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Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington on divorce, drugs, and Dead By Sunrise

REVOLVER The hiatus in 2005 was the first time Linkin Park has taken a break in 10 years…
CHESTER BENNINGTON
Meteora and Hybrid Theory both had 24-month touring cycles, so we were on the road for a really long time. We weren’t really happy with how Warner Bros. had treated us at that point. It was a pretty frustrating time. It was like, “Here we are, we sold 20 million albums” and they’re still telling us, “You’re a fluke.” We sold 10 million records, how much do we have to prove?

In the print interview, you talk about your divorce. Is this when you started losing your shit?
I just completely lost my mind. Over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, I was just a trainwreck.

Did it start on one day or was a crescendo?
The day it started was the day I knew I was gonna move out.

In our interview you talk about partying hard. What do you mean by that?
It could have meant going to a strip club and having a few drinks. It could have meant staying at home and watching the waves break and drinking Jack and Cokes all day. Or it could have turned into a four- or five-day drug-and-alcohol binge, pushing yourself to the limits of your mind. I think the one common denominator in all that stuff is no matter what I was doing, there was always alcohol…and there was a lot of it. I would sit there with my guitar all day and write songs and get drunk. And when you’re drunk, if somebody said, “Hey let’s go do this particular drug, or that particular drug, or a combination of all of them,” you’re like, “OK.”

And in the middle of this you had to go play Live 8? What was that like?
Live 8 felt like this thing that was way bigger than me. It was important and getting a message out. But at the same time my brain was firing all kinds of electrical signals into the wrong places. Another thing I had to do because it was important and bigger than me [was a Music for Relief show]… I had no idea what my money situation was like. I was living in this little apartment. And it was like, “Hey, we need you to go to Thailand to go for Music For Relief to talk about all the stuff that’s going on over there with the tsunamis.” You guys can’t think of a-fuckin’-nother person that might be better suited for this right now? I don’t have any fucking clothes! All my stuff’s at my ex-wife’s house! She’s not letting me in! You want me to go? I don’t have a couch! … Life doesn’t fucking stop going because you decided you’re having a bad day—or a bad year.




What happened?
Unless you’ve had it happen to you, it’s kind of difficult to grasp. They started prescribing me Klonopin for anxiety. Taking that and drinking as much as I was drinking, it’s a combination of the two things that will kill you if you stop doing them suddenly.

My left arm would start to bounce, and then my head would start to twitch. I was embarrassed by it. There was only a few people who had seen me like that. Talinda [Bentley, Bennington’s current wife] would have to come in and comfort me and talk me out of it, and I would have to get something to drink to bring myself down. It was crazy. I got hospitalized a couple times. Finally I sat down with her and a couple of my friends in Dead by Sunrise and said, “I need to go into treatment.” On the way to treatment the night before, I was like, “Let’s get fucking hammered! This is my last time.” No one else got hammered with me. They just sat in a room and watched me. It was pretty pathetic. Went into treatment, was there for 30 days, got out. Three weeks later I was drinking again. I drank more. That was when my wife pretty much had a complete nervous breakdown over it, called everybody in Linkin Park. Couple hours later they were all at my house. Told me how much they loved me. I got on the plane and went back to treatment again.

It was a real intervention?
Yeah! I was sitting there going, Fuck… If I had just not picked up that first drink again. Went back to treatment. Came out in a much better place. Stayed sober for about a year. Relapsed. Went right back into hitting the program hard. Seven months later relapsed. That’s been the case for me.

You had demoed much of the Dead by Sunrise album in 2005. But when you re-recorded the vocals in 2008, were any of the songs hard to record?
“Let Down,” for example. That was in the middle of the divorce and that’s what that song was about. When I wrote the demo, it was really fucking good. That was harder to redo in the studio when I’m happily married and got a lot of success and I’ve got stuff again. It was hard for me to go back to that place because I didn’t feel that way; I didn’t feel that desperation. It was harder for me to do the final recording for that song because it was hard for me to tap into those emotions.

When you listen to the record now, do you feel like a different person?
I know I talk a lot about it, but the reality is, I came out on the other side. I made a great record with Linkin Park, made a good record with Dead by Sunrise. I’m good dad, I’m a good husband, I have a lot of friends. The bad thing would had been if I had died or continued to do that to myself. And ended up somewhere in the shithole. The good story is that didn’t happen. I get to keep making music.

http://www.revolvermag.com

14 comments:

Unknown February 1, 2019 at 3:26 PM  

Ah. Shoot. Addiction is a killer. Thank you for sharing Talinda. Does it get any easier?

LAGO February 1, 2019 at 3:32 PM  

Great..

Melissa Stein Photography February 1, 2019 at 8:03 PM  

A glimpse into chesters world

Unknown February 1, 2019 at 9:30 PM  

Grazie Talinda...leggere queste sue parole fa capire quanto Chester abbia sofferto prima di essere libero..Talinda grazie di cuore

Su Evans-McSherry February 2, 2019 at 1:08 AM  

Talinda you are still showing strength in helping others understand what chesters life was like, but each and every time you let us in like this you relive it as well, heart felt love for you xxx

Unknown February 2, 2019 at 7:50 AM  

Wow. He had such strength. You do, too. Thanks for sharing.

Unknown February 2, 2019 at 8:57 AM  

Thanks for sharing...Chester made me fall in love with himself coz despite his struggle he still made it

Unknown February 3, 2019 at 9:05 AM  

He didn't make it tho... 😢 I have never struggled with a celebrities death before, but here we are a year and a half later and I still sob for him a least a few times a week. Losing Chester felt like losing a best friend and confidante I will love him and Linkin Park forever!!!

Unknown February 9, 2019 at 8:08 AM  

thank you so much talinda for sharing with us. god bless you and the children

Unknown February 16, 2019 at 12:31 AM  

Funny how this artcile is pushed toward chesters first wife and how now you are going to court for chester music rights as of now shows your true colors nice one

Unknown February 16, 2019 at 3:56 AM  

The first wife was with him before the fame while he was working at burger king. She believed in him and helped him get his music to the right people that ultimately led to him joining Lp. She was his wife and inspiration throught Lp's first 2 albums and the other band's album and she has a child with him. She shouldn't have to go to to court to fight for royalties.She should be getting
his royalty cut on all the music he made while they were married

Unknown February 27, 2019 at 9:07 PM  

I have an addictive personality. I didn't realize what I was doing to me and my family. You either live or not in my mind. A disease of the brain. I wish you all the best and pray your children remain on the healthy road. Peace.

Trish May 29, 2019 at 10:36 AM  

She did , from the first two albums while they were together she took everything from him , there's many articles about it this is just wrong ..

Trish May 29, 2019 at 2:31 PM  

Love Talinda , She's a Beautiful person and I'm glad Chester had her , Bless her ❤

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