#Deftones shirt save me..... | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pinkslashersimp · 2 years

Note

Hiii, can i request for HCS from an AU where rz Michael Myers is just a very tall normal 17 year old boy? (an AU where he never killed his sister, never killed animals etc) and what would a relationship with "teenager" Michael be like? (sorry if this is confusing😭)

Hello good to see u again:>

I’ll include some general HC as well as relationship headcanons bc i have been waiting for this one i have so many thoughts in my silly little head about RZ michael omg

I will be writing him as 18 if hes in a relationship even if it’s sfw here ^

ur req isn’t confusing at all!! (and keep ur eye peeled bc i’m working on ur other reqs as well>:))💗💗💗

Normal!RZ Michael Myers headcanons 🌷💗

Generic headcanons about teen michael:

Still has his long hair, he didn’t wanna cut it at all and he likes that it hides his face most of the time.

Probably good that his hair hides his face, as I HC normal teen michael as a very shy teen boy and a little insecure.

(But in more of a ‘I hate all of you I wanna go home’ way, not a ‘I’m too scared to talk to people’ way)

METALHEAD!

I think his fave song out of these three bands would be Chop Suey! by System of a down, specifically the lines ‘Father! Father!’ and ‘Why have you forsaken me? in your eyes forsaken me!’

Would wear shirts from these bands with zip up hoodies and jeans. Literally just dresses like a normal shy teen metalhead.

He listens to some other bands aside from heavy/death metal. Like deftones, the smashing pumpkins...

His fave song from those two bands are Shut up and drive/Today

Wouldn’t have many friends (because he’s bad at speaking to people...and they’re all a little intimidated by him) so he would definitely sit by himself at lunch/in class. Occasionally people will come and sit with him though, hes so quiet he gives off a friendly giant vibe

Spends all his time in his room listening to music and drawing/making masks.

Just like in the hospital, his room would be FULL of his crafts. Drawings, masks on the wall, posters of bands he likes, shelves full of sketchbooks and materials like glue and newspaper.

Very messy bedroom aside from this, though. Clothing on the floor, shoes by his bedroom door, unmade bed etc etc.

Michael still has paranoid schizophrenia either way and I honestly think his parents wouldn’t support him much. His mom would give him the “Im sorry mike i’m busy, it’s probably just puberty” talk (even tho hes 18) and his father would just chalk it up to him “being in that damn room all day.”

So he takes it upon himself to get help (even tho that shits horribly expensive). He gets a little job in the shop near his school and saves up enough to see a therapist each week/month.

Relationship HC

Most likely he’d be incredibly shocked when his s/o takes interest in him

Hes a 6’9 metalhead who sits by himself at lunch and rarely talk to anyone. why??? do you like him??????

Hes very suspicious at first, thinking it’s either a prank or you have the wrong idea and think hes some ‘mysterious’ dude. But after spending some time with his s/o he eases up by a lot

Would help a bit if his s/o dresses in the same way or listens to the same band but in the end it’s indifferent, hes just happy someone thinks hes good enough to hang around with.

Big fan of hand holding and cuddling from behind, especially when his s/o are sat in his lap, and he has his arms wrapped around them, resting his chin atop their head.

Wouldnt let you go to his house at first, his stepdad is a prick and he’s worried that would scare you off. he also really needs to clean his room first

Enjoys spending date nights where you literally just hang around in empty playgrounds running around and jumping on the swings, or loitering in empty parking lots and riding around in the shopping carts until an angry employee comes out to yell at you both

Waits for his s/o outside of class

Enjoys staying in with his s/o and quietly cuddling in his room whilst streaming some low budget horror movie on his TV

Not a very emotional person because of his childhood so he tends to show his love through physical touch and gifts

Fears nothing. He is your personal spider remover.

