Mike Shinoda was in awe of System Of A Down when he saw them perform live for the first time.
The 46-year-old star – who co-founded Linkin Park in the mid-90s – has confessed to being starstruck by the award-winning band.
Speaking to NME, Mike recalled: “It was very minimal, it wasn’t like a full on ‘I can’t talk, I am completely overwhelmed’, it was that we played our first show with a local band that had just got signed called System Of A Down.
“And I was like ‘These guys are so cool and they just got signed at like a major record deal’. We opened for them and I met a couple of the guys and thought they were the coolest. I think they are just barely older than us but I was so impressed, I mean besides, they’re incredible so of course I was impressed.”
Linkin Park have enjoyed huge success over the years, but Mike previously insisted that they won’t re-issue any of their previous albums “if it’s not great”.
Asked about the possibility of re-issuing an old album, Mike said: “[There’s] nothing planned right now.
“I always just tell people like when there’s news I’ll give you the news. We’ve been doing it for a while and I think our expectation for what’s a proper reissue is kind of high.
“I don’t love putting out Greatest Hits stuff or putting out re-masters of things we’ve done, [so] if we were to do a re-reissue of one of our Linkin Park albums, we want it to be a big deal. If we can’t make it that quality then we won’t do it. If it’s not great then I don’t think we should do it.”