Linkin Park front man likely took his own life
Chester Bennington was a Phoenix native
Chester Bennington, a Phoenix native who fronted Linkin Park and Stone Temple Pilots, has died at 41. His death is being investigated as a possible suicide.
Brian Elias, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s chief of operations, told a USA Today reporter that the case is being investigated as a possible suicide but could not provide details other than that the coroner was called to a private home in Palos Verdes Estates in the southern part of the county shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday.
Bennington was married to Talinda Ann Bentley, with whom he had three children: Tyler Lee Bennington and twins Lilly and Lila.
He also had a child, Draven Sebas-
tian Bennington, with his first wife, Samantha Marie Olit, and another, Jaime, from a previous relationship with Elka Brand, in addition to having adopted a son, Isaiah.
Linkin Park was scheduled to play Phoenix at the end of August in support of “One More Light.” Their most personal album to date, it was built on the stories of six voices coming clean about their lives and struggles, as if it were the first time. As the press release noted, “OML isn’t bigger, louder or more avant-garde, it’s more human.”
Bennington struggled with drugs and alcohol at various points in life, telling Kerrang! in 2011 that he had been a “full-blown, raging alcoholic.”
The singer also spoke in interviews about having considered suicide because he had been sexually abused at 7 by an older male friend.
“If I think back to when I was really young, to when I was being molested, to when all these horrible things were going on around me,” he told Kerrang! in 2011. “I shudder.”
Bennington was friends with Chris Cornell, who hanged himself in May. In a tribute he posted on Twitter, Bennington wrote of his sadness and said, “I can’t imagine a world without you in it. I pray you find peace in the next life.”
Bennington sang the Leonard Cohen standard “Hallelujah” at a private memorial for Cornell at Hollywoood Forever Cemetery in May. Thursday would have been Cornell’s 53rd birthday.
Linkin Park’s first album, “Hybrid Theory,” is among the most successful rock releases of the past two decades, a 10times-platinum smash released at the turn of the century that spawned their highest-charting entry on the Hot 100, “In the End,” which peaked at No. 2.
They went on to top the alternative-songs chart several times, with hits as huge as “Numb,” “Numb/ Encore” (with Jay-Z), the triple-platinum “What I’ve Done,” the doubleplatinum “New Divide” and “Burn It Down.”
“One More Light” debuted at No. 1, their fifth album to do so.
Bennington shared lead vocal duties in the group with Mike Shinoda, who tweeted that he was “shocked and heartbroken.”
When I last spoke to Bennington, in 2015, I asked why he thought their first album continued to resonate with fans.
“There’s just a rawness to that record and a darkness, but at the same time, it’s not scary,” he said. “We are a strange band. We talk about crazy things. We talk about hard things and dark things. But at the same time, it’s positive. And I think people can relate to that. People can relate to suffering and it having a meaning. And I think it’s something that our music talks about. You’ve got to celebrate the bad times and cherish the good times. When something bad happens to you, you’ve got to look at ‘What’s this gonna bring to me?’ That’s something that resonates with our music.”
Bennington was born in Phoenix and attended Centennial High School and Greenway High School.
His mother was a nurse, his father a police detective who worked with child sex-abuse cases. They divorced when he was 11 and his father gained custody. It was after the divorce that Bennington began abusing drugs and alcohol.
It was in Phoenix that he started singing, first with Sean Dowdell and His Friends, then Grey Daze, a post-grunge band that also featured Dowdell. Grey Daze recorded three albums — 1993’s “Demo,” 1994’s “Wake/ Me” and 1997’s “...no sun today.”
He quit the Phoenix group in 1998 and auditioned for Linkin Park a year later, moving to California.
In addition to Linkin Park, he led a band called Dead By Sunrise from 2005-2009 and sang for Stone Temple Pilots from 2013-2015, stepping in for Scott Weiland, who died of an accidental drug overdose in late 2015.
Bennington and Bentley bought a house in Gilbert in 2008 but had returned to California by 2015.
While living in Gilbert, he co-chaired the annual Stars of the Season fundraiser for Banner Children’s at Cardon Children’s Medical Center. Several times, he had me out to interview him at the hospital to promote the event. He always seemed upbeat on those occasions. I think it made him happy to do stuff for kids.