During a recent appearance on Mythical Kitchens’ Last Meals podcast, Mike Shinoda revealed that Chester Bennington kept him from being fired from Linkin Park.

“They went to Chester [Bennington] and got him alone in the studio and were like, ‘Look man, this is all about you. You’re the star here. Let’s just build this project around you because what you guys are making, we don’t get it,’” the singer recalled what their label told them during the making of ‘Hybrid Theory.’

Shinoda went on to say, “Chester had come into the band with the understanding that he’s part of a band. I felt like what he wanted was that he liked the band, he wanted to be part of the band and he had way more loyalty to us than he did to them.”

“[Chester] went immediately from that conversation back to us and said, ‘This is what just happened.’ And we were like, ‘Oh no, thanks for telling us. What did you tell them?’ [Chester responded], ‘I told them to go f*ck themselves,’” the musician shared Chester’s response.

Linkin Park’s debut album, ‘Hybrid Theory’ arrived in October 2000. Shinoda also talked about the behind-the-scenes of the record in a chat with ALT 98.7 FM, saying, “When we went in the studio and did ‘Hybrid Theory,’ though, we were doing great stuff, and we were really happy with a lot of stuff we were making.”

He continued, “But culturally, it was a nightmare. We were miserable. The band was very aligned on what we wanted to make, but the label was fighting us every day; people kept throwing in opinions about, ‘Oh, it shouldn’t be this. It shouldn’t be that.’”

“There were even suggestions the band shouldn’t have any rapping. [It shouldn’t have] any hip-hop-like production or influence in it. We just stuck to our guns, made ‘Hybrid Theory,’ and the rest was history. The thing about ‘Meteora’ was, we were like, ‘That sucked, that ‘Hybrid Theory’ process sucked,’” Mike added.

Linkin Park will start their ‘From Zero’ world tour on January 31 in Mexico City at Estadio GNP Seguros, according to their official website. The tour will continue into November with opening acts like Queens of the Stone Age, Spiritbox, and