Top 10 Facts About Chester Bennington
Rock Music lost another foreman on Thursday with the death of Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington, best known for his trademark high pitched voice that mesmerized a countless number of Linkin Park fans. What made him particularly special was the fact that he had risen to glory after facing innumerable challenges and struggles in his early life. Bennington’s childhood was far from rosy. His parents divorced when he was very young and he became a victim of sexual abuse. As a teenager, he took to the habit of drugs to deal with emotional distress and worked many jobs in order to pay for his drug habit. He was a lonely youngster and hardly had any friends. It was this loneliness that slowly started feeding his passion for music and he soon became a part of his first band, ‘Sean Dowdell and His Friends?’ He later joined the band, ‘Grey Daze’. His career as a musician took off after he auditioned to be a part of the band ‘Linkin Park’. The blockbuster reception of the band’s debut album, ‘Hybrid Theory’ catapulted Bennington’s position as a musician and gave him the much-needed and deserved recognition as one of the most iconic figures of music in the 21st century.
1. The band had two incarnations prior to Linkin Park. Three school friends - Mike Shinoda, Rob Bourdon, and Brad Delson founded the band Xero and recruited Joe Hahn, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, and Mark Wakefield. Recording and producing songs in Shinoda’s makeshift bedroom studio in 1996, they produced a 4-track demo tape called Xero . Wakefield and Farrell left during tough times and Xero recruited Chester Bennington before rebranding as Hybrid Theory. That name didn't last either but was, of course, used for the title of their breakthrough album.
3. Linkin Park earned six Grammy nominations during its tenure. Of those six nominations, the band had two wins.The first was in 2001 for Best Hard Rock Performance for “Crawling.” Linkin Park won this Grammy the same year they got nominated for Best New Artist and Best Rock Album.The band won their second Grammy in 2005 for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration for “Numb/Encore.” Linkin Park teamed up with Jay-Z for this award-winning song.
4. In October 2010, he appeared in a minor role in the 3D horror film, ‘Saw 3D’, which was directed by Kevin Greutert. The film was not well received by critics but it was a success at the box office.
5. This American musician was the lead vocalist and songwriter of the rock band Linkin Park. However, he founded his own rock band, ‘Dead by Sunrise’, which released its debut album ‘Out of Ashes’ on October 13, 2009.
6. Their final rebadging saw them take the name Linkin Park, a play on and homage to Santa Monica’s Lincoln Park. The band initially wanted the name "Lincoln Park", however they changed it to "Linkin" because they couldn't afford the domain name "lincolnpark.com".
7. The band's first ever gig was at The Whisky a Go Go, in LA, which was also the launching pad for a plethora of legendary bands like Motley Crüe, The Doors and Guns 'N Roses.
8. Chester Bennington and the late singer Chris Cornell had a close friendship. Cornell, the 52-year-old former Audioslave singer, died on May 17 at age 52 by suicide.The two became friends while touring together in 2008, according to CNN. When Bennington heard about Cornell’s death two months ago, he posted a letter to him on Instagram.
9. Chester is one accident prone dude. In 2001, while touring for Ozzfest, he was bitten by a recluse spider (you could see the grey poison all over his body, apparently), he's pulled his back out picking up his baggage, tore a ligament in his hand while playing basketball at Chuck E. Cheese, and he broke a wrist in a stage dive in 2007.
10. Chester has cited One Step Closer as his least favorite Linkin Park song and recently told us that Breaking The Habit was his favorite.
On July 20th 2017, his lifeless body was found in his home and thus we lost another gem, he was very upset following the death of his friend Chris Cornell. Linkin Park introduced if not all of us many of us to the rock world, R.I.P. Chester.
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