ganisation for sober musicians. “He was making sure that every-
body got to meet the dog at the door,” he says. “It was so endear-
ing and so Chester.”
On Linkin Park’s European tour in June and July, Benning-
tonseemedtobeintopform.“Wesawthemostaliveandpresent
Chesterofmy15-and-a-half-yearhistorywiththeband,”saysJim
Digby, the group’s director of touring. “He was arguably in the best
physical condition of his life.”
Afewdaysbeforehisdeath,Benningtonhadbeentextingwith
Robert DeLeo, his bandmate in Stone Temple Pilots (Benning-
tonfrontedthebandfrom2013to2015afterScottWeilandleft
thegroup).Hismessageswere“loving,positive,looking-forward-
to-the-future, growing-old kinds of things”, DeLeo recalls. And
thedaybeforehedied,Benningtone-mailedformerGunsN’Roses
drummer Matt Sorum, saying he’d
like to perform again with their all-
star covers band, Kings of Chaos.
ButsomeofBennington’sfriends
nowfeeltheyoverlookedsignsthat
thesinger’sdarkside–whichhe
called his “dark passenger”, a ref-
erence to the force that motivat-
ed the serial-killer protagonist on
TV’sDexter–hadbeencreeping
back into his life. Bennington had
gonetorehabaround2006and
appeared to be sober in the years
after.Butfriendssayhesuffereda
three-day relapse last August, dur-
ingwhichheblackedoutfromal-
cohol, and had been drinking as re-
cently as October.
Amonthbeforehisdeath,Ben-
nington told longtime friend Ryan
Shuck, who played guitar in Ben-
nington’ssideprojectDeadbySun-
rise,thathewassixmonthssober.
ButBenningtonalsosentShuck,
whohadhisownstruggleswithal-
coholism,sometextmessagesthat
seemed portentous in hindsight:
“He was describing an hour-by-
hour battle with addiction. When
Ilookatitnow,it’shorrifying.He
wastellingme,downtothedetail,
what he would do in the first hour
he wanted to drink: ‘I basically just
take it hour-by-hour every day.’”
Bennington talked about his is-
suesinaninterviewinFebruarywithMusicChoice.“Ihaveahard
time with life,” he said while describing the meaning behind the
hit“Heavy”.“Evenwhenit’sgood,Ijustamuncomfortableallthe
time.... The opening line, ‘I don’t like my mind right now’ – like,
that is me 24 hours a day. And if I get stuck in here, like, I just find
life really hard. It doesn’t have to be.”
ShuckbelievesBennington“hadacoupleofdrinks”justbefore
hisdeath.“Wedon’tknowhowmuch,butitdoesn’ttakemuch
when you’re that advanced an alcoholic and an addict and you’re
battling to the extent he described to me. You don’t need much to
lose your mind for a minute.”
Shuck and Dowdell downplay speculation that Cornell’s death
inspired Bennington’s. While there are similarities – both artists
hangedthemselves,andBenningtondidsoonwhatwouldhave
beenCornell’s53rdbirthday–theybelieveitwasmostlyacoin-
cidence.“Itcouldbeapartofit,butit’sasmallpartofit,”Shuck
says.“Ithinkthatit’sjustanotherhorribleeventthatgetsputin
yoursubconscious.It’skindling,butthefirewasalreadyburning.”Bennington’s troubles go back to a nightmarish childhood. He
wasbornonMarch20th,1976,inPhoenix,theyoungestoffour
children.Hismother,Susan,wasanurse;hisfather,Lee,wasa
police detective who worked in the special-victims unit investi-
gating child-sex crimes. They divorced when Chester was 11, and,
feeling abandoned by his mother, he lived with his dad, whom he
later said was not “emotionally stable” at the time.
From the time Chester was seven or eight until he was 13, he was
sexually abused by an older male friend. “I was getting beaten up
andbeingforcedtodothingsIdidn’twanttodo,”heoncesaid.“It
destroyed my self-confidence.”
The experience led Bennington to explore drugs and alco-
hol. By his teens, he had used opium, amphetamines, marijua-
naandcocaine.“I’ddrinksomuchthatI’dshitmypants,”heonce
said.Benningtonclaimedtohave
kicked substance abuse the first
timein1992,whenalocalgang
burst into a place where he was
gettinghighwithhisfriendsand
beat and robbed them.
Bennington poured his expe-
riences into Linkin Park’s songs,
whichmixedhissoul-baring
screams with Mike Shinoda’s rap-
ping and the band’s lumbering riffs
for a sound that dominated the
popchartsformuchofthe2000s.
“Hehadadistinctvoice,atonce
delicate and ferocious,” says actor
and30SecondstoMarsfrontman
JaredLeto,whometBennington
onthefestivalcircuitin
the2000s.“It’stheangel
and the demon, sitting on
both shoulders. You could
feel the tension between
the two when he sang, and
Ithinkthereasonsomany
people connected to his
musicwasbecauseofthat
balance he achieved.”
Bennington’s songs,
many co-written with Shi-
noda, became anthems for
young people struggling
with some of the same
emotional issues. “‘Crawl-
ing’, for example, is prob-
ably the most literal song
lyricallyI’deverwrittenforLinkinPark,”Benningtonsaidofthe
single, off the band’s megaselling 2000 debut,Hybrid Theory.
“That’saboutfeelinglikeIhadnocontrolovermyselfintermsof
drugs and alcohol.”
Those who knew him say Bennington didn’t let his struggles de-
fine his personality. He could be funny in a juvenile way one min-
ute(hewasafanofscatologicalhumour)anddeeplysensitivethe
next: Shuck recalls Bennington kicking himself endlessly after
making a joke about lung cancer onstage.
BenningtonwouldsometimestellbandsthatopenedforLinkin
Park,“Nexttimewemightbeopeningforyouguys.”Sorumremem-
bershowhe’daskedtheKingsofChaosbandmemberstodoagig
shortly before Christmas. Bennington and DeLeo were laid over
for 12 hours in Chicago, and the drummer felt horrible for keeping
themfromhomeduringtheholidayseason.“Ie-mailedthoseguys
andsaid,‘Iapologise.I’msosorry.Thankyousomuchforgoing
the distance’,” Sorum says. “And typical Chester style, he e-mailed
back:‘Anytime,bro.’Therewasnodrama.Nothing.”October, 2017 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 29GETTY IMAGES
In the Beginning
Above: Bennington and
Mike Shinoda, 2001. Right:
With his family, 2009. “We
had a fairy-tale life, and it
has turned into some sick
Shakespearean tragedy,”
his wife, Talinda, said in a
statement. “Now he is
pain-free singing his songs
in all of our hearts.”[Cont. on 30]