American musician Bennington Chester (Chester Charles Bennington): biography, creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

In the history of rock music there are many dates that conditionally divide everything that happens in it into "before" and "after". And one of those days, without a doubt, was March 20, 1976, when in the city of Phoenix, Arizona, the fourth child was born in the Bennington family - a son, whom it was decided to name Chester.

It all started with the Phoenix - the birth of a legend from the ashes

Bennington Chester, the future member of "Linkin Park" and one of the iconic vocalists of the world of alternative and rock music, has come a long and hard way to his Olympus.

His childhood was not easy, which influenced Bennington's work in the end: a heavy baggage of addictions that controlled life, derailing it; an abundance of emotional trauma that could not pass without a trace for mental and emotional balance. And all this, fortunately, managed to be cured and pushed away to the dusty shelves of already unnecessary memories with the help of complete immersion in creativity and through mutual love with one of the most emotionally resonant things created by man - with music.

Injuries and addictions

But it wasn't just music that Bennington had been sick of since childhood. After the stress of moving around, his parents' divorce, and being sexually harassed by a family friend, 11-year-old Bennington Chester turned to drugs for salvation. Having started, like many others, with marijuana, he quickly got hooked on heavier substances.

"I've tried just about everything. I've been heavily on the system. By my sixteenth birthday, I had used an incredible amount of LSD and drank an ocean of booze. I got on the system very quickly. On a typical day, my friends and I took eighths of "speed" (About 3 grams of amphetamine) We smoked it in bongs. I made a mixture of methamphetamine especially for myself. It seemed funny then. Then we smoked opium to pass, or took pills, or I got so drunk that I could crap myself right in your pants. It wasn't pleasant, to be honest." Chester Bennington says Quotes clearly do not adequately describe all the chaos that was happening in the life of a young man, but, fortunately, the passion for creativity was stronger than destructive addiction.

Grey Daze - black stripe changed to gray

In 1993, the voice of Chester Bennington becomes the "face" of the group Gray Daze. And despite the fact that drugs did not completely disappear from his life, they nevertheless began to fade into the background, giving way to music lessons, composing new songs and honing that very unique manner of singing, which would later become one of the hallmarks of Linkin Park's signature sound in particular and alternative musicthe beginning of the noughties in general.

As part of 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 on US territory.

Instead of rings - wedding tattoos

Playing Gray Daze and working at a fast food restaurant, twenty-year-old Chester meets his first wife, Samantha. They got married on October 31, 1996, being so poor that instead of wedding rings for which there was no money, the couple got engagement tattoos on their ring fingers.

And, as ironic as it may be, tattoos proved to be much more durable than a marriage that broke up eight years later. Even the birth of a common child on April 19, 2002, Draven Sebastian Bennington, did not save the couple, the rights to raise which remained with Samantha after the divorce. But, remaining on friendly terms with Chester, the ex-wife does not prevent him from communicating with his firstborn.

Linkin Park

Despite early successes with Gray Daze, 22-year-old Chester had no musical prospects after parting ways with the band. Marriage, a job at a digital equipment service company, everything looked like the beginning of a normal, average life. Preparing for his 23rd birthday, Chester had no idea that his second family, musical, had already begun to form in Los Angeles.

Mike Shinoda as guitarist and MC, drummer Rob Bourdon, bassist Dave Farrell, Brad Delson on guitar and Joe Hahn on DJ booth - almost every piece of the Linkin Park jigsaw puzzle is in place. One more element was missing.

One of the Los Angeles music managers, Jeff Blue, helped the team get together, who sent a demo with the band's music to Chester, and he, having spent his birthday recording vocals for a demo, was already in Los Angeles a few days later for auditioning for the role of vocalist Linkin Park. And Chester Bennington's voice did the trick.

One of his features as a vocalist is the unique symbiosis of the sound of a gentle and sonorous tenor, conveying the subtle edges of the lyrics and breaking into screams of aggression, which was the best suited for the music that Mike Shinoda wrote.

The band was still playing under the name Hybrid Theory, but when it came time to record the first album, copyright problems surfaced: there was already a band called Hybrid in Britain. Looking for a new name, Chester suggested Lincoln Park, as he drove past Lincoln Park to work. After some deliberation, the band was named Linkin Park, and their first album, titled Hybrid Theory, literally broke sales records immediately upon release.

During the first round of the Linkin Park team, Chester Bennington felt alienated from all the other project participants, drank a lot and used marijuana, felt lonely, which is negativeaffected both his own condition and the prospects for development as a musician.

But he was never really alone now. Even if not immediately, but the guys from Linkin Park became for Chester Bennington not just colleagues, not even just friends, but a family that helped him cope with harmful addictions and moral traumas from the past, melting all this into amazing 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 without trying to squeeze themselves into the confines of one particular genre, and continue to maintain a high bar for the quality of live performances.

Another big family

Bypassing the stereotypical image of a vicious rock star, Bennington Chester exemplifies a diligent family man in his second marriage to fashion model Talinda, whom they wed 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 at their home in Los Angeles. The musician devotes most of his time to his family when he is not busy touring or recording new material with the band.

Dead by Sunrise and Stone Tempel Pilots

In 2006, together with some musicians fromother bands in Los Angeles, Chester Bennington's solo project, Dead By Sunrise, was founded. Not as an alternative to Linkin Park, but rather, as Chester himself says, as "fun" for all involved.

But the harmless fun has begun to pay off in the form of a good dose of extra success. On October 12, 2009, Dead by Sunrise release their first album Out of Ashes and perform in their free time at Linkin Park and the projects of other members.

In favor of the fact that Bennington Chester took place as a musician and vocalist, is also the fact that he was invited to collaborate with the idols of his youth - Stone Temple Pilots - in 2013, when the latter fired their vocalist.