Chester Bennington
Chester Bennington was born in Phoenix, Arizona. His first instrument was the piano. While Bennington was growing up he was in a number of bands and played various instruments, but mainly was a vocalist. He never settled in a full time band until 1993, when he joined Grey Daze.The band disbanded in 1998 and he moved on to Linkin Park one year later.
Bennington had an unpleasant life through adolescence. A few of his friends committed suicide, and one of his friends died in a skateboarding accident.
His parents divorced in 1987, leaving him with his two half sisters and a half brother. Bennington was the youngest of four children at eleven years old, and stayed with his father, who was a police officer and detective.
His brother introduced him to bands like Loverboy, Foreigner and Rush, as well as The Doors which he claims as his influences.
Before his parents parted, the family frequently moved around Arizona, from cities such as Scottsdale, Tolleson, Tempe, and others. "I was an athletic kid but I just stopped caring about it, and I stopped doing well in school,
" Bennington states in a Kerrang! article. "I started smoking weed and going to parties. I think I was 11 when I started smoking pot."
Bennington attended Centennial High School, Greenway High School, and later graduated from Washington High School. Bennington said that while he was in high school he was bullied and he described himself as a geek. When Bennington was younger he had a day job working as a coffee barista.
He said working at Bean Tree Coffee House was what kept him going, and that coffee houses are very understanding and this was the base of his inspiration. Through his late teens and early twenties Bennington battled addictions to crystal meth, and cocaine; however, he managed to overcome his addictions and is currently clean.
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Mike Shinoda
Born to a Japanese American father and a mother who has both European and Native American anscestors, Mike Shinoda was raised in the Los Angeles suburb of Agoura, where he resided for all of his pre-adult life. Mike has a younger brother (born 1979) named Jason, whom he calls "Jay".
His first exposure to the music business came during his middle and high school years, when he attended a concert featuring Anthrax and Public Enemy. After that, he began taking piano lessons, studying classical pianist techniques, and later moved on to jazz and hip hop. It was during this formative period that he added the guitar and, eventually, rap-style vocals to his repertoire.
In his early teens, Shinoda's musical interests found a source of encouragement in friend Brad Delson, with whom he started to write and record songs with in a makeshift studio set up in his bedroom. Shinoda attended the Agoura High School with Linkin Park bandmate Brad Delson, as well as with members of the band Hoobastank.
By the end of high school, percussion practitioner Bourdon had become involved in their musical ventures. The trio formed the band Xero, and began to make a more serious attempt to pursue a career in the music industry.
After high school, Shinoda enrolled in the Art Center College of Design to study graphic design and illustration.
It was here that he made the acquaintance of DJ and turntablist Joseph Hahn, who, along with Delson's college-mate Phoenix, was soon added to Xero's line-up. Shinoda eventually completed his college training with a degree in illustration, securing himself a job as a graphic designer right after graduation. With his experience and talent as a graphic artist, Shinoda has taken it upon himself in designing all of Linkin Park's artwork with Hahn, and has even designed the album cover for Styles of Beyond's debut album
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Rob Bourdon
Rob was born in Calabasas, California and now lives in Los Angeles. He grew up in the same town as the members of Incubus, and went to high school with some members of Hoobastank.
Rob started to play the drums at age ten after seeing an Aerosmith concert. His mother was the ex-girlfriend of Joey Kramer, Aerosmith's drummer, so Bourdon was able to go backstage and see the entire production and Kramer also gave him a kick pedal. In his early teen years, Bourdon played in bands with his friends. It was around that time that he met his current Linkin Park bandmate, Brad Delson, and they played together for about a year in a band called Relative Degree. Their goal was to play at the Roxy Theatre, and, after achieving their goal with a sell-out show, Relative Degree eventually broke up.
Bourdon wears Puma racecar driving shoes to get a better feel for the drum pedals and he says that it gives him a much better control of the pedals. He is said to be somewhat of a perfectionist. Rob's hobbies include playing the piano (although he has never done so for a Linkin Park recording) and surfing.
He connects his drum kit to a computer where he can edit all the pieces he plays eg. if he doesn't want the bass drum he can easily take it out of the piece. The program used in the recording studio is different to that.
He also said that the song 'Easier to Run' was the most difficult to play as he had to approach the drums very differently.
It is said that Linkin Park's upcoming third studio album will make use of standard wooden drums in addition/comparison to triggers which were used in the previous albums. Photos of the drum machines to be used for the record have surfaced via Joe Hahn's personal SlamXHype blog.
