In the end - A tribute to Chester Bennington E-Book

Rosanna Costantino

• Herausgeber: PubMe
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

«It starts with…

A boy born on March 20, 1976, a skinny little boy with his contagious laugh, a boy whose childhood was stolen. Then the boy turned into a man with a great passion for music, a man who made his dream come true, becoming one of the most famous singers of all times, a man who was a wonderful friend, husband, father, a man who, behind that joyful and lighthearted facade, hid demons so wicked and devious you couldn’t imagine.
Chester was all of this.
In this amazing tribute, Rosanna Costantino was able to transmute the emotions and the feelings of every fan in the world into written words, opening her heart. At the same time, she also described in detail the life of this great man, from the day he was born to his tragic death, what his bandmates, his friends, and Linkin Park fans have experienced, and how they were able to hold on and stay strong together.

Chester and Linkin Park are a source of inspiration for all the soldiers, their music saved so many lives, they told us not to give up through their lyrics, they made us feel invincible, they are our heroes and now, with Rosanna’s book, we can have a little piece of Chester to always keep with us.»

Paola Trogu

Leseprobe

COLLANA GLI SCRITTORI DELLA PORTA ACCANTO

ROSANNA COSTANTINO

In the end

A tribute to Chester Bennington

Published by Pubme © – Collection Gli scrittori della porta accanto

First edition 2022

ISBN:

Copyright © 2021 Gli scrittori della porta accanto

Translation by Giuseppe Carrubba (alias Drazen Prunk)

Translation proofreading by Paola Trogu

Chief editor: Davide Dotto

Graphic design: Stefania Bergo

Immagine di copertina: Shutterstock

To stay informed of news from the collection Gli Scrittori Della Porta Accanto, go visit the web site: www.gliscrittoridellaportaaccanto.com

This is an unofficial biography of Chester Bennington and a tribute to his memory.

All lyrics mentioned are property of Warner Records Inc. The songs or poems mentioned are included for purely didactic, critical or debating purpose, as permitted by the Copyright Law of April 22, 1941, no. 633, Art. 70.

All quotations sources are listed in bibliography. Cited lyrics - except for some revisions where it was necessary - are taken from the websites www.linkinpedia.com and www.linkinpark.it.

To Chester Bennington,for everywhispered or screamed poem,for the courage with which he faced his weaknesses and his desire to be a better man.To Mike Shinoda,for showing me how to get outunscathed from the fires of hell.Their talent is my source of inspiration.

Chester Charles Bennington

March 20, 1976 – July 20, 2017

©Tobias Fance, 2020

So much pain

That pure, crystal-clear sea, with its peaceful, relaxing depths, it sparkled of an iridescent blue with subtle silver reflections. All my tired thoughts of a busy day found relief in the placid whispers of the gentle waves.

My senses were softly caressed by that bliss and wonder. I was diving into a heavenly atmosphere, enjoying the benefits.

I looked at my phone for a moment, and I read something that deeply upset me.

When I looked up, the infinite and placid stretch of water suddenly became black and tempestuous, devouring the fiery red sunset. I was caught into an infernal and malicious whirlwind from which it was impossible to escape.

Dizzy and in disbelief, I realized how my perception had changed the surroundings, turning into the worst of tragedies.

I read some news that made my blood run cold and stopped my heart: 'Linkin Park’s singer, Chester Bennington, died by suicide at 41.'

All sorts of thoughts and questions started to crowd my overwhelmed mind. That magnificent voice was really gone? I would never be excited again for a new release. I would never see him perform. Why did he do that? Selfish thoughts from just a fan who lost her hero.

I started thinking back to those days in the early 2000s, when I used to go back and forth between university and work, with the car radio turned on.

Between a track by Nirvana and one by Red Hot Chili Peppers, I enjoyed listening to this new rap-rock electrifying and energetic song. With that scream exploding with the raging line: 'Shut up when I’m talking to you.'

A scratchy and raspy voice that, in a more modern and fresh way, reminded me of my beloved grunge singers. Over time, song after song, I discovered every color range it was made of. A blinding rainbow of emotions, that was almost frightening me, because of its poignant intensity. Chester’s vocals could cuddle you or break you. Sometimes I didn’t have the strength to go deep inside that pain, so candidly displayed. Maybe I felt uncomfortable thinking to violate his intimate sensitivity, and a little scared of falling over the misery of my own soul. It was like a rock siren song you become addicted to, knocking out the listener with its softness and warmth, but also captivating him with its destructive force.

I didn’t know anything about Chester’s private life. I ignored the pieces of the puzzle that could have explained all the interrogatives behind his tragic death. I didn’t know him, he wasn’t my friend or family, he didn’t even know I existed. Yet, I felt connected to the suffering that brought him to the tragic outcome, in the same way I was so connected to his albums over the years.

Each one of them with a different melodic path, capable of bringing together all my heterogeneous music souls.

