Linkin Park were unsure whether they wanted to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their second album.
The rock band – which currently consists of Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Rob Bourdon, Joe Hahn, and Dave Farrell – released their debut album ‘Hybrid Theory’ in 2000 but enjoyed greater success with their sophomore album ‘Meteora’ in 2003 and are celebrating the anniversary with a re-issue but co-founder Mike explained that he was hesitant to do so in case it came across like they were “milking it.”
Speaking on Apple Music 1, he told Zane Lowe: “Part of the reason that this 20th anniversary thing came together… from my perspective, when the question was asked, like should we do a 20th anniversary package for the second album, I was like, ‘I don’t know,” like, “I don’t want to feel like I’m milking this thing.’ The album was the album and everybody knows the story. But we started to uncover the stuff that hadn’t been released. And one of the great things about it was we made a point starting mid-Hybrid Theory, because of some of the things people were saying, was well…Well, “they just don’t know”.
However, the ‘Somewhere I Belong’ hitmaker went on to explain that the new version of the album which is being relased as a deluxe edition featuring unreleased songs, demos, and b-sides – is like a time capsule because of how techology has changed since the early 2000s.
He added: “The only problem is that they don’t know. So let’s show them… Let’s help them know. And so we brought our… Dave’s childhood friend, Mark out on the road with us. He was like filming everything. We were capturing more stuff. And so that’s why the ‘Meteora’ 20 package is what it is, because we started capturing everything. It’s like other bands weren’t really filming everything at the time. Filming wasn’t super easy. You didn’t have camera phones.
“We may have started from maybe of a defensive kind of position, but it quickly became something else. The idea of work in progress became one of the themes of the album. It’s like, yeah, we are a work in progress. Our music is a work in progress. All the stuff that we’re making, we were aware, maybe in 10 years we won’t love it as much as we do right now, but we love it right now. So let’s just show people what we’re doing.”
‘Meteora 20th Anniversary Edition’ is due for release on April 7.