Phoenix-born singer/songwriter Chester Bennington rose to fame and fortune thanks to his work in the nu-metal band Linkin Park. Beyond the band’s big radio hits and collaborations with rapper Jay Z, the group signified something of a moment. A new recognition in modern music of a marginalized people.
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Sadly, Bennington himself suffered from some of the same things that put his audiences on the outskirts of the mainstream, despite his being part of the cultural zeitgeist. And in 2017, the 41-year-old artist died having committed suicide.
Still there, there is much to love and remember about Bennington in the years since his passing, from his voice to his lyrics to his thoughts on life, love and the world at large. Here below are the 20 best Chester Bennington quotes.
1. “I don’t like to hold back, because that’s how you hurt yourself.”
2. “As an artist, I want a reaction.”
3. “I have been able to tap into all the negative things that can happen to me throughout my life by numbing myself to the pain so to speak and kind of being able to vent it through my music.”
4. “The fans are the biggest reason we do what we do.”
5. “When I’m writing, I’m constantly thinking about myself, because it’s the only experience I have to draw on. And I don’t see an exact reflection of myself in every face in the audience, but I know that my songs have validity to them, and that’s why the fans are there.”
6. “It’s cool to be a part of recovery. This is just who I am, this is what I write about, what I do, and most of my work has been a reflection of what I’ve been going through in one way or another.”
7. “There are always going to be encounters that you kind of wish went differently. But the average fan really isn’t fanatical.”
8. “We like playing smaller venues, but we know how many people want to come and see us so we don’t ever want to stop anyone who wants to come to a show from coming.”
9. “I always wanted to be a rock star. That was my childhood dream. That’s what I told everybody I was going to be when I grew up.”
10. “We don’t sit down and go, ‘People are uneasy about the economy. Let’s write about that.’”
11. “It’s not cool to be an alcoholic.”
12. “I don’t drink. I choose to be sober now. I have drunk over the last six years, but I just don’t want to be that person anymore.”
13. “You’re constantly trying to prove yourself, even after you’ve made it.”
14. “If fans come up to me, I talk to them.”
15. “We’d like to think that our music will always be bigger than any one of our individual personalities.”
16. “We’re not a political band, we’re a socially minded band.”
17. “To pigeonhole a genre as being successful or unsuccessful is weird.”
18. “This is a business of love and labor.”
19. “All of our songs take these really big creative turns and twists throughout the process, so sometimes songs will start out as a melody or some musical chord progressions.”
20. “Once we start hitting lyrical themes that can whack you from all these different perspectives, we know we’re onto something special.”
Photo by Junko Kimura/Getty Images
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