Remembering Chester Bennington Interviews, Concert Photo’s and Videos 1 Year after his Death
Chester Charles Bennington (March 20, 1976 – July 20, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. He served as lead singer for the bands Linkin Park, Dead by Sunrise, Grey Daze, and Stone Temple Pilots.
Bennington first gained prominence as a vocalist following the release of Linkin Park’s debut album, Hybrid Theory, in 2000, which became a commercial success. The album was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2005, making it the best-selling debut album of the decade, as well as one of the few albums ever to hit that many sales. Linkin Park’s following studio albums, from Meteora (2003) to One More Light (2017), continued the band’s success. Linkin Park has sold over 100 million records worldwide.
Bennington formed his own band, Dead by Sunrise, as a side project in 2005. The band’s debut album, Out of Ashes, was released on October 13, 2009. He became the lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots in 2013 to release the extended play record High Rise on October 8, 2013, via their own record label, Play Pen, but left in 2015 to focus solely on Linkin Park
. He was widely regarded as one of the top rock vocalists of the 2000s. Hit Paradermagazine placed him at number 46 on their list of the “100 Metal Vocalists of All Time”. He also appeared in cameo roles in several films, including Crank, Crank: High Voltage and Saw 3D.
On July 20, 2017, Bennington was found dead at his home in Palos Verdes Estates, California. His death was ruled as suicide by hanging
In a recent live stream, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda expressed his dissatisfaction with the way media covered suicides of celebrities. He not only criticized the coverage of his bandmate Chester Bennington but other famous people as well, like Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell, Kate Spade, and Anthony Bourdain.
Shinoda said that if people don’t like the way these deaths are being covered that they should avoid using social media, arguing that this “is an awesome way to take care of yourself.” You can read an excerpt from the live stream below
“Just because you’re curious? Is that a good reason? When they talk about addiction, it’s often been described as having a demon on your shoulder, or a monkey on your back, and the reason that it’s talked about that way is often times it feels like a voice that is telling you to do something. Sometimes that voice is convincing. That little voice doesn’t say, ‘Go buy a bunch of a meth.’ It says, ‘Man, you haven’t talked to Johnny in awhile, you should call Johnny. I wonder how he is doing, he was doing pretty bad last time you talked to him, you should really call him.’ That voice is actually being sneaky in telling you, ‘You need to get in touch with Johnny, because Johnny has the meth.’ That’s the same thing that is going on for a lot of us. For me I’ve never been a drug addict, so that hasn’t happened to me.
“What does happen to me and happens to most of us is the very simple and subtle sneaky version of it. You read something and you go, ‘Oh, I’m so curious about that, let me click on it.’ You click on it just so you can get revved up about the information in there. That information in there is telling you the story about Anthony Bourdain, it’s telling you Kate Spade, it told you Chester, it told you Chris Cornell, it told you Kurt Cobain, it told you Lil Peep, it told you all these people. Over and over we go through this. Don’t go for that man. Your attention is a commodity. It’s like money, and you’ve got to be just aware. I want you to be aware of where you spend it.