I was devastated by his painful decision, but not as much as I would have been in the next months.

Since that day everything changed in me.

It was July 20, 2017.

Chester Charles Bennington was born on March 20, 1976, in Phoenix, AZ, land of imposing red rocks with strange shapes, endless stretches of desert and majestic cacti. Those landscapes, in some ways so poetic and evocative of melancholic feelings, probably inspired him since the beginning of his career, already in his teenage years.

His musical calling started when he was a child, when he always used to say to everyone that he was going to become a rock star or a big Broadway actor. Very different careers from the ones of his parents: his mother, Susan Elaine Johnson, was a nurse; his father, Lee Russell, a cop.

He learned his first song at the age of two, the hard rock hit Hot Blooded by Foreigner, a group he started to listen to thanks to his brother, along with Loverboy and Rush. His mother said that he used to play and sing all the parts from the 1980 musical film Popeye all the time. Like every child, he found in the music the right joyful entertainment and recreation.

Two intense brown eyes shining with vibrancy and brilliance. They could eat your soul with that raw childish excitement, charm you with a disarming smile revealing his state of mind, or annihilate you with a perforating honesty that wasn’t afraid to show itself as it was.

When he burst out laughing it was so captivating and contagious, you could feel an explosion of authentic joy, an intense flow of words and gestures. You couldn’t see anything else than a universe full of enthusiasm and positive euphoria.

That impetuous and glowing passion was his essence, his deepest nature.

There was something in him so visceral that could hit you like a storm, leaving you out of breath. His demons, always digging deeper, until they surfaced through his art, as life didn’t allow him to have a happy childhood.

Something unexpected and hideous happened when he was only six, something that started an infernal series of self-destructive coping mechanisms. That child, who was born screaming like every newborn, found out that he could keep doing that for the rest of his days, channeling frustration, loneliness, anger and desperation in a passion that once was joyful.

He didn’t know yet that by showing his wounded and angry soul, trying to appease it and force it to make peace with the world, he would have changed the life of millions of people.

I was there as well, among those millions of people, when I suddenly decided, after three years from his passing, to write down my experience through the pages of his existence, with a peace of mind and thankfulness I’ve never felt before.

There are moments when you can clearly feel those invisible wires that link different aspects of your life. Wires so intersected that can touch other lives, other worlds; so delicate to caress people’s souls with kindness. Sometimes they become abrasive ropes, capable to leave painful and permanent signs. Existence follows imperceptible and subtle trails, adapting to new and different directions.

The top of this wire is linked to the first turning point in Chester’s life.

When he was about seven, a terrible monster stole his childhood, slowly devouring it with blind voracity.

A monster called sexual violence, that naïve and joyful child became the diversion of another boy a little older than him. For about six long years that boy forced him into things for which he felt disgusted and ashamed. Unconsciously and unwittingly he thought it was his fault, like it often happens with victims of abuse and violence.

"I was too afraid to say anything. I didn’t want people to think I was gay or that I was lying. It was a horrible experience,"1 he said later on an interview.

Little Chester, who someday would have become one of the greatest rock stars of modern times, couldn’t count on family. His parents divorced when he was eleven, leaving him on his own, causing a crack on his already compromised self-confidence.

Growing up with that loneliness was terrifying. His legal custody had been entrusted to his father, who, for an ironic twist of fate, as a cop had to deal with sexual abuses on minors.

Busy with his exhausting job, he couldn’t take care of his son as he should have, so he didn’t notice the episodes of violence. A young fragile mind, that needed support and with an agonizing secret on his heart, lived intensely the sense of abandonment, to the point of even hating his own brothers and sisters: "The only thing I wanted to do was kill everybody and run away."2

Luckily, he didn’t do it. He took a journal and wrote down thoughts, frustration and fears. He confessed to a piece of paper everything that none no one in his family wanted to hear. He told about the sky collapsing on his head, about his screams full of fear tragically unheard.

Pictures, poems, pages of songs, with verses and choruses, all aimed at making a sort of sense out of his pain. Years later, some of those words turned into the song Sometimes3:

Sometimes, things just seem to fall apart

When you least expect them to

Sometimes you want to pack up and leave behind

All of them and all their smiles

I don’t know, what to think anymore

Maybe things will get better

Maybe things will look brighter

Maybe, maybe, maybe

Sometimes, people surprise you

And people surprise me

But I guess that’s the price we pay

For wanting so badly

I don’t know, what to think anymore

Maybe things will get better

Maybe things will look brighter

Maybe, maybe, maybe

The only thing that made that situation tolerable was the music by Depeche Mode, Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana, The Cure, The Misfits, Fugazi, Minor Threat, The Smiths, Skinny Puppy, Nitzer Ebb, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, Temple Of The Dog, Ministry, Machines Of Loving Grace, Jane’s Addiction, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Metallica, Refused, Descendents and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

As a young boy, the first shows he went to were those by bands like Front 242 and Material Issue, whose singers had peculiar voices that inspired him since the moment he grabbed a microphone in his hands for the very first time.

