Linkin Park's 'Introspective' Rap-Rock

November 20 -- Yes, they're a little bit hip-hop and a little bit rock and roll. But the members of Linkin Park don't want to be written off as just another raging rap-rock band.

"Our approach to songwriting is unique from those other bands," guitarist Brad Delson says. "We started writing songs about four years ago, basically just as a stylistic idea we had of wanting to meld our love of hip-hop groups with our love for really heavy kinds of alternative rock stuff. But it's not that same tough, 'We're going to kick your ass' kind of music. It's very emotional, introspective; it's more like, 'This is how I feel,' and we want to represent that in a really sincere way."

The difference is up for interpretation, of course, but one thing is for sure: Don't put Linkin Park up against any other band in a College Bowl contest.

The four musicians met at friends' parties around the Los Angeles area while they were in school; Delson, in fact, was an "academic overachiever" majoring in mass communication and minoring in business at UCLA. He had just enrolled in prep courses for the law-school boards when he made the decision to pick his guitar over his books.

"I decided, 'Who wants to go to law school when I can just do music and have a lot of fun and be successful at that?'," Delson recalls. "My parents were actually really supportive of that, which I don't take for granted. I don't think I could have gotten to the point I'm at now if they hadn't supported me all those years when I wasn't making money. But I definitely think I made the right decision."

The quartet is giving fans plenty of opportunity to compare its sound to more aggressive rap-rock, touring through November with P.O.D. and hitting the road next month with Papa Roach.

Hybrid Theory, which was Linkin Park's name before they discovered another group with the same moniker, is sitting at No. 28 in its third week on the Billboard album charts.