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

In the history of rock music, there are many dates that conditionally divide everything that happens in it into "before" and "after". And one such day, no doubt, was March 20, 1976
Year, when in the city of Phoenix, Arizona, the Bennington family was born the fourth child - the son, who was decided to be called Chester.

It all started with 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 gone a long and hard way to his Olympus.

His childhood could not be called easy, which influenced Bennington's work as a result: a heavy baggage of dependencies that controlled life, derailing it; The abundance of emotional trauma that could not pass without a trace for mental and emotional balance. And all this, fortunately, managed to cure and move away the dusty shelves of already unnecessary memories by completely immersing in creativity and through mutual love with one of the most emotionally resonating things that a man created - with music.

Injuries and dependencies

But not only music was what Bennington had been sick from the very childhood. After the stresses of constant moves, the divorce of parents and sexual harassment from a familiar family, a very young boy, eleven-year-old Bennington Chester, started looking for salvation in drugs. Beginning, like many, with marijuana, he quickly "sat down" and on heavier substances.

"I tried everything, I sat tight on the system, I managed to use an incredibly large number of LSDs and drank ocean of booze by the time I was sixteen.I sat on the system very quickly.On a very ordinary day, with friends I took eight" speed "(about 3 Grams of amphetamine.) We smoked it in bongs, I made a mixture with methamphetamine for myself, then it seemed funny, then we smoked opium to move away, or poured pills, or I got drunk so that I could do it right in my pants. It was nice, to be honest. " Says Chester Bennington. Quotations clearly do not sufficiently describe all the lawlessness that was going on in the life of a young man, but fortunately, the passion for creativity was stronger than destructive dependence.

Gray Daze - the black band changed to gray

In 1993, the voice of Chester Bennington becomes the "face" of the band Gray Daze. And despite the fact that the drugs did not completely disappear from his life, they nevertheless began to recede into the background, giving way to music, composing new songs and honing the very unique manner of singing, which would later become one of the business cards of the branded sound of Linkin Park in Particular and alternative music of the beginning of zero as a whole. In the composition of Gray Daze, Bennington performed and recorded until 1998, after which, due to some discrepancies in his 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 food, twenty-year-old Chester meets his first wife - Samantha. They were married on October 31, 1996,
Being so poor that instead of engagement rings for which there was no money, the couple made to themselves wedding tattoos on nameless fingers.
And, ironically, tattoos proved to be much more durable than marriage, which broke up after eight years. The couple did not even save the birth on April 19, 2002 of a common child, Draven Sebastian Bennington, whose right to upbringing was left for Samantha after the divorce. But, having remained with Chester in friendly relations, the ex-wife does not interfere with his communication with the first-born.

Linkin Park

Despite the first successes in Gray Daze, after parting with the team of twenty-two-year-old Chester, there were no prospects in the field of music. Marriage, work in a company for the maintenance of digital equipment - everything looked like the beginning of a normal, average life. Preparing for his 23rd birthday, Chester did not even guess 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 guitar and Joe Khan behind the DJ console - almost all pieces of the mosaic called Linkin Park have already taken their place. One more element was missing.

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

One of its features as a vocalist can be called a unique symbiosis of the sound of a gentle and sonorous tenor, conveying the subtle facets of the lyrics and tearing at the cries of aggression, which could not be better suited to the music that Mike Shinoda wrote.

The band still played under the name Hybrid Theory, but when the moment of recording the first album came, copyright issues surfaced: in Britain there was already a group called Hybrid. In search of a new name, Chester suggested Lincoln Park, as he went to work past the Lincoln Park. After some thought for the group, the name Linkin Park was fixed, and their first album, called Hybrid Theory, literally beat sales records immediately after the release.

During the first round of the Linkkin Park team, Chester Bennington felt alienated from all the other participants in the project, drank and consumed marijuana, felt lonely, which had a negative effect on his own condition and prospects for development as a musician.

But in fact now he was never alone. Let 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 addictions and moral trauma from the past, melting it all into stunning songs that are not One thousand teenagers gave support.

"Linikin Park", being one of the most successful bands in the world of alternative and rock music, confidently record the album after the album, without trying to squeeze itself into the framework of one particular genre, and continue to keep a high standard 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 to model-photo Talinda, with whom they married on December 31, 2005.

Since then, their family has replenished more than once: March 16, 2008 was the second son of Chester, Tyler Lee. The couple also adopted two children: Jame and Issayu, 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. A family musician takes most of his time when he is not busy with a tour or recording new material with the band.

Dead by Sunrise and Stone Tempel Pilots

In 2006, along with some musicians from other 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 "entertainment" for all its participants.

But harmless entertainment began to bear fruit in the form of a good dose of additional success. October 12, 2009 Dead by Sunrise release the first album Out of Ashes and in their free time from activities in "Linkin Park" and the projects of the other participants are performing.

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