For this Chester Bennington birthday six-pack, a few fave Linkin Park songs, and a few you might have forgotten about.
I like cracking a sixer of songs from your favorite ROCK 92.9 artists when their birthdays roll around. In fact, I did exactly that for Jerry Cantrell a couple of days ago. You can check out six songs that span his time in Alice In Chains and his solo work here. And yes, I’ll even do this for rockers that are no longer with us. Such is the case with the late Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington.
Bennington was born in Phoenix, AZ on March 20, 1976. His childhood and upbringing were rough: he was the victim of bullying and sexual abuse and turned to drugs to cope. He also used poetry and songwriting as a coping mechanism, and those skills served him well. He spent the bulk of the ’90s singing for the bands Sean Dowdell and His Friends? and Grey Daze.
Chester Bennington Birthday 6-Pack: Prime Linkin Park Picks
By the late ’90s, Bennington was sour on the music industry and was working at a digital services firm. L.A. A&R guy Jeff Blue urged him to audition for a band called Xero, who were searching for a new lead singer. Bennington quit his job, auditioned well, joined the band, and Linkin Park was born. He would front the band from 2000 through his death by suicide in 2017.
Marking a Chester Bennington birthday is a somber task, to be sure. His was a hard life cut short. But the music he made with Linkin Park was and is vital. And what he did outside of the band is pretty interesting, too. So let’s get into this Chester Bennington birthday six-pack and remember a musician who had a gift for combining his troubles with his talents to great success.
(Photo by MJ Kim/Getty Images)