In 2014 he said: "I used to have dreams when I was in fourth grade about Depeche Mode landing a jet in my schoolyard and coming out and announcing to the school that I was going to be the fifth member."4

Music was there, but the lonely teenage years were still hard. "I was thirteen years old when I first heard Break On Through. I had no idea who The Doors were or how much their music would have an impact on me. I was an awkward, nerdy, four-eyed funny guy in theater class beginning my completely unsuccessful high school career. Most of my energy was poured into acting and hanging out with the rest of the theater geeks. Music was just starting to become the single most important part of my life."5

Companies that were harmful to his body and mind became part of his life: drugs and alcohol. Like millions of teenagers from the 90s, he fooled himself thinking that he could handle his feelings by numbing his soul and senses with drugs.

He lost all the motivation and ended up looking like a homeless person, just skin and bones, the image of misery. He only had the company of his words:

Rain come my way, mold my head like a ball of clay

Softly wither into my grave, never to see the sun again

Words hard like stones, that turned into the track Hole6.

His only real friends were outsiders and troubled people like him.

It was 1992 when an afternoon with friends dominated by drugs and alcohol was interrupted by members of the Mexican Mafia, that wanted to rob them.

In front of the threatening guns pointed at him, for the first time Chester realized the pettiness of his habits and decided to stop. He used to overdo until losing control completely.

He was aware how much degrading that kind of life was, with bullies at school and bad companies: "This isn’t cool. I’ve got to change my ways, I’ve got to stop the drugs. I’ve got to change my life."7

His addictions became like an invisible and disgraceful prison, with no reduced sentence:

Time, why must it fly so slowWaiting is something that’s easy for youPull the plug, send it down the drainPain is easy to get used to

What's in me is in youWhat's got me has got youAnd everything told must come truePretending to be real, forgetting who you are

Sin is always at my doorSlice the vein, blood spilled on the floorLight shining in my eyesDeath greets me with a smile

PainSo much pain

Scary and heavy words from In Time8, whose lyrics described what was devouring him day after day: a sense of inadequacy, distress, the desire to blur those terrible memories made of violence and abandonment. He knew that he needed an incredible strength of mind to leave that cage, but he was too weak and tired. At the age of seventeen he returned to live with his mother. She was so shocked by his pale and skinny appearance that she compared him to an Auschwitz deportee and locked him in the house to keep him away from trouble. "I'd become a person that wasn’t me. This is me. I’m a nice, friendly guy that was always stuck behind this monster that was just really a hurt kid."9

"I can sing"

Amid difficulties, that little boy with thick glasses, curly hair, and the nerdy look, finally got to high school. Back then, he was living with his mother. He was often forced to move from one city to another in Arizona: Scottsdale, Tolleson, Tempe, and, consequently, he attended different schools. He went to Centennial High School and Greenway High School, where he gave voice to his passions.

Like all lefties he was eclectic and excelled both in arts and athletics. He proved his talent running several track and field competitions. He was able to run ten kilometers with a remarkable gap on the other participants.

He acted in a musical theater troupe, You Are The Child. This experience gave him the opportunity to tour throughout the State and to perform for a very wide audience: "I got into the theater, musical theater in school. [...] I knew I could sing. I didn’t realize I could sing very well, but I knew I could sing pretty good. [...] I was always doing character roles and a funny voices and stuff.10 I was actually very involved in theater before I got bit by the lead singer bug. And that was what I actually thought I was going to be doing professionally. Even with music, I thought theater was going to be something I would get into throughout my life. I love acting. It feels like something I kind of do second nature anyway. I kind of pretend to be a lot of things when I’m up on stage."11

His true passion was singing. To find his own personal style, he studied a way to train his voice. Once he admitted he probably did it the wrong way, until his throat was sore, so he learned to use his diaphragm.

He was trying to imitate Al Jourgensen’s metal voice, Ministry's singer, without the help of any effect. His father asked him how he could get that raucous sound and he said that he practiced a lot.

It was a gift and a blessing. Chester’s voice had a great variety of nuances: from the sweet and melodic vocals, able to cuddle and caress the soul of the listener, to the darker sounds of his screams, somehow catchy, and all the distinctive rock, metal, and grunge singing styles. A voice capable of changing register quickly: from the scratchy and guttural sounds that express pain, anger, and despair, to clean and limpid sounds that reflect melancholy, torment and kindness. Due to this almost unique characteristic, fans used to say about him: 'He screams like a devil and sings like an angel.'

In high school he competed in a singing contest where he won by singing an acapella version of Depeche Mode's A Question Of Lust. One night at a party, hanging out with older guys, he met Jason, a talented guitarist who used to play The Doors songs for his friends. Seeing how much interested Chester was, he told him: "Man, I wish I knew someone who could sing." Chester replied: "I can sing. I mean, I think I’m pretty good." So, Jason said: "Well, that would be awesome - if we only had a mike!"

