Xero was formed in 1996 by Mike and Brad.

Xero was made up of: Mike, Brad, Joe, Rob, Phoenix and Mark.

Mark left the band before they were called "Hybrid Theory" because things didn't work out, but he has always been a really good friend of theirs.

Mark is now Taproot's manager.

The guys played around for fun and started getting attention from friends. So they set up a show at LA's Whisky and got signed to Zomba Music Publishing their 1st show. They were with the bands: System of a Down and SX-10 (i think).

They started getting serious from there but "labels weren't really catching on" so they changed a few things and were looking for a new singer. About 2 yrs later or so Chester joined the band. That's when they changed their name to "Hybrid Theory".

Chester had previously been in the band Grey Daze which had done pretty well and had some offers....so he met Mike and the guys through mutual friends in the industry. They met through their law firm Miniet Phelps and Phelps.

The firm told "xero" that they had a guy in Phoenix (Chester) who might be good for the job and sent Chester a demo. He was asked to sing/make up something to the demo.

He really wanted the job so he went to a recording studio to do it professionally. Within 3 days he had finished recording it.The guys were surprised when Chester called and said he was done and would fly to S. California because it was his birthday. He supposedly left people at his party or birthday and worked on the tape. They asked to hear the tape over the phone first. Once they heard it,they were blown away and told him to fly over.
 

Once Chester was in the band, they focused on making demos and used their connections at Zomba to get their demos out to people who would listen.
 

Eventually after a buzz started, Warner Brothers was interested and signed them to their label. Then "Hybrid Theory" changed their name to "Linkin Park" to avoid legal hassles w/ another band who had the same name.

They chose "Linkin Park" because Chester used to drive by Lincoln Park in Santa Monica, CA (which was a middle class neighborhood where lots of homeless people hung out) after practice and it grabbed his attention & the guys in the band liked how it sounded. They changed the spelling so that they could buy the domain; lincolnpark.com was too expensive. They also think it's cool because there are so many Lincoln Parks that everywhere they play people think they are a local band.

Also while Phoenix was with the band when they were "Xero" he left the band at some point to tour with another band Snax . He is not the bassist on the Hybrid Theory ep, Kyle Christner was bass. Once Phoenix finished up w/ the Snax tour he came back as a permanent member of Linkin Park. Who knows what happened to Kyle..? So basically Phoenix was the bassist for "Xero", Kyle was the bassist for "Hybrid Theory" and Scott was just a temporary bassist for linkin park until Phoenix came back. (Scott can be seen in the 'One Step Closer' video). 

He shows up a few times in it but not a lot.