October 22, 2009
Lorrie Lynch,
USA Weekend

From classic rockers such as Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton to Jack White and Dave Grohl today, musicians have long had side projects in addition to their usual bands. The latest to moonlight with another group is Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington, who teamed with members of Orgy and Julien-K to form Dead By Sunrise. The new band issued its debut album, Out of Ashes, this week, and our Brian Truitt says the songs — some of which deal with Bennington’s own struggles with divorce as well as drug and alcohol addiction — are darker, more dynamic and less hip-hop-influenced than Linkin Park’s. Brian talked with Bennington, 33, right after a sound check on Wednesday, so read below for their conversation and check out a music video for the new single, Crawl Back In.

Is it neat to have another debut album come out? Most musicians only get one.
It is pretty awesome. This one was as nerve-wracking as when [Linkin Park’s debut] Hybrid Theory came out. It is really cool to not know what’s going to happen.

Do you wonder how Linkin Park fans will embrace these new songs, especially since they’re so personal?
All around, stepping outside of something as big as Linkin Park, one thing is that expectations are really high. When you do something different, a lot of people wonder why or is it going to be good. In terms of the lyrics, the fact that I’m not lying about what the songs are about in press and being really open to what they’re about, that freaks me out a little more than anything else. To be open and honest about things, to put your whole dysfunction out there so people can see how raw you really are, that’s something I really didn’t think through so much. And 200 interviews later, this is what everybody’s focusing on.

Because your voice is so distinctive, is there a worry that someone not in the know may think these are a bunch of new Linkin Park songs?
Yeah, it is, actually. I know my voice has a very distinct sound and when I sing, I sound like myself, no matter what. That’s why I really wanted to make sure that I didn’t change too much from the original versions of the songs in terms of style. These songs are grungy, and some of them are kinda punky and pretty straightforward in terms of the rock element. That’s the thing that gives DBS our unique quality that’s different from Orgy and Linkin Park. In doing so, naturally my vocal style lends itself to the style of the song, so even though I sound like myself, it also sounds like I’m singing a little differently. You put all that together, and it equals a record that doesn’t sound like Linkin Park.

When you were younger, you grew up on Depeche Mode and Stone Temple Pilots. Did you go back and listen to those kinds of bands when you were figuring out what kind of sound you wanted to create?
No. I actually don’t listen to much music at all when I’m writing. I tend to write songs that sound like what I’m listening to. That in itself turns me off and bothers me. Usually when I’m writing, which is all the time, I don’t really listen to too much music from other people, and the style of stuff I like is so different from the style of stuff that I actually write that typically I don’t have to worry. I’m not going to write a song like the Metrics, I don’t sound like Phoenix, not too much of my stuff sounds like Depeche Mode. But a lot of my stuff is grungy, so anything that lands in the grunge era, yeah, you could probably make a connection to. But that’s the stuff I like to write and the stuff I listen to the most.

It seems a lot more musicians these days have side projects — for example, your own Linkin Park bandmate Mike Shinoda has Fort Minor, and Jack White is in three bands at the same time. Being on the frontlines, do you have any insight? Is it cool to have side projects?
I don’t if it’s cooler – I just think maybe bands are more comfortable with themselves. I know for me, if I felt anyone in Linkin Park were at all not happy with me doing this, I wouldn’t do it. I would have found a place for the songs somewhere eventually, and maybe not doing a completely whole other band. The Foo Fighters probably don’t have to worry about not being the Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl goes around and plays with Queens of the Stone Age and he’s now doing something with John Paul Jones and Josh Homme, but they know he’s going to come back and do another Foo Fighters record. And it’s kind of his band, too. [Laughs] Jack White can do whatever he wants because he’s going to make another White Stripes record, he’s gonna do more Raconteurs. A lot of bands are doing it because they maybe are communicating better within the group, or maybe they just don’t give a [fudge].

You have four kids, the oldest of whom are 12 and 13. Did you try out the new album on them to see what they thought?
Family’s tricky because they’re always going to tell you that they like it. But sometimes kids can be extremely honest. My wife is a really good gauge of honesty, too — she’ll tell me if she doesn’t like something.

In the next year, you’re planning to tour with Dead By Sunrise and finish a new Linkin Park record. Do you thrive on that kind of busy schedule or do you steel yourself to not being home for a while?
Even though I am pretty busy, I feel like I do make sure that I spend enough time at home – well, I guess it’s relative. I try to spend as much time as I can with my family. Whether my kids feel like I’m at home enough, that’s for them to say. But at the same time, they’re the most important thing in the world to me and I definitely do not want to take away from that too much. I’m at home as much as I’m gone.