They worked out a plan to steal one from the local church. "I call it 'divine intervention'. I didn’t call it theft. 'Divine intervention'. Cause it was really easy to break into that church for some reason," Chester said ironically.

"When I had finally retrieved the mike and cable, we ran back to his house and played every Doors song he knew."12

They started their small sessions three times a week, working their way up from the school campus. They started consuming acid, speed, hallucinogens, weed, and alcohol, obsessed by The Doors music, mystery, magic, and chaos. They fantasized about how cool it would have been to live their lives beyond the limits and they believed that this lifestyle could make them similar to their heroes. They became very popular at parties: "We were usually so fucked up that everything sounded amazing. These performances started to get people talking about me on the local music scene."13

It didn’t take long until he was noticed by other musicians who were looking for a singer for a more serious project.

One day, Jason heard that a drummer named Sean Dowdell was looking for a singer for Sean Dowdell And His Friends?, a band he founded with his manager Bob Rogers, a local band director from Phoenix. They planned an audition at Greenway High School, where Chester later graduated, in 1995.

At the audition, he performed Alive by Pearl Jam. Those in attendance were speechless after hearing that amazing performance. They were so impressed by his extraordinary singing abilities that they recruited him that same day.

With Chester on the mic, Jason Cekoric on bass, and Chris Goad on guitar, the band was complete. But there was an obstacle to overcome: to get permission from Chester's father, a tough policeman, who surely would have had doubts about having his son in a group of rockers.

It was the early 90s, when popular culture was all about the grunge scene: ripped jeans, long hair, bulky sweaters, and a scruffy look. Chester really wanted to be a singer and, after being heavily bullied at school, (a further blow to his already low self-esteem), he had finally found friends who supported him.

Sean Dowdell truly wanted to have that kid in his band. So, he agreed to talk to Chester’s father about it, even though he had some concern due to his own rocker look. Additionally, when he went to Chester's house, he was intimidated by the police uniform. His father approved, but in return he asked Chester to commit to study, and so he did. Chester would have done anything to make his dream come true.

Around 1991-1992, they put the band together and recorded a cassette tape with three demos and they sent it around. They wrote about ten songs and learned a few covers by the Ramones, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Candlebox, Alice In Chains, and Guns N' Roses, playing about seventy shows around the Phoenix area.

Their style was inspired by the grunge and alternative rock music, which was dominant in the 90s, characterized by dark lyrics, heavy guitars, and a raw sound. They played their first show when Chester was just fourteen years old, at a fraternity party of the Arizona State University. They played like fifty covers in three hours, including Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, in a context of disarray, surrounded by drunk and uninhibited people.

This scenario caused unsolved issues to resurface. Chester argued with his agent Rob Rogers and was kicked out from the band that, after a while, broke up. He had some troubles at school because of drugs and his father kept him away from everything for a long time.

Meanwhile, Sean formed a new band with bassist Jonathan Krause and guitarist Steve Mitchell, but still needed a proper singer.

It was actually Steve who, listening to the recordings of Sean’s old band, suggested to recruit Chester. He immediately accepted. The former name of the band was Lovelies Bleeding, later changed into Gray Daze.

Their first show took place on January 22, 1994, at Thunder & Lightning Bar & Grill in Scottsdale, Arizona, followed by several shows at the Electric Ballroom, the Mason Jar, and Big Fish Pub in Tempe, the Spaghetti Factory in Phoenix and more. Later, they went to record a professional demo at the Conservatory of Recordings Arts and Sciences, a school of audio engineering and music production which had its main location in Tempe. During that time, Chester wrote What’s In The Eye? with Steve Mitchell, who, after five months, was fired due to his short-tempered and unstable behavior. He was replaced by Jason Barnes, and the spelling of the band’s name was changed into Grey Daze.

With this lineup, the band worked in 1994 on their debut album Wake Me, with a producer who invested ten thousand dollars into this project, allowing them to press and share copies of the record and get radio airplays.

When Chester wrote those hopeless and dark lyrics, everyone thought it was related to the emotional wave typical of the 90s grunge movement. No one could ever imagine that those anguished words actually came from a deadly wounded soul, that Chester, hid behind that radiant and funny facade. In the track list of the album, we find two songs we mentioned before: Sometimes and Hole.

On Starting To Fly14, Chester expressed his hunger for revival and the desire to escape from that life:

I met a poet tonight behind the masses

I sang a song about my many true addictions

I saw myself in a hole, down below

I’ve seen the ocean and I’ve seen the sky

I’ve got my wings and I’m starting to fly

Only a few trusted friends knew about the sexual and psychological violence suffered in his youth. He never revealed the name of his abuser, and he also forgave him, after discovering that he had suffered the same kind of harassment as well. His bandmates loved the compassion he had towards others, but sadly that gift didn’t work when it came to himself.

