Linkin Park Were "Nervous" About Covering Beastie Boys

Linkin Park started performing the Beastie Boys' immortal "Sabotage" onstage earlier this year in tribute to the late, great MCA, but Mike Shinoda tells Fuse he was actually very reticent to tackle the song and was just going along with co-lead vocalist Chester Bennington at first.

"Starting before our last tour we added a moment in our set—we wanted to do something as a tribute to the Beastie Boys—so we added 'Sabotage.' Chester brought the idea in and to be totally honest, I was a little skeptical," Shinoda admits. "The Beastie Boys were early-on definitely one of the most important groups in my life. License To Ill in particular… I bought two records the first day I bought music, and that was one of them.

"That group was always so important to me and I didn’t want to mess up one of their songs. When we started rehearsing it, I was nervous and thinking, 'I don't know if this is a good idea,' but I didn't want to say anything. And I was lucky I didn't because the guys just made it work. Chester believed in it… and we've been playing it ever since. I think we'll be playing it on this summer tour coming up." [Speaking of which, we chatted with Linkin Park's Chester Bennington and Incubus' Brandon Boyd back in April about the Honda Civic Tour this summer they're co-headlining.] 

Other awesomeness: Linkin Park tell us about the original music they recorded for the upcoming first-person shooter Medal of Honor: Warfighters.