There are many dates in the history of rock music that conditionally divide everything that happens in it into "before" and "after". And one of these days, no doubt, was March 20, 1976
years, when in the city of Phoenix, Arizona, the fourth child was born in the Bennington family - a son, whom it was decided to call Chester.
It all started with the Phoenix - the birth of a legend from the ashes
Bennington Chester, a future member of Linkin Park and one of the iconic vocalists in the world of alternative and rock music, has come a long and hard way to his Olympus.
His childhood could not be called easy, which influenced Bennington's work in the end: the heavy baggage of addictions that controlled life, derailing it; an abundance of emotional injuries that could not pass without a trace for mental and emotional balance. And all this, fortunately, was able to cure and push away already unnecessary memories to dusty shelves with the help of complete immersion in creativity and through mutual love with one of the most emotionally resonating things that was created by man - with music.
Injuries and addictions
But not only music was what Bennington had been ill since childhood. After the stresses of constant relocations, the divorce of parents and sexual harassment from a familiar family, a very young boy, eleven-year-old Bennington Chester, began to look for drug rescue. Starting, like many, with marijuana, he quickly “hooked” on heavier substances.
"I tried almost everything. I sat on the system tightly. By my sixteenth birthday, I managed to consume an incredible amount of LSD and drank an ocean of booze. I got on the system very quickly. On a typical day, I took an eighth of" speed "with my friends (about 3 grams of amphetamine). We smoked it in bongs. For myself, I made a mixture with methamphetamine. Then it seemed funny. Then we smoked opium to go away, or threw pills, or I got drunk so that I could get it right in my pants. Not enough it was nice to be honest. " - says Chester Bennington. Quotations are clearly not enough to describe all the chaos that was happening in the life of a young man, but, fortunately, the passion for creativity was stronger than destructive dependence.
Gray Daze - the black stripe has changed to gray
In 1993, the voice of Chester Bennington became the "face" of the group Gray Daze. And despite the fact that drugs didn’t completely disappear from his life, they nevertheless began to fade into the background, giving way to music, composing new songs and honing that unique singing style, which would later become one of Linkin Park’s signature cards particular and alternative music beginning zero in general.
As part of the Gray Daze, Bennington performed and recorded until 1998, after which, due to some differences in views on creativity, he left the project, which
still managed to snatch his share of popularity in certain youth circles in the United States.
Instead of rings - wedding tattoos
Playing in Gray Daze and working in one of the fast foods, twenty-year-old Chester meets his first wife, Samantha. They got married on October 31, 1996,
being so poor that instead of engagement rings for which there was no money, the couple made themselves wedding tattoos on their ring fingers.
And, ironic as it may seem, tattoos turned out to be much more durable than a marriage that broke up eight years later. The couple did not save even the birth on April 19, 2002 of a common child - Draven Sebastian Bennington, whose right to raise Samantha remained after the divorce. But, having remained in friendly relations with Chester, the ex-wife does not interfere with his communication with the first-born.
Linkin park
Despite the first successes in Gray Daze, after breaking up with the band, the twenty-two-year-old Chester had no prospects in the field of music. Marriage, a job at a digital equipment maintenance firm — it all looked like the beginning of a normal, average life. Preparing for his 23rd birthday, Chester did not even realize that his second family, musical, had already begun to form in Los Angeles.
Mike Shinoda as guitarist and MC, drummer Rob Bourdon, bass player Dave Farrell, Brad Delson with a guitar and Joe Han at the DJ console - almost all the pieces of the mosaic called Linkin Park have already taken their place. One more element was missing.
One of the Los Angeles music managers helped the team get together - Jeff Blue, who sent a demo with the band's music to Chester, and having spent his birthday on vocal recording for the demo, a few days later was already in Los Angeles listening to the role of vocalist Linkin Park. And the voice of Chester Bennington did the trick.
One of his features as a vocalist can be called a unique symbiosis of the sound of a gentle and sonorous tenor that conveys the fine lines of lyrics and breaks into cries of aggression, which was the best suited for music that Mike Shinoda wrote.
The group still played under the name Hybrid Theory, but when the time came to record the first album, copyright issues surfaced: in Britain there was already a group called Hybrid. In search of a new name, Chester proposed Lincoln Park, as he drove to work past Lincoln Park. After some deliberation, the group got the name Linkin Park, and their first album, called Hybrid Theory, literally broke sales records immediately after the release.
During the first round of the Linkin Park team, Chester Bennington felt alienated from all the other participants in the project, drank a lot and consumed marijuana, felt lonely, which negatively affected both his own condition and development prospects as a musician.
But in fact, now he was never alone. Although not immediately, the guys from Linkin Park became for Chester Bennington not just colleagues, not even just friends, but a family that helped him cope with the addictions and moral traumas from the past, melting all this into stunning songs that are not one thousand teenagers were given support.
Linikin Park, being one of the most successful bands in the world of alternative and rock music, confidently record album after album, not trying to squeeze itself into the framework of one particular genre, and continue to maintain a high level of quality of live performances.
Another big family
Not adhering to the stereotypical image of a vicious rock star, Bennington Chester is an example of a diligent family man in his second marriage with model Talinda, whom they married on December 31, 2005.
Since then, their family has replenished more than once: on March 16, 2008, Chester's second son, Tyler Lee, was born. The couple also adopted two children: Jaime and Issay, and on November 11, 2011, Bennington's wife gave birth to two girls - Lila and Lily. Chester Bennington and his wife and children live in their home in Los Angeles. The family musician spends most of his time when he is not busy touring or recording new material with the group.
Dead by Sunrise and Stone Tempel Pilots
In 2006, along with some musicians from other bands in Los Angeles, a solo project by Chester Bennington - Dead By Sunrise was founded. Not as an alternative to Linkin Park, but rather, as Chester himself says, as "entertainment" for all of its participants.
But harmless entertainment began to bear fruit in the form of a good dose of additional success. On October 12, 2009, Dead by Sunrise released their first album Out of Ashes and performed in their free time at Linkin Park and other members' projects.
In favor of the fact that Bennington Chester took place as a musician and vocalist, there is also the fact that he was invited to collaborate with the idols of his youth - Stone Temple Pilots - in 2013, when the latter dismissed their vocalist.