On Spin15 he sang:

I was so frustrated, man

That I was all confused, man

And that I was disillusioned

And sick of your friends

Run, don’t walk my way

Don’t look my way

Cause I don’t care

While the lyrics from the homonymous track Wake Me say:

If I should fall to stormy weather

Wake me, wake me

Too scared to lose the one I tried so hard for

Too scared to lose the one I never had16

Inspiration often came at the most unexpected moments, like it happened for Morei Sky17, written in the back of a truck on a beach in Rocky Point, Mexico. Sitting there, while admiring a beautiful purple sunset that reminded them a moiré pattern, Chester and Sean wrote these words:

I’ve lived through things I cannot say

Back then we dreamt of yesterday

It seemed as if the only way

And now we look for hope and pray

If I had a second chance, I'd make amends

Only to find myself losing in the end

The first known studio version of Morei Sky was recorded sometime in June 1994 as part of a 6-track demo done at Teething Studios, Scott Crowley’s apartment studio.

On October 6, 1994, the very first day of working on Wake Me, the album's producer David Knauer recorded the band playing live in his studio to see what they had in store for their debut album. The performance was recorded straight to DAT tape, and they had Chester say the name of every song, so that was documented on tape as well. Morei Sky was included in the album.

In What’s In The Eye?18 Chester talked about the loss of a friend, died in a car accident. His intense voice sounds like a cry, you can feel all the pain on his heartbreaking vocals.

What's in the eye that I cannot catch?

Is it me? I want to know

Why it’s so hard to let go?

Don’t go too fast, my friend

Or you’ll lose control

After the release of the album in 1995, bassist Jonathan Krause decided to quit the band and he was replaced by Mace Beyers, product manager at the Electric Ballroom. Jason Barnes left the band as well, with guitarist Bobby Benish taking his place, that’s how the final and best-known lineup of Grey Daze was born.

On January 28, 1996, Chester met Samantha Marie Olit at Club Rio in Tempe, where he was playing with the band. They got married on Halloween of the same year. He was so poor that he couldn’t afford the wedding rings, so they had them tattooed. Chester lived his life trying to make a living the best he could. The only means of transport he could afford was his skateboard, and he also needed to take care of his first son Jaime, born from the relationship with Elka Brand on May 12, 1996.

He did menial jobs: at the Bean Tree coffee house, sweeping leaves for just four bucks an hour, and making sandwiches at Burger King.

Grey Daze continued performing in several local events, gaining a moderate success and they had also started writing a new album, that was released in 1997, …No Sun Today. The previously mentioned In Time was included in the track list, along with tracks like B12 and Anything, Anything, a cover of a 1985 song by Dramarama. Both received radio airplay and became local hit songs.

Chester was giving all of himself. He was ready to do whatever it costs in order to break into the music industry, and, according to Sean, he would even sleep on the floor or in a dumpster. When he was on stage his energy was overwhelming. He turned into someone else. He wasn’t that shy nerdy kid with glasses but a crowd pleaser, he owned the stage with his distinctive charisma and magnetism.

In …No Sun Today, some songs are less personal and more about social issues. B12 is a political critique, a cry against a sick system that thinks we’re stupid; Drag19 is about the desire for a personal redemption:

Please treat me like I am a fallen angel

Suppress me, tell me lies

Life is much too short to be intoxicated

Life is much too short to be a drag

In a short time, Grey Daze started supporting more established bands like Bush and Suicidal Tendencies. They reached high places in the charts, sold out shows with thousands of people. Chester was following his dream, and he was restless. He gave is best on stage, both physically and emotionally, but he always had time for the fans, signing autographs after the shows. He couldn’t accept a failure, he dedicated hours to be in his best shape.

But sometimes life takes an unexpected turn, and something in Grey Daze broke. The members used to argue, the label wasn’t interested in a third album, there were no prospects for personal growth. Chester felt sidelined because of his age, despite his efforts. Moreover, there were Mace’s struggles with addiction and Sean’s ego, that contributed to leave a lot of unresolved issues.

The climax was reached during a show. A violent argument before going on stage angered Chester, who insulted Mace who was already arguing with Sean, it was everyone against everyone. That was the night Grey Daze disbanded. They stopped hanging out and talking for years, until Chester reached out to Sean saying, "I miss you, man."20

The year after, he contacted him again with the intention of playing some shows in support of Bobby Benish, who, after a car accident, discovered he had a brain cancer. The project was canceled due to Chester being busy recording Meteora, Linkin Park’s second album. He said: "It’s very unfortunate that we are having to postpone this concert, but our management has pulled everyone back from vacations and various activities in order to meet our recording obligations. However, I will continue to help Bobby and his family at this very difficult time."21

Sadly, Bobby passed away on September 28, 2004.

