A bass player who performed with Linkin Park before they found fame is suing the band, claiming involvement in “more than 20 songs” that they have released - the bulk of them rarities that appeared in a 20th anniversary box set of their debut album ‘Hybrid Theory’.
Kyle Christner says that he has never received any payment for his work, despite claiming that one of the band’s managers contacted him about the box set to acknowledge that he was due royalties from some of the songs.
In the lawsuit, Christner says that he was a member of the band in 1999 and played with them at a showcase for Warner Music, which resulted in them being offered a record deal. However, he says, he was “abruptly” fired in October that year without explanation.
Although only with the band for a short time, he says he made contributions to numerous early songs and many tracks that featured his playing were included in the 2020 ‘Hybrid Theory’ box set. One track, ‘Could Have Been’, has since had almost a million plays on YouTube alone.
Christner claims that, when one of Linkin Park’s managers contacted him in April 2022, he was told that he was owed royalties for three demos that were included in the box set, as well as the six song ‘Hybrid Theory’ EP, which was originally released in 1999.
That prompted him to go and check the tracklists for the box set and he found that his work actually featured on “more than 20” songs. When he informed the manager who had contacted him of this, he says, they “went dark”.
Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda has acknowledged Christner’s involvement in the band in the past. In one Twitch livestream in 2020 he said that a bass solo he played on ‘Could Have Been’ was “gnarly”. Although on another occasion he played down Christner’s involvement, saying that he had just played “a couple of shows”.
The musician is calling on the courts to determine authorship and ownership of the songs to which he claims to have contributed, and to then award him backdated royalties, interest and legal costs.