PAMike Shinoda, a co-founder of Linkin Park, has shared a photo of the band only days after the late Chester Bennington joined.
Shinoda posted the throwback photo of the fresh-faced band on his Instagram account last night in tribute to frontman Bennington who was found dead on Thursday.
He believes this is the first photo ever taken of what would later become Linkin Park…
Originally taken in 1997 or 1998, the photo was captioned:
We had just told Chester that we wanted him to join the band. He said he was ready to move out from Arizona to L.A.
We went to a pizza place near UCLA to hang out and talk about what to do next. The band was called Xero at the time, and we probably had less than a half a dozen songs.
No flame tattoos yet, no red hair yet, most of us were still in college.
Shinoda founded the band with his high school friends in 1996 with Bennington joining later as a lead vocalist.
20 years later he was one of the first to confirm the death of his friend on Twitter.
Shocked and heartbroken, but it's true. An official statement will come out as soon as we have one.
— Mike Shinoda (@mikeshinoda) July 20, 2017
Fans have flooded Shinoda’s Instagram post with comments of support saying ‘stay strong man’ and ‘remember we are always with you and love you’.
The band have since cancelled their One More Light tour, which was due to start later this month.
If any of these issues have affected you, please don’t suffer in silence. Call Samaritans on their free 24-hour hotline on 116 123.