On June 26, 2017, Grey Daze announced a reunion show for September 23rd of the same year, at the Marquee Theatre, in Tempe, Arizona. It would have been a sort of double celebration, the Club Tattoo’s 22nd anniversary and the band’s very first show in around 20 years. The band announced the lineup would include Chester Bennington, Sean Dowdell, Mace Beyers, Jason Barnes, and Cristin Davis as additional guitarist, and there was also the plan of re-record the old material. After Chester’s tragic death, the event was canceled, but months later, they decided to continue the idea of re-recording their original music.

The result was Amends, released on June 26, 2020, a remix album where they included Chester’s original vocals from the 90’s over newly recorded instrumentals, written with different collaborators.

In some cases, they used alternative vocals that didn’t make the cut at the time. One of the producers, Esjay Jones, recorded some backing vocals, along with the singer Laura Pergolizzi, (known as LP), Carah Faye, and Jaime Bennington, Chester’s son, who also directed Soul Song’s music video. Several musicians joined the project: Chris Traynor (Bush), Brian 'Head' Welch and James 'Munky' Shaffer (Korn), Marc Curiel (P.O.D.), Ryan Shuck (Julien-K), and Page Hamilton (Helmet). The track list is a selection of songs from both their original albums: Sickness, Sometimes, What’s In The Eye, The Syndrome (previously known as The Down Syndrome), In Time, Just Like Heroin, B12, Soul Song, Morei Sky, She Shines, and Shouting Out.

The album is a mix of emotions that shows Chester’s young, painful voice in a new context. The modern arrangements and the high sound quality, along with the songs being available on every music streaming platform for the first time, allowed everyone to discover this part of Chester’s career, that only his hardcore fans knew.

Those were the years when Chester started to become the rock star he always wanted to be. According to his father, Chester was so smart and curious, had a photographic memory and could have done everything in his life.22

When he was asked about his first memory, he talked about when he was 18 months old and went to Las Vegas with his parents even managing to describe every place he saw. Then he realized his first memory was so much further in time.

Imagining a life where he didn’t become a rock star, he said: "I’d probably be in school right now, working on physics and I’d probably end up being a teacher. I always thought that teaching would be something I’d like to do, because I really love kids and it’d be cool to make a difference in some little person’s life. Plus, you get three months off in the summertime [laughs]."23

But life had other plans for him. He was 22 years old, already married and with a job in a digital service company. The threads of destiny came together, pointing towards an unexpected direction: California.

From Xero to hero

In the suburb of Agoura Hills, in Los Angeles County, there was a teenager sitting in his room. With the few means at his disposal, he used to mix different types of music, so inspired by the musical melding he witnessed at his first show, when he saw Anthrax and Public Enemy together in 1991.

That promising kid, so passionate about music, was Michael Kenji Shinoda, mostly known as Mike. His life, during his early years, underwent a significant change, but unlike Chester’s, it was a positive one. Mike had a stable family who supported and encouraged him to express his potentialities.

His first instrument was an upright piano: his mother made him start taking piano lessons when he was about 6 years old. He soon began to perform at piano recitals, and later he started singing at a youth theater group with his friends.

With the first song he wrote, when he was around 11 years old, he won a music contest ran by his teacher, for a 15 dollars prize. He was into Dungeons & Dragons, so the track was inspired by videogames and medieval themed movies. He was obsessed with Dr. Dre, so he asked if he could get a keyboard to try to reproduce the same sounds of the rapper’s songs. At about 13 he was more into hip-hop, jazz, and blues, unfortunately his teacher Eileen wasn’t too familiar with that genre, so Mike decided to withdraw the piano lessons.

He began to build his library of sounds at 16, and, after buying a keyboard and a sampler (with the help of Styles Of Beyond’s producer Vin Skully), he started creating music. He learned to create mashups, merging all his different musical influences: Rage Against The Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, The Jackson 5, Wu-Tang Clan, Nine Inch Nails, Public Enemy, Depeche Mode, and more. He eventually started rapping over his beats, mostly creating funny songs.

He was friend with Bradford Phillip Delson. Driven by his music passion, even Brad started taking lessons when he was very young, playing the trumpet in his elementary school orchestra, and, when he was around 12, the guitar. He was obsessed with Metallica, playing their songs all the time, and around five years later he started teaching and playing with friends in local bands.

With his first band, The Pricks, he used to play at frat parties and friend’s backyards. One of the other members was Mark Wakefield, his neighbor. Their biggest show took place in 1995, when they opened for Hoobastank’s very first show, there were about 150 people.

Later the bass player of Karma introduced Mike and Brad to the young Robert Gregory Bourdon. At first the members of Karma wanted Rob in their band, but then they decided otherwise.

At the age of 8 or 9, Rob and his brother used to play Aerosmith and Faith No More on their parents’ couch with a pair of drumsticks. When his brother got a drum kit, Rob started playing piano. When he was 12, his mom brought him to an Aerosmith show and she introduced him to their drummer Joey Kramer. That meeting inspired him so much that he started taking full time drums lessons, and he later joined a band called No Clue. The year after that, they switched to the name Physical Evidence playing covers of Nirvana, Bad Religion, and Suicidal Tendencies.

