It all began in the west San Fernando Valley of Southern California when Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson and Rob Bourdon became fast friends while attending high school in Agoura Hills. After graduation, with the addition of Joseph Hahn and Phoenix, the band took the name Xero, then morphed into Hybrid Theory with changes to its membership. The final piece fell into place in 1999 in the form of Arizona vocalist Chester Bennington, and they chose the name Linkin Park, a wry variation of a local park in Santa Monica, California.

Their signing to Warner Bros. Records led to their debut album, Hybrid Theory, in October 2000. Exploring frustration, anger, fear and confusion from a younger person's perspective, Hybrid Theory was lauded by Rolling Stone as "twelve songs of compact fire indivisibly blending alternative metal, hip-hop, and turntable art." It launched three chart-topping singles including "In The End," received a 2002 Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance for "Crawling," as well as nominations for Best Rock Album and Best New Artist.

Following the innovative Reanimation, a remix album which featured collaborations with Black Thought, Jonathan Davis and others that rose to #2 on the Billboard 200, Linkin Park underwent a painstaking approach in the creation of their next album, Meteora. Released in March 2003, the album offered a wider sound palette and an even more diverse array of styles: from wildly distressed samples and heavy guitars on songs such as "Somewhere I Belong," to strings and piano on "Breaking The Habit" to complex beats on "Easier To Run," all complemented by Bennington's and Shinoda's powerful vocals. In late 2004, the ambitious Collision Course again found Linkin Park in collaboration, creating mash-ups of seven LP songs and six Jay-Z songs, and winning another Grammy for Numb/Encore.

Frat Party at the Pankake Festival, in November 2001, offered the first Linkin Park DVD, soon followed by Linkin Park Live In Texas, filmed during their summer stadium tour with Metallica, as well as Breaking the Habit, Collision Course and Live 8. Launching their own Projekt Revolution tour with artists as diverse as Korn and Snoop Dogg (becoming the best-selling tour of 2004), Linkin Park also established Music for Relief, an organization dedicated to helping those affected by natural disasters to help victims recover and rebuild.