MTV: With Joe's relationship with Gregory Dark, does it look like he might be directing the second video?

Shinoda: I think Joe gets along with a lot of people in film, especially since that's where he was working before the band took off. He was working in special effects, and it seems like everyone we met with on the first [video] got along with Joe, so it kind of leaves it up in the air.

Bennington: Joe seems to get along with a lot of people. It's kind of annoying.

Shinoda: From my point of view, it could go anywhere. You'd really have to ask him, I think.

MTV: Let's talk a bit about how you guys started up the band. How did having the two of you as singers come about?

Bennington: I'm actually a lab experiment. I was raised in a petri dish at the UCLA biomedical center.

Shinoda: And we just grew to like him, so we kept him around.

Bennington: And I just grew.

Shinoda: You're really not going to go on to another question and let us go on that one.

Bennington: He wants a real answer, I think.

MTV: Yes. Two frontmen, it's not something that's common.

Bennington: I think one of the ideas behind it is, in my opinion, bands up to this point that have tried to mix different styles, especially in hip-hop and rock and stuff, there's either a guy who can rap but isn't a very good singer, or it's the opposite: He's a good singer but not necessary that talented as a rapper. Our idea was basically not to even worry about that. We have a really good rapper.

Shinoda: And we have a very good singer. From my point of view, the thing we saw in Chester right away was he's someone that's been singing his whole life, and I'm somebody that's been rapping my entire life, so it just seemed natural. We've spent a lot of time working on what we do.

Bennington: And for some reason we like each other.

Shinoda: He likes me a lot, and I can't stand him.

Bennington: Oh. I guess not, then. [RealVideo]

MTV: How many fan sites do you have out there?

Bennington: We had a contest with our fans who like to make fan sites, and 'cause so many of them are just making them on their own, we were like, "Let's do something for these guys," 'cause they're putting a lot of time and effort into that stuff. It's not something you just throw together. We put this contest together where it was, originally, five fan sites that were the best out of all of them would win tickets to all of our shows to the city nearest to where they live, so whenever we rolled through they'd be able to come to a show for free and hang out with us and all that kind of stuff. But there was so many of them that were so good, we had to pick more than five. We picked eight winners. And it's cool, 'cause it showed us the fans are really involved, and it really keeps us involved with our fans. We hold our fans very close to us and they're very special to us, and to see that kind of interaction and that involvement —

Shinoda: And talent. Some of the sites were just phenomenal.

Bennington: Yeah. It kind of keeps us level, in a way, and it also makes us happy to see there's that much interest in it. People are spending that much time on us. It's nice to see that, 'cause we've spent so much time on us ourselves. We pretty much put the rest of our lives on hold to do this. It's kind of fun to see that other people are doing that too, taking that much time out.

MTV: What's next for you?

Shinoda: In March, we're going to be playing with the Deftones all over Europe.

Bennington: We are stoked. On our bio on our Web site, it says that Deftones is one of our favorite bands. We put that up there a long time ago, and obviously at that point, it wasn't even like we expected to get a tour with them. We were just laying it out there because that is just truly one of the bands that we admire a lot. For them to invite us on a tour like this is a real honor.

MTV: Is it going to be hard to go from your headlining tour to that tour?

Bennington: Nah, that's going to be easy, because Taproot is going to be coming with us. They've also toured with Deftones previously, so it's going to be like this fun little family going out. It'll be like "National Lampoon's European Vacation." That's what I'm thinking. [RealVideo]