basis to make up the claim that he did.

Essentially two completely independent bands that happened to share two members. SDAHF broke up, and Sean Dowdell started a new band, which became Grey Daze. Chester showed up to audition for the lead vocalist spot, having no idea that the drummer from his old band would be there. Also, wrong section. *moves to Side Projects*

I'd say from most likely to least likely, here are the top 3 "suspects" that that song could be about: 1. Jeff Blue 2. David Kahne 3. Don Gilmore Don Gilmore isn't very likely because the band maintained a good relationship with him all the way through 2004 (he mixed the live tracks on the LPU 4.0 CD). He also doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would suggest that Mike quit rapping, because he's produced other hip-hop-related stuff. If you read the comments Mike made about David Kahne when Plaster was released (that he was one of the people who "didn't get the band" early on in their career), you might be able to make the connection that it's about him, but really, Kahne is so insignificant in the overall scope of the band's history that I doubt it's about him. Mixing that one song was pretty much the only thing he ever did for them. Jeff Blue fits the description the best because he was VERY involved with the band early on, but mysteriously disappeared from the Linkin Park "scene" within a couple years. He's always claimed to be the guy that first "discovered" Xero, and if you look at all the pre-Hybrid Theory promo material (demo CDs/cassettes etc.), his name is found all over them, many times with his phone number/other contact information. He was practically inseparable from the band until 2001 or so, then he just vanished. Why would the guy who discovered the band and got them their big break with a major label suddenly disappear from their crew with no explanation, especially after their first album was such a success? There was obviously a falling out there. Also, if you read into the story of why Dry Cell's album never came out, you'll see that Jeff Blue was largely responsible for it, so he's had rocky relationships with other bands he worked with. Not only that, one of the reasons Blue was hyping Dry Cell in the first place was that they "sounded like Linkin Park without rapping." Hmm...the guy in Get Me Gone wanted Mike to quit rapping. Coincidence? Doubt it.

Who are you to decide what "we" want? Get off your high horse. If LP ever makes another album that sounds like Hybrid Theory or Meteora, it would completely undermine their credibility. The only song on MTM that sounds even remotely like it could fit on a previous album is Bleed it Out, and the studio version of that song totally blows.

Run, Joseph, Run! came out in 1998, the self-titled album came out in 2000. Phoenix rejoined LP sometime in mid-October of 2000, but the Snax continued on without him (with Jim Roach replacing him on bass) until mid-2001. Some of the Snax members then went on to form The Rosewood Fall, and Mark Fiore came on board with LP as their videographer.

For all we know, the Xero live recording sold on eBay could've been a total scam. Nothing has been heard about it since then, and that was something like 7 years ago.

"Run, Joseph, Run!" was the first album (under the band name "Tasty Snax"), the second one was self-titled under the name "Snax."

The Let Down single is a digital release only. http://www.deezer.com/en/music/dead-by-sun...let-down-454610 http://www.amazon.fr/Let-Down/dp/B0030CYB9...4677&sr=8-3 Let Down (Live) is from the Hamburg show. Probably because there isn't going to be another single after Let Down due to the total lack of promotion, but the band has liked Inside of Me from the beginning and likely would have released it as a single at some point if the project had been more successful.

Yep, you're right. I thought New Divide peaked at a B, it's actually a Bb. He hits a B in Given Up.

Do you know how to fucking read?

I think this is a good time to post a favorite quote of mine from the Terms of Service of another website I frequent: "So-called "Freedom of Speech." The United States constitution protects (some of) its citizens from THE CONGRESS making laws that abridge THEIR freedom of speech. It says nothing about a non-government-affiliated website deleting posts deemed unsuitable for this site." Not that there's anything wrong with what you said, but that statement is completely untrue when you're dealing with any organization that operates independently of the United States government. Way to completely dodge the question, by the way.

Mark's done work for quite a few other bands. I used to know the address for his media folder on the Sparkart servers, and it had a bunch of promo work he's done for various bands in it, but I don't think it works anymore (I don't remember the link now anyway).

The bass player in the Jammin' with Hybrid Theory video is Scott Koziol before he shaved his head.

There's probably a Snax live recording out there SOMEWHERE, but we don't know about it. They played at some pretty big festival-type shows, I'd imagine they were taped. Just from what I've seen though, a lot of people who knew about the Snax back when they were active don't have a clue about the Snax/Linkin Park connection. I bought my copy of Run Joseph Run brand new (still sealed) from a Christian music eBay seller for like 10 bucks, they had absolutely no idea how rare and sought-after of an item it was. I think there's an even higher likelihood of something like that happening with a Snax live recording...there could be a DAT master or a VHS tape of a Snax show sitting on a bookshelf in somebody's bedroom that's been collecting dust for 10 years because the taper doesn't think it's worth anything.

It's from Athens. Both tracks that were released on Google (New Divide live and Let Down acoustic) were put on iTunes later.

These are not video shows...

There aren't really "deadlines" per se, but labels do put upcoming releases by their artists on a tentative schedule way ahead of time so they at least have an idea of their overall marketing strategy for the future, what albums to give the biggest push to and when, things of that nature. They certainly pressure their artists to submit new material by a certain date, but the bottom line is, you can't just force somebody to put something out at a certain date if they don't have anything ready yet. This is a big part of why the turnaround time for a lot of albums is so slow - Minutes to Midnight was pretty much finished by January of '07, but wasn't released until May, because it took Warner that long to get all their marketing strategies straightened out. I'm sure there's a Warner marketing sheet somewhere that lists upcoming releases and probably has something like "Linkin Park - TBA 2Q 2010" which tentatively means the album should be out in the second quarter (this is just a guess on my part), but that can always be changed if things get pushed back.

Re: "Halfway done" Being halfway done working on a record and being at the halfway point of the process of making said record time-wise are two entirely different things. As you get farther into the process, everything moves faster, because you have fewer songs to work with and your ideas of what to do with the songs that are still in the mix become more finalized. Mike said Minutes to Midnight was "halfway done" in August of 2006. However, the recording process lasted from February of 2006 to January of 2007, meaning that they were "halfway done" with the album when they were 60% of the way through the recording process, and that doesn't even include the pre-production/writing phase that they were in prior to February of 2006. I would be absolutely SHOCKED if the album isn't out next year.

It's not like Chester is only capable of writing material for one band at a time. Remember, a lot of the songs on Out of Ashes were written at the same time as material he was working on with LP for MTM.

I wouldn't really call it a "tour," but yeah, I think that's all we're going to get, at least until LP is on another break.

I'd honestly be very surprised if there are any more DBS tour dates after this tour is over. By March, the LP album should be getting pretty close to finished, and that'll be when they need Chester the most, for vocal tracking.

In a lot of cases, it was. Other times, it could be pretty unpleasant. I know a lot of people think I have an attitude problem and act superior to others at times...trust me, I'm nowhere near as bad as a few of the traders I've dealt with over the years. I'm sure Jonas and Nick can attest to this as well.

He and Jeff were the 2 guys who acquired it from the original taper, I believe. It didn't circulate beyond them for a while. Anybody else remember the-untitled.tk? Jeff, Josh, and I started that site, it was pretty much the first live-oriented LP fan site, I remember Mark posting there before Chestersings was around. A few shows originated from that site...I know one of the Budokan 2003 shows was one of them.

Yeah I know...I got like 4 billion event invites from him when I was still his friend on Facebook...which is pretty much why I'm not his friend on Facebook anymore. A couple things to point out...my name/status finally changed to reflect that I'm a staff member the day after I did this interview, and the exclusive I mentioned is probably going to be up tomorrow.