Bradford Phillip Delson, a.k.a. Big Bad Brad (born on December 1, 1977), is the lead guitarist for the nu metal/rapcore band Linkin Park. He is also the A&R for Machine Shop Recordings. Delson was born in Los Angeles, California. He graduated from Agoura High School (Agoura Hills, California) in 1996 and formed Xero with Mike Shinoda, which would later become Linkin Park. He attended and graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a degree in communications but did not go to law school in order to pursue a career with Linkin Park. While in college, Delson had to intern with a member of the music industry as a part of his career. He ended up working for Jeff Blue, an A&R representative at Warner Bros. Records. He told Blue about his band and in return for giving him demos to listen to he was offered constructive criticism. Blue is the man who found Linkin Park's current lead vocalist, Chester Bennington. Before forming Xero (rock band) with Mark Wakefield, Delson's first instrument was the trumpet. His first band was called the Pricks, and he later played in a band called Relative Degree with his fellow Linkin Park bandmate Rob Bourdon. He met and roomed with bandmate Dave Farrell at UCLA. Delson can usually be seen wearing a very large pair of headphones on stage, seemingly for purely aesthetic reasons, as they appear to serve no function during performances. The headphones are designed by Shinoda and himself and change with every Linkin Park release. Delson has never given a serious answer as to why he wears the headphones, normally avoiding such questions with ridiculous answers such as "If I tell you, I'll have to kill you." Delson has been known for his anti-social behaviour on occasions, particularly for not washing very often during recording, according to bandmate Mike Shinoda. In high school, he used to dye his hair a variety of colors, although currently, he generally keeps it shaved. He is often criticized for playing simple guitar parts and never performing solos. He has explained that this is due to the simplistic nature of the band, and the fact that he tries to make his guitar playing sound like a keyboard or strings to try to fit in with the Hip hop music and electronic sounds of the band.
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Courtesy of: http://www.wikipedia.org/