With Bennington in place, the band renamed themselves Hybrid Theory. According to LP Association, Bennington's performance was so strong that the other vocalist auditioning for the band left the tryout before taking the mic. Bennington got the call during a surprise birthday party in 1999 and received a package from Blue the following day with two Xero demos - one with Wakefield's voice and the other an instrumental track.Īfter a few days, Bennington completed his vocals and sent the demos back, which resulted in an audition two days later. He made the introduction between the SoCal group and a Phoenix-based vocalist named Chester Bennington from the band Grey Daze. Around the same time, Farrell got another gig touring with a band called Tasty Snax, and it looked like the band had hit a major roadblock.Įnter Jeff Blue, vice president of Zomba Music, who was aware of the group, felt they had something and helped them in their search for a new vocalist. But something just wasn't clicking and a hard decision had to be made to part ways with Wakefield. Somewhere in between they found a blend and formed a group named Xero with drummer Rob Bourdon, turntablist Joe Hahn, bassist Dave "Phoenix" Farrell and vocalist Mark Wakefield.