Biography of Chester

Born in Phoenix, Arizona into less-than-ideal circumstances, Chester Bennington's life followed a steady decline into confusion and misery throughout his childhood. At age 11 he made the jarring discovery that his parents and siblings were not in fact his blood relatives; this difficult reality was to be compounded over the next seven years by peer ridicule, sexual abuse and the untimely deaths of several of his friends. Like many who have had to deal
with such issues, he turned to drugs and alchohol as a means of coping, becoming addicted to cocaine by the age of 18. An escape from this doomed course was finally made in 1996, when, with the help of a supportive partner (whom he married that same year), Bennington managed to overcome his chemical dependencies and began to turn his longtime musical ambitions into a working concern. Over the next two years his first band, Grey Daze, established a sizable local following around the Phoenix area, but eventually Bennington made the decision to move on to other projects.

In 1997 Bennington was informed by his brother that the group Xero were in need of a singer; introductions were made, and by the following year the two parties had joined forces under the new name of Hybrid Theory. After releasing a 6-song EP, Hybrid Theory became Linkin Park, under which name they quickly became a popular favorite in L.A. venues such as The Whiskey on Sunset Boulevard. Major label interest did not come quite as easily, and the band's material was rejected several times before a Zomba Music representative arranged a deal with corporate monstrosity Warner Brothers in the final months of the decade. After a year of work, the band's debut Hybrid Theory was released to considerable success in the fall of 2000. The album put the band at the forefront of the rapidly expanding genre of commercially-oriented rap/metal hybrids (an area established by acts such as Limp Bizkit and Cypress Hill in the mid 90s), and wasted little time climbing high in the mainstream and 'alternative' (another increasingly popular corporate music category) charts. Later in the year the band would earn a Grammy award in the Hard Rock Performance category for their single Crawling.

After the arrival of his first child in 2002, Bennington took a short hiatus from Linkin Park in order to spend time with his wife and son. During this lull in activity the remix album Reanimation was issued, featuring mixes by members of Korn, Staind, The Roots and Jurassic 5, with contributions from rappers such as Motion Man and Pharoahe Monch. A second full-length surfaced in 2003, Meteora remaining firmly in the spirit of the first album, and surpasing its commercial success by achieving the #1 position on the mainstream charts. All five of the release's singles (Faint, Somewhere I Belong, Breaking The Habit, Lying From You and Numb) would top the 'Modern Rock' charts in their turn. At the end of the year the live album Live In Texas was released, documenting the band's 2003 tour with the Summer Sanitarium festival. The band-sponsored 'mash-up' EP Collision Course, combining Linkin Park songs with vocals lifted from Jay-Z tracks, followed in 2004.