1997 Xero Demo Tape with note from Mike Shinoda

Xero had released a demo tape for general purchase around 1997, colloquially known by fans as the "baby art" tape for the art on its j-card. Copies were limited, and the "baby art" tape has sold for as much as $2,000 in recent years. This tape, however, is slightly different.

The tape was found about a year after Mike Shinoda revealed the existance of a never-before-known and completely unheard track called "Deftest" and, coincidentally, just days after former band member Dave Garrett teased a small snippet of the song he'd found on an old laptop in an interview-- Barney's tape differs in several major ways from the "baby art" tape but the biggest is probably that it contains a complete version of "Deftest," a song that to this day has not been heard in its entirety by the general public.

Around the time this tape was made, Barney was the Vice President of the promotions department at Warner Bros. Records, and Xero was in the process of trying to sign with Warner Bros. Most likely, this tape was left in Barney's office following an exhibition for executives at Warner, played once or twice, and then stored in its original case in the top drawer of a six-foot-tall chest of drawers containing hundreds of tapes, CDs, and vinyls where it stayed undisturbed until 2021.

The tape itself is a 20 minute runtime Type II TDK Pro, labelled with the band's and Mike Shinoda's name on side A, and a Los Angeles area telephone number attributed to Mike on side B. The J-Card contains a hand-written track list:
DIALATE
FUSE
DEFTEST
STICK N MOVE
with the first two songs on side A, and the last two on side B. The case itself also has two labels on it containing a note to Barney:
"HI- SORRY I COULDNT COME BY EARLIER...
GIVE ME A CALL REGARDING THE TAPE THANKS. MIKE"