Video! Getting famous was easy for Los Angeles-based rap-metal band Linkin Park. Its members know that staying famous will be harder.

By Sandy Masuo
CDNOW Contributing Writer

Mike Shinoda and Brad Delson met about 10 years ago when they were in seventh grade. Shinoda was obsessed with hip-hop, and budding guitarist Delson was recovering from the impact of thrash metal and a bad-hair phase. Together they cultivated their growing interest in music, working on songwriting and playing low-key gigs at parties for friends in the Los Angeles area while they worked their way through high school and college. By the time Linkin Park (Shinoda on vocals, Delson on guitar and sharing bass duties with some hired hands, plus singer Chester Bennington, drummer Rob Bourdon, and DJ Joseph Hahn) signed with Warner Bros. Records earlier this year, the band knew exactly what it was after -- both in terms of what goes into the music and what the group hopes to get out of it.

Linkin Park's debut, Hybrid Theory, which recently debuted at an impressive No. 16 on The Billboard 200, is a fiery amalgam of deep grooves and gritty edge, snappy songwriting and moody ambience, meaty melodies and driving energy. While that sound was taking shape, the band started putting down roots both online, through linkinpark.com, and through a street team some 800 members strong. Shinoda and Delson are no strangers to hard work -- they know inking a deal is when the real challenge begins, but it's something they look forward to tackling.

CDNOW:
What inspired you to become musicians?

Mike Shinoda:
My first concert experience was one of the things that inspired me most. That was the Killer B's show, which was Anthrax with Public Enemy, and obviously that's the blend of music I've been interested in kind of performing since then, so it was really influential.

Brad Delson:
I got my first guitar about 11 years ago. I was probably in the sixth grade, [and that was how I got] inspired to grow long hair, 'cause that was the era in which Guns 'N' Roses, Metallica -- those bands were at their height, but my hair doesn't grow long really. It kind of grows outward so I tried to straighten it with a hair dryer and wound up trying to chemically straighten it, and then it died. So now I'm left with the bare minimum.

Shinoda:
Actually, I remember what that looked like, and it wasn't like your typical long-hair look from that time period. He really had a mullet.

Delson: I had a mullet. Yeah, and that's inspired me to overcompensate ever since.

"We wanted to create an album that from start to finish holds your attention and grabs you." -- Brad Delson

CDNOW:
Mike, you did time in art school, didn't you?

Shinoda:
I did time at art school, and it was rough. I went to the Art Center in Pasadena. A school like that is really rough. I mean, you're in class for eight hours a day and then you've got eight hours of homework, and it's crazy. Actually, that was a good exercise in doing something creative and working hard at it -- keeping your focus on your goals and being able to take criticism. For example, in the same way that we'll make a song together -- we write a part and then we'll have to show it to the band and say "What do you think?" I learned that at school. Like, I have to paint a piece and take it to class, put it on the board in front of 30 people, step away from it, let them look at it and tear it apart. And if I agreed with them, then great. If I got really uncomfortable, then they're probably right, and I was just not OK with that.

CDNOW:
Mike and Chester's combined vocals are very forceful. Who writes the words?

Shinoda:
When it comes to the lyrics, we totally work on them together. In general, we try and come up with something that's honest and emotional without being like, over-descriptive. I don't want to like hit you over the head with some story and lay it all out word for word. We just want to give you a starting point and let you take what you can from that, relate your own experience to that, and find the emotion that way. We try and write something that's cohesive -- we've got two vocalists, but we don't want to have two points of view. We want to keep it simple.

CDNOW:
Is "One Step Closer" about a particular person?

Shinoda:
Let me explain it this way: We were in the studio working on lyrics for a very long time and some days got to be really long and frustrating and that song was written [during] one of those periods of time, where we were extremely frustrated with writing; we were extremely frustrated with a lot of things going on in our personal lives, so we just let it all out.

CDNOW:
None of the tracks on Hybrid Theory breaks the four-minute mark. Was that deliberate?

Delson:
I'm obsessed with song structure and form, and the way that a song flows together. I'm interested [in that] as much as [I am in] writing guitar parts in the overall structure of the song and making sure it's as tightly written and as fun to listen to as possible. Aside from making each song succinct, we really wanted a crafted album. The album isn't super long -- we wanted to create an album that from start to finish holds your attention and grabs you.

"We write music that is meaningful to us and that's honest. This is what we're doing with our lives." -- Brad Delson

CDNOW:
You've been described as a rap/rock hybrid, but the album is actually more reminiscent of Nine Inch Nails.

Shinoda:
Originally, when the band was called Hybrid Theory, our idea was that we're bringing those musical styles together, but now we've kind of grown out of that definition. We want to put so many different things together -- that's not even our focus anymore. It's like that's second nature at this point. The thing we're focusing on is putting together these different emotions. Our album cover kind of sums that up. We have a soldier with these dragonfly wings -- delicate, beautiful wings on this rugged spray paint, stenciled soldier. So in our case I guess the hybrid would be the heavy music and the really emotional and introspective stuff put together.

CDNOW:
Do you feel pressure to succeed because you're signed to a major label -- to make their investment in you worthwhile?

Delson:
No. When we were deciding where to go we chose the company that really believed in what we were doing, and that's something that's more encouraging than adding any pressure. We write music that is meaningful to us and that's honest. This is what we're doing with our lives. If I weren't passionate about this, I'd do something else I was passionate about. We hope a lot of people will get something out of the music we're making. That's why we're in a band -- it's communication.