In late 2006, Chester Bennington of Linkin Park said on Tattoo Stories that his bandmates Rob and Brad didn't have any tattoos for religious reasons.
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Joe Hahn
Joe Hahn, a.k.a. Mr. Hahn (born Joseph Hahn, 15 March 1977), is the DJ for the American nu-metal/rapcore band Linkin Park.
Born in Dallas, Texas, Hahn is a second-generation Korean American. He was raised in Glendale, California. He attended Hoover High School. After graduation, he took interest in visual arts and attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California with soon to be fellow Linkin Park bandmate, Mike Shinoda. His intended field of study was illustration but he decided to drop out to pursue a career overseeing special effects in film and television shows such as The X-Files, Sphere and Dune.
He joined Linkin Park (then called Xero) in 1996 as the band's DJ. Since then, he has directed music videos for most singles of his band, with the exceptions of "One Step Closer", "Crawling" and "Faint". He has also directed videos for Static-X, Story of the Year, Xzibit, X-ecutioners and Alkaline Trio.
Joe has an alter-ego named Remy, who can be heard at the beginning of "Cure of the itch". As bandmates Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda are currently busy with side-projects, Hahn is busy doing his own side-projects. Recently, he shot a mini-film called The Seed in Los Angeles, California and has premiered it at the Pusan International Film Festival. Hahn also appeared with a minor role in a short film by Filip Engström called Little Pony.
In 2005, Hahn opened a retail concept store and brand Suru, located on the infamous Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles.
Hahn also featured in "Slip Out the Back" and "Move On" (FM Militia exclusive) by Fort Minor, playing along with his Linkin Park bandmate Shinoda.
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Dave Farrell
David Michael Farrell, more commonly known as Phoenix (born on February 8, 1977), is the bassist for the nu metal/rapcore band Linkin Park.
Farrell was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts but later moved to Mission Viejo, California when he was five. He attended Mission Viejo High School from 1995-1999. He also graduated University of California, Los Angeles in 2003. He is adept at playing the bass guitar, electric guitar, cello and violin. He has also been known to play an upright bass at some concerts.
Farrell was a member of a Christian ska band known as the Tasty Snax. While attending college, he would practice with Brad Delson in their dorm room together. However, because he had to play and tour with the Tasty Snax, he could not play with Delson and his band, which would become Linkin Park. After changing their name to Snax, Farrell began playing bass guitar in the band before leaving once again to join Linkin Park full-time to play bass. Farrell's fellow bandmate Mark Fiore became Linkin Park's videographer. As described in the inlay for Reanimation he uses a Ernie Ball Musicman Bass.
Farrell has cited his influences as being his mother and his brother, Joe, as well as Weezer, The Beatles, the Deftones, The Roots, Bob Marley, Sarah McLachlan, Hughes & Wagner and Harrod & Funck.
Fitting to his nickname, Phoenix, he has two phoenix tattoos on his back.
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Brad Delson
Bradford Phillip Delson, a.k.a. Big Bad Brad (born on December 1, 1977), is the lead guitarist for the nu metal/rapcore band Linkin Park. He is also the A&R for Machine Shop Recordings.
Delson was born in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from Agoura High School in 1996 and formed Xero with Mike Shinoda, which would later become Linkin Park. He attended and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in communications but did not go to law school in order to pursue a career with Linkin Park.
While in college, Delson had to intern with a member of the music industry as a part of his career. He ended up working for Jeff Blue, an A&R representative at Warner Bros. Records. He told Blue about his band and in return for giving him demos to listen to he was offered constructive criticism. Blue is the man who found Linkin Park's current lead vocalist, Chester Bennington.
Before forming Xero with Mark Wakefield, Delson's first instrument was the trumpet. His first band was called the Pricks, and he later played in a band called Relative Degree with his fellow Linkin Park bandmate Rob Bourdon. He met and roomed with bandmate Dave Farrell at UCLA.
Delson can usually be seen wearing a very large pair of headphones on stage. The headphones are designed by Shinoda and himself and change with every Linkin Park release. Delson has eluded to an exact reason for them, but he has admitted it channels him into his own personal "matrix" while performing. He won't divulge to what this "matrix" is in detail. Delson has never given a serious answer as to why he wears the headphones, he jokingly answers, "If I tell you, I'll have to kill you." There's speculation that he wears the headphones because he has a slight hearing problem, and needs to wear them during concerts.
Delson has been known for his anti-social behaviour on occasions, particularly for not washing very often during recording, according to bandmate Mike Shinoda.
