There's a curious episode in Linkin Park, involving a joke they made about Metallica during a tour in 2003.
Mike Shinoda revealed the story during an appearance on SiriusXM 's The Howard Stern Show . The musician believes that Linkin Park was the first band to "play a prank" on metal veterans.
The moment occurred during the summer of 2003, when Linkin Park opened for Metallica on their North American Summer Sanitarium tour. The lineup also included Mudvayne, Deftones , and Limp Bizkit. The series of shows promoted the album St. Anger, released by Metallica that year.
The idea came about backstage. Even though they were self-proclaimed Metallica fans, the members of Linkin Park decided to break the serious atmosphere of the shows. “Actually, I think there were about four of us. The joke was that we wanted to do something that… Well, their shows have always been heavy and dark, so we thought: 'What would be the least heavy and dark thing to do?'”, Mike said.
He continued: “We ended up going out with a picnic basket, some sandwiches and drinks, and Chester [Bennington] had a skateboard, so he rode up to the stage. Then we went up to their stage, and they were playing, I think, 'Master Of Puppets', and we set up a picnic right on top of Lars [Ulrich].”
Shinoda further added that they had planned the prank with Metallica's head of security: “We had the head of security's permission, who promised he wouldn't kick us out. But the guys were laughing. They were playing 'Master Of Puppets' with angry faces, turning around and laughing in our faces.”
The musician added that, at that point, they knew Metallica "just enough to know that James [Hetfield] wasn't going to rip my teeth out."
READ ALSO: Linkin Park reveals the sex of a fan's baby during a show in São Paulo