Definitely the kind of partner to learn the guitar to try and impress his s/o. Spends all week learning the intro to Shut up and drive so he can show his s/o once school ends and they come over

#slasher headcanons #slashers #yandere slashers #halloween #michael myers #rz michael myers #michael myers headcanons #rz michael myers headcanons #halloween headcanons #halloween 2007 #slashers x reader #slashers x y/n #michael myers x you #michael myers x reader

718 notes · View notes

rxkuyo · 3 years

Text

Tagged by @infernalwarlock thank you Aidan! 💕

Name/ nickname: hel or (off-tumblr) jo. ‘m fine with both, y’all call me whatever.

Gender: assigned weird horsegirl at birth

Star sign: sagittarius

Height: 1.72m

Time: 11pm

Birthday: november 26th

Fave band(s): Ice Nine Kills, Bury Tomorrow, Ghøstkid, Motionless In White, Nine Inch Nails, Falling In Reverse, Beartooth, Slipknot, Deftones

Fave solo artist(s): Literally not listening to any rn

Song stuck in my head: Popular Monster by Falling In Reverse

Last movie: the unholy

Last show: twd

When I created this blog: remade like ? late december 2018 ?

What I post: I’m literally just cramming all of my interests and hyperfixations into one blog

Last thing I googled: been ordering some birb-supplies on medpets.de

Other blogs: I’m too smooth-brained to manage more than one blog lmao. That’s why y’all are stuck in multifandom-hell. (You’re welcome.)

Do I get asks: rarely

Following: 171

Why I chose my url: I want lady maria to stab me

Lucky number: hell if I know

Followers: 678

Average hours of sleep: 5-7 and then I’m spending at least another 3 hours in bed trying to find my will to live aha

Instruments: none, unfortunately

What am I wearing: black oversized t-shirt + one of my three nearly identical bench. leggins (my beloved) don’t @ me I’m decomposing at home and they’re comfy af

Dream job: Fuck living in a capitalist society, I literally don’t dream about working my ass off to make a living haha ? but I’m saving up towards becoming a licensed natural-horsemanship trainer, since that’s like the only thing I’m somewhat good at ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Fave food: Don’t remember the last time I actually enjoyed eating something 😞

Nationality: german (derogatory)

Fave song: I’ve pretty much had Choke (Bury Tomorrow), DRTY (Ghøstkid) and Anarchy (WBTBWB) on repeat.

Top 3 fictional universes I'd like to live in: RDR/RDR2; Bloodborne and Cyberpunk

Head empty so not tagging anyone this time but if anyone wants to do it consider yourself tagged.

#tagged in #about #demonstrating mental illness in my tagged/games lmao

14 notes · View notes

dustedmagazine · 3 years

Text

Ian Mathers’ 2020: We’re stuck inside our own machines

I’ve had a song I loved in high school and haven’t thought much about since stuck in my head. The song “Apparitions” by the Matthew Good Band is a fine example of the alt rock of the late 90s; if you grew up then but somewhere down in the states (or elsewhere) instead of my southern Ontario you may well have your regional equivalents, and like this one they may not resonate terribly strongly outside of their time and place. It popped back into my head after a long time recently and of course 2020 has changed it a little. A song that as a teen I felt keenly as about loneliness (albeit also about how technology can feed into that) of course now plays on my nerves as another small piece of art about the way that most of us (those scared and/or responsible anyway) have only that relatively narrow, technologically mediated connection to the people we love. All of us, artists and listeners alike, are trying to fit our feelings and art and selves down these little connections, with some success.

On a personal level, 2020 wound up being stressful in ways we couldn’t have predicted even after the pandemic hit. In circumstances that could have seen governments on this continent support those unable to work (and those who shouldn’t have to), support those workers who are truly essential, support workers and renters and even landlords and small businesses, instead we got a near-total abeyance of those governments using the resources we provide them with to save any of us. On a personal level my wife and I were lucky enough to be able to work from home (not that it didn’t come with its own forms of stress, and now that I’m off until January I have several work/stress-related illnesses to recover from) but still saw friends and loved ones lose good, used-to-be-sustainable livings overnight, saw family businesses succumb to a near-total absence of effective government support after months of trying to keep above water, etc.

