M
ay 2017. The release of
Linkin Park’s seventh
album – their first in
three years – was fast
approaching. That
meant interviews – lots
of interviews. For Chester, the scrutiny
being heaped upon his band’s drastic new
direction had begun to chafe.
Had the group once accused of being a
‘boy band’ made a full-blown pop album? Why
was it so different? What was their reason for
the change? It was the latter line of inquiry
that brought things to a head in an interview
with industry magazine Music Week, when
Chester was asked how he’d respond to those
suggesting Linkin Park had ‘sold out.’
“If you’re saying we’re doing what we’re
doing for a commercial or monetary reason,
trying to make success out of some formula...
then stab yourself in the face,” the singer fired
back with a cackle.
Chester’s mixture of anger and laughter was
fitting given Linkin Park’s recent appearance in
a Funny Or Die sketch alongside their friends
blink-182, in which the two bands offer moral
support to a couple on a date. The sketch
doubled as an advert for their forthcoming
‘Welcome to Blinkin Park’ stadium shows.
Tragically, given what would happen that July,
they would never take place.
“I don’t give a fuck what they think,” Chester
said of the naysayers in a K! fan interview weeks
later. “The only time it bothers me is when
people make it personal. We’re really used to
people going all over the place on what they
think we should be doing in terms of music, but
when people turn that opinion into an attack on
me as a person, that’s when I say, ‘Alright dude,
say that shit to my face!’”
While not the most universally embraced
of Linkin Park’s releases, One More Light
represented the most fascinating – and
heartbreaking – chapter in the band’s career.
Chester was on the money to suggest his
band weren’t strangers to having their creative
decisions taken to task. In that same incendiary
Music Week interview he’d rallied against fans’
continued preoccupation with Linkin Park’s
early days, particularly their debut.
“When we made Hybrid Theory, I was the
oldest guy in the band and in my early 20s,”he recalled. “That’s why I guess I’m like: ‘Why
are we still talking about Hybrid Theory? It’s
fucking years ago. It’s a great record – we love
it. Like, move the fuck on.”
Perhaps One More Light came as a surprise
because of how much it had moved on from its
predecessor, 2014’s The Hunting Party, which
had featured contributions from Helmet’s Page
Hamilton, System Of A Down’s Daron Malakian
and Rage Against The Machine’s Tom Morello.
Despite cameos from luminaries of rock and
metal, the resulting album saw the band
caught, often awkwardly, between heavier
and dreamier impulses.
For Linkin Park, the most fundamental
difference between The Hunting Party and
One More Light was that the former was
“inward facing” and the latter “outward
facing”. And while One More Light would
prove more divisive, it was more decisive too,
forgoing the boundaries of genre altogether
(Mike would proudly tweet the words ‘Genre
is dead’ during this period.) Coupled with
a totally new way of working, the band was
able to express themselves, emotionally and
musically, like never before.KERRANG! 61