I love how everyone automatically presumed the Linkin Park fans would race out in droves to buy the album just because Chester was on it. For the vast majority of Linkin Park's 44 million plus fans on Facebook, if it's not a Linkin Park record...they don't care. It's sad, but it's true.
To give you a good idea: Dead By Sunrise (Chester's first solo band) only sold 50,000 copies of their debut in the US since it's release in 2009, and that was released on Warner Brothers. Mike Shinoda (or as you all know him: the guy who raps in Linkin Park), released a solo album under the moniker of Fort Minor and that has only sold 300,000 copies in the US since it's release in 2005, and that was released on a Warner Brothers' imprint label called Machine Shop.
To compare, Linkin Park's last record sold 223,000 in the US in it's first week alone, and who knows how many people downloaded it without buying it.
My point: This was an EP, not a full album. It was released on an indie label, and was both self promoted and self-released by the band. There were no music videos made for any of the singles [lyric videos dont count], and the 'largest' promotion done for the album was a performance on Jay Leno that was done only mere days before the EP's release. There were no commercials on television for the album, and the tour to promote Chester was a small intimate tour with tiny venues that were nowhere near as big as the band used to perform in back in the day.
And before we act like 15k is bad for an EP, I think we need to remember that the self-titled only sold 62k in it's first week and that was a full album.
Add that to the fact that Linkin Park fans are notoriously fickle and usually don't buy records by LP band members that aren't Linkin Park records; and I'd say that selling nearly 25% of the STP's last record's first week sales, with a NEW vocalist isn't too shabby.
Would I have wanted 62k again? Of course. But that's highly unrealistic for a 17 minute 5 song EP.
