When you set out to hire someone to fit into your existing team, especially from a small business perspective, you need to make sure they’ll fit in with the crew and ideally: you’d find someone to help you survive a work week without making it feel too much like work. Despite the astronomical numbers these guys are pulling and ignoring the hundreds (if not thousands) of people working behind the scenes, they’re essentially a small, 6-person office.
If you’ve ever worked in a family run office, you’ll know that the morale of the workplace suffers when some jackass gets away with murder because he’s simply Bob’s nephew. He doesn’t do any work, he shows up late, he gets into arguments with the customers, but somehow gets paid more. Doesn’t make you feel particularly good, but you show up anyway because the pay is steady (albeit less than Bobs nephew). Then, what’s that? You land a comparable job at the competitors, AND you get along with everyone there? You wake up, you go to the office and the entire way there, you’re not thinking about what hornets nest Bob’s nephew is going to stir today. Fast forward to the weekend and someone on your new team invites you over for a barbecue and you don’t immediately think “I’d rather grate my eyeballs with a Microplane™”, because you actually like the new team.
Linkin Park have simply followed that same process. There were a bunch of comments like “I thought they would’ve hired [insert name here]”. For the most part, sure, they’ve probably considered anyway. But the one that stood out was “Why not the original Hybrid Theory vocalist?”, well firstly, Xero (not to be confused with accounting software XeroTM) and secondly – there’s a reason Mark Wakefield left in the first place, the reasons that were true then are probably still true now.