Chester Bennington (1976–2017)

A letter to Linkin Park

About Chester…

Tino Thamjarat
Jul 21, 2017 · 4 min read

I woke up to a depressing news today. Linkin Park frontman, Chester Bennington, committed suicide. This is quite a blow for me.

As most of the 90’s and millennial kids, I believe most of us had listen to at least one of their song. In the End, Pushing Me Away, Numb, Faint, What I’ve Done; you name it. For me, I growing up listen to LP.

I was introduced to LP when I was in primary school, probably about 10–11, I remember watching “Pts.Of.Athrty” (Reanimate version of Point of Authority) music video on Cartoon Network.

It’s so easy to find stuff nowadays.

To be honest, I don’t even know who was the artist but as a kid, the music video is really epic with futuristic robots warfare and some huge freaking face singing to the song. The song was SUPER cool too. It was kind of rock but heavier, kind of rap but there was also singing and screaming.

IT WAS A REALLY EPIC SONG!

I demanded more but I don’t know who they are and got no way to search for them back then so I had to gave up.

One day during a trip in Pattaya my cousin P’Gib, who has already passed away few years ago, show me his new shiny MP3 player and let me listen to some of the songs. There were hundreds of songs but only two of them caught my attention. I heard a familiar sound.

A combination of rock and rap with a catchy riff.

I quickly asked him

“Who’s the artist?”.

“Linkin Park” he replied.

“What are the songs?”

“‘Papercut’ and ‘Pushing Me Away’”

I implored my dad to bought me their album as soon as I got back to Bangkok. And I got it! A brand new “Hybrid Theory” cassette.

Not mine, but this is the version I got.

I was listening to them 24/7 like a mad man. I read all the lyrics on the cassette cover and tried to rap like Mike. It was no easy task giving that I only know “Apple” and some other fruits vocabs at that time.

Despite the fact that he raps really fast, I was able to rap all of their rap verses in that album. (Even though I have no clue what the actual meaning was.) I was really a huge achievement for me. This was the start of my journey into more heavier stuffs like A7x, Slipknot, BMTH, Chelsea Grin and many other great band.

The most frustrating thing when learning to sing all their song is when you have to sing like Chester. He has the most iconic scream. A grating sounds that comes out with a melody. No many people could perform that kind of scream. I prefer calling it “Chester Scream”. He inspired me to learn screaming techniques that I would not imagine learning them by myself. He was one of my childhood hero.

One of my favourites, Breaking the Habit

After learning some English, I revisited the lyrics and it hit me. All their songs was made for teenager. They communicate the anxiety, anger and sorrow of the teenagers. Their songs helped me through the tough changes growing up. When I’m mad, sad or don’t know what to do, I know which of their song to listen to.

Some my not have the luxury to watch their live performance. I feel so privileged that I got a chance to watch to them live in their 2007 Minutes to Midnight tour in Bangkok. I was the best concert and also my last concert with my cousin. He was the one who took me there.

The song I was introduced by my cousin.

From Hybrid Theory to One more light, I’ve been a die-hard fan. Buying HT, Meteora and Collision Course (one the feat. Jay-Z) in a cassette format. Then buy them again in CD format (because I can’t find a cassette player anymore. Reanimation, Minutes to Midnight, New Divide were also brought in a CD format. After that I bought, A Thousand Sun, The Living Thing and The Hunting Party on iTunes. Despite all the changes, I still buy their albums and listen to them quite frequently until today.

His iconic “Top of the lung “ scream.

I don’t know what’s the direction of the band now after this tragic loss. Albeit, I want to condole with them the lost of my childhood hero. I will continue supporting Linkin Park.

Chester, you have a place in my heart that no one could replace.

My deepest condolence,

Tino

)

Tino Thamjarat

Written by

Engineer at GoJek. CTO at BASE Playhouse. I love building good software so I do it for a living. ❤

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