It's difficult to imagine Linkin Park without the signature sound brought from co-vocalist and guitarist Mike Shinoda. His contributions over the years have been crucial to the band's success and development, but singer Chester Bennington has revealed that the label had different ideas when the group was just starting out.

Speaking with Metal Hammer, Bennington reflected on the early days of Linkin Park when they were recording their debut record, Hybrid Theory. "This was a time where no-one really knew what was f--king going on. I mean the label tried to get rid of Mike, which is probably the funniest thing in the world," he said. "Looking back I was just thinking ‘Wow, this is insane, this is a wild ride.'"

Remaining committed to their ideals, Linkin Park fought this idea as Bennington said, "We believed in what we were doing so much, and we were like, 'F--k, why can't anybody else see this?' But when the album came out, I guess they saw it."

As we've seen over the years, Shinoda's contributions to the band have been immense, not only serving as co-vocalist and rapping, but also playing guitar, keyboards, taking on a more key role in producing the band's music and using his graphic design skills on occasion as well.

Hybrid Theory has since been certified Diamond by the RIAA for selling in excess of 10 million records. Linkin Park have netted two more Platinum albums and two Gold records and are currently working on their seventh album, which will follow up 2014's The Hunting Party. Shinoda has been providing studio updates throughout the process, telling fans, "We’ve got basically like vocals and chords, like words and melodies and chords on a lot of our favorites and we’ve narrowed it down recently to like under 20 hopefully."

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