Brad, Mark, Rob and Karma’s bass player started a new band called Relative Degree. Their goal was to play just once at Roxy Theatre, a popular club in Sunset Blvd. in West Hollywood, California. They wrote 12 songs and rehearsed for a year before playing at the show, which finally took place on May 17, 1996. Brad said: "People laugh at me when I say this, but my goal was - as a musician - to play a show at our local club, the Roxy, in L.A. in high school for my friends. I did it. Now I say this, and it may sound like bull**it, everything that’s happened from that point on is all gravy. We’re really proud of the music we’ve made, and for everyone that gets to hear it, that’s more love for us. We’re totally happy."24

Mike used to attend their sessions, just to watch Rob playing. Even if he didn’t join the band, he would occasionally put samples in their songs. He developed a strong friendship with Brad. Mark and Mike were friends since they were 12, they attended the same high school, where they were known as the guys who made funny songs, moreover they had the same taste in music. Mark would introduce Mike to more guitar-based music like Rage Against The Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam, while Mike would suggest him more hip-hop artists, like Wu-Tang Clan, Tupac, Biggie Small, and Mobb Deep.

In the winter of 1995/1996, Mike and Mark started a new band called Xero (pronounced 'zero'), with the intent of creating music that merged both their rock and hip-hop influences.

Mike knew that he couldn’t do all by himself: "I had these great melodies in my head, and I couldn’t get them across. I wanted to find someone who could do them justice."25 They recorded a demo containing 4 songs, with the help of Brad who played some guitar parts. The artwork was a Xerox photo of what appeared to be a mountain and in the inside there were a faded picture of the four band members and a close-up picture of Mike. The track list featured Fuse, an untitled track, Stick And Move, and Reading My Eyes. They sent it to an A&R representative from an indie label/publishing company and got a phone call from Paul Pontius, the representative of Immortal Records. He was so impressed by the professional sound of a demo recorded in Mike’s bedroom that he encouraged them to put a band together and start playing shows. They made a new demo where they replaced the second track, the band’s least favorite, with Rhinestone. Their first goal was to play at the Whisky A Go Go, and the demo was passed out to friends and new fans, and sent out to record companies, to try to get signed. Mike confirmed that they actually sent demos to Paul Pontius, but he wasn’t interested anymore.

Mike didn’t forget about Rob, who had a few rough months after Relative Degree broke up, struggling with drugs and alcohol, and isolating himself from everyone. He eventually started playing drums again towards the end of high school, when he got a call from Mike who asked him if he wanted to listen the songs he had written with Mark and Brad.

During his first year of college, studying communications at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Brad attended a class by Jeff Blue, who had just signed Korn and Limp Bizkit. He was looking for an intern, and Brad volunteered. One day, Brad was in Jeff’s office and, when he saw a plaque of Korn and a poster of Limp Bizkit, he stated that someday he would have been in an even cooler band. That attitude was something that impressed Jeff, who instantaneously liked Brad and his strong personality.

Brad’s roommate was David Michael Farrell, and they used to play small jazz events together. David wanted to play cello like his brother when he was young, but it was too big for him and so he started playing violin instead. He had a classical training for eight years, learning a bit of cello and viola, while his mother showed him the basics on a guitar. When he joined his first band, Tasty Snax, he switched to the bass, because there were already too many guitarists in the band. During that time, he got the famous nickname 'Phoenix', a joke that came from the Ben Stiller movie Mystery Men. Dave was excited and intrigued by what Brad was doing with Xero, so, when he got the chance, he joined that band.

But they were still missing an important member. They had always wanted a DJ in order to perform live, someone who could handle more than just scratches. Luckily, Mike met Joseph Hahn when both were studying illustration at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

Joe was more than just a DJ. Like Mike and Dave, he also had classical training. He had played a bit of violin and guitar, before starting to get serious with DJ-ing. He worked as a special effects designer/illustrator, dealing primarily with character design and storyboarding for television and movies such as Phantoms, Virus, Sphere, X-Files, Dune, The Outer Limits, and Species. He started off with drum machines and turntables, turning later to computers.

