He has a shaved head and thick black glasses that seem less rock star, more nerdy student, and is polite but guarded, intent on answering only the questions he chooses - whether they are asked or not. Preposterously skinny, he is wearing a light grey woollen zip-up top (some might even venture to call it a cardigan) over a white T-shirt and dark blue jeans. He's the owner of the almighty, angry roar that characterises Linkin Park songs, the one most likely to be pinned on teenage girls' walls and the one inclined to scowl exasperatedly at the prospect of an interview. We can only say how we feel, and that's excited that people are hearing the record,' vocalist Chester Bennington says finally. 'Well, obviously, the record label feels that's what needs to be done. Backstage at their Manchester concert - one of two low-key UK dates before the release of Meteora - there are amused smiles and a telling silence when security is mentioned. The band members themselves will not be drawn into defending or even discussing this secrecy. Unofficial estimates suggest that figure would have been 20m were it not for internet piracy - which goes some way to explaining the security surrounding its follow-up. When they finally released their debut album, Hybrid Theory, it sold a staggering 14m copies, making it the world's bestselling album of 2001. The six twentysomethings from southern California nurtured a flourishing internet fan base before signing a record deal. Linkin Park are a truly modern success story. And so Linkin Park, on the brink of releasing their make-or-break second album, find themselves on uneasy middle ground, running scared of the very medium that got them here in the first place. Paranoid and more than a little delusional, the powers that be are all too aware that a song leaked on to the internet before an album's release can be heard around the world in minutes. Welcome to the music industry in the 21st century. Assuming (wrongly) that some of us have the wages and technical wherewithal to own mobiles capable of doing anything more than send a text message, he double-checks that we have left our phones behind before standing aside. The man mountain at the door is frisking journalists as if they are entering a war zone rather than a playback of the new, hotly anticipated Linkin Park album, Meteora.

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