The lineup was complete and their first show as a band took place on November 14, 1997, at the Whisky A Go Go, playing before SX-10 and System Of A Down. They were sure they would receive a big record deal, but that didn’t happen. The club was packed of A&R scouts from several labels, but they all fled by the third song. Jeff Blue said: "The place was empty. You could hear crickets."26

He had seen the band’s potential, even if they were pretty far from actually 'making it', so he offered them a cheaper deal with a little financial support from Zomba Music Group. The original deal was only $4,000 up front, $1,000 as demo recording budget, $10,000 if they got signed to a major label, and $20,000 if they ended up releasing an album. They didn’t accept it right away, Brad tried to get a better deal somewhere else. The band also had to face the struggle between Mike and Mark, over deciding who had to be the leader of the band, another issue was that some of the members felt uncomfortable with Mike wanting to produce music for people outside the band. They eventually signed, and that allowed them to buy new instruments and equipment to improve even more their live performances. Papa Roach were also trying to get a deal by Jeff Blue, but he said he had already signed Xero. Jeff played some Xero demos for Papa Roach, who actually admitted that Mike’s band was one level up. They started writing a lot of songs and doing less performances. They used to spend weeks working on music and playing just one or two shows in a month, preferring to play for their closest friends. It was during one of those show parties that Mark introduced Mike to his friend Anna Hillinger, Mike’s future wife. She said: "It was at a party at Brad and Phoenix’s apartment after a Xero show that my friend from Long Beach State, Mark Wakefield, introduced me to the rapper in his band. That was over fifteen years ago. With passing time comes a loss of memory. I don’t remember if the show was at the Whiskey or the Roxy. I don’t remember what date it was (I know it was in February of 1998). But I do remember Mike Shinoda handing me this tape and leading me around the party by the hand, as if we had been dating for months instead of just meeting that evening."27

Xero’s first demo recording session after signing the deal was on August 25, 1998, at Paramount Recording Studios. They played several shows to half-empty venues, with sets of six or eight songs, 25-30 minutes long. The public in attendance was there just to support friends.

At some point in 1998, due to other bands called Xero, they changed the name to Xero 818, with 818 being one of the area codes for the San Fernando Valley area, which is where the band is from.

On December 10th they played another unsuccessful showcase at the Whisky A Go Go, in front of over thirty huge industry scouts. The band was late, they stopped and restarted the first song to let Brad tune his guitar, Mark was out of key. The place emptied really quickly. They received seven rejections in the following 36 hours. After an emergency meeting, they decided to fire Mark. He got mad at first, but shortly admitted it was the right decision. After he left Xero, he went to work for System Of A Down, starting a good managerial career.

Dave would also leave Xero soon, being engaged with Tasty Snax, his friends since high school. After the release of their debut album, Run Joseph Run, in 1998, Dave went on tour with them.

It was time for Xero to start auditioning a new singer.

The missing piece

March 18, 1999, it was a Thursday. Jeff Blue was at SXSW28, in Austin, Texas, where he was drinking at a bar with Scott Harrington and David Christensen, friend of Danny Hayes (who previously had been hired to represent Xero, when they signed the deal).

They ordered a round of Grey Goose, a sign of fate, so Scott had the perfect chance to mention Grey Daze and Chester, proposing him as the new member for Xero. Jeff immediately wanted to make the call, while Scott wanted to go back to Los Angeles first. So, Jeff asked to the waitress if Scott should have made the call, she said yes and so it was.

Chester previously had auditioned for a band called Kongo Shock, but it didn’t work. His connection with music weakened, like a love story that was ending: "Music was a girlfriend that I had broken up with."29

He was so disappointed and afraid of wasting time and making mistakes. He was already married, and he had an honest job.

His wife Samantha was the one who took Scott’s call, telling him that they were busy with the arrangements for Chester’s birthday party, that would take place two days later. However, Chester decided to give it a chance.

They sent two tapes, one with vocals, the other one with the instrumental tracks, asking Chester to give his own interpretations to the songs. The songs were Rhinestone (Forgotten demo), Pictureboard, (a holy grail for every Linkin Park fan, that remained unreleased until the 20th Anniversary Edition of Hybrid Theory, (published on October 9, 2020), and Esaul (A Place For My Head demo).

Firstly, he heard just the instrumental tracks and he was so impressed by the innovative and explosive sound, he had never heard something like that. When he listened to the side with vocals, Mike’s rapping struck him. He was so motivated into recording his vocal parts and improving the choruses. He said to himself: "I can do this.30 Something told me that this was the golden ticket to get inside Willy Wonka's chocolate factory!"31

He got some help from the band Size 5, which was formed by John and Jay Kereny from Lemon Krayola, Bart Applewhite from Kongo Shock, and Chuck Moore. They did a pre-production on March 19, 1999, the performance was videotaped by Samantha and produced by Jay Kereny. The following day, Chester left his own birthday party saying, "Have a good time at the party!"32 and called Mike Jones, who had worked on engineering and production of Grey Daze’s album ...No Sun Today, asking him for permission to use his studio. Chester couldn’t afford it, since he charged a hundred dollars an hour, but he called his partner Ghery Fimbres who met Chester later in the evening. After three hours spent at the Conservatory Of Recording Arts & Sciences, the final audition tape was committed to DAT and burned in a CD.

Chester went home and called Jeff Blue on a Sunday: "Hey, you guys sent me, I’m Chester, you sent me a demo and I’m finished with it."

Jeff couldn’t believe that guy was already done with the recording: "What do you mean you’re finished with it? I sent that thing two days ago!"