It is probably no surprise that this is not a situation conducive to listening to music, let alone writing about it; I have deliberately and happily kept busy on behind the scenes stuff at Dusted that I could still manage but looking, at the end of the year, at the amount I managed to actually create is demoralizing if not at all shocking. I’m not sure I think next year will be ‘better’ in many important ways, although at our job there is a growing feeling among coworkers that next year has to have some work/life balance because 2020 was, maybe more than anything else, unsustainable.

That’s not to say I didn’t spend a lot of time and emotion on music this year, and if nothing else constant sleep deprivation, stress, and panic meant I was probably open to being deeply moved by all sorts of art even more than normally (it’s gotten to the point where I can’t even read a sad or moving twitter thread out loud to my wife without getting teary, which is kind of… nice?). Funnily enough the band that did the most to keep me sane didn’t really put out anything in 2020. Personal favorite, Low, instead started, in early April, getting on Instagram with something they called on whim “It’s Friday I’m in Low.” With one brief break they have now done by my count at least 35 shows (catalogued here, by the way), every Friday at about 4 my time.

Admittedly it’s easier for Low to pull this off than some bands, since the 2/3 of the trio that sing are a married couple (they’ve had a couple of socially-distanced backyard shows with bassist Steve Garrington, but he’s mostly been isolating elsewhere). These shows have seen the band’s Alan Sparhawk take a mid-set break to do follow-up phone interviews with the acts featured in the COVID-curtailed touring bands series Vansplainingthat they started on YouTube, or just to give a tour round their vegetable garden and talk tips. It’s seen Alan and Mimi Parker draw on their impressive, 25+ year body of work (averaging 4-5 songs a set, I don’t think they’ve repeated themselves yet) and talk a bit between songs about pandemics, politics, song choices, and whether Alan should grab his bike helmet this time.

They’re not the only musicians out there speaking love and sanity (and playing music) into the strange digital interzone filled with hate and disinformation where we’ve all been forced to gather while locked down, but they were and the most consistent and steady signal being emitted each week. No matter how tired I was from work or what new symptoms I’d developed or what horrific thing I read into the news, even if I had to take an emergency nap while it was actually airing, every Friday the show was there. Once things do return to something more like normal, it’s one of the few things I’ll unambiguously miss about this weird-ass year.

So if that makes an argument for Low as my band of the year (admittedly again… it’s not like Double Negative has aged poorly, either), that does a disservice to those 2020 records I did connect with; even if there are still literally dozens I have to go through, many of which I expect to love, my top picks this year (if as unrankable by me as always) hit me as hard as any top pick in recent years did. So here I present a quick and informal top 5, which the rest of my top 20 following in alphabetical order. Here’s hoping for more time and space in 2021 for music, and even more than that, for more support for those who need it from those who could have been providing it all this time. (The Matthew Good Band, incidentally, always did best with their ballads. “Strange Days” is another I’ve had in my head these days; the image of moving “backwards, into a wall of fire” has stuck with me since the 90s and it’s never felt more grimly appropriate.)

Greet Death — New Hell

New Hell by Greet Death

This one is, in some sense, cheating; it came out November 2019. But that just means it’s the latest winner of my personal Torres Prize for Ian Being Late to the Party (so named because becoming slightly obsessed with Torres’ Sprinter just after I sent in my 2015 list was the first time I noticed that one of my favorite records of each year tends to get picked up by me just after I call it quits on the year, no matter how long I try to wait). This very doom and gloom slowcore/metal/(whatever, just know it’s heavy) trio at first felt very much like my beloved Cloakroom (whose Time Well has also won a Torres Prize) but sure enough nuances revealed themselves. Back in February it felt almost a little too negative, but then the rest of 2020 happened. And the extended burns of “You’re Gonna Hate What You’ve Done” and the title track remain searing.

Holy Fuck — Deleter

youtube

Probably the record I’ve been trying to write about the longest in 2020, and the one I’m most disappointed in myself that I just couldn’t get the requisite paragraphs together. It’s a wonderful effort from the consistently great Toronto resolutely human-created (and —mediated) dance music quartet, one that both feels like a summation of everything they do well, and with the addition of some outside voices (including strong turns from the singers of both Hot Chip and Liars) a step forward at the same time.

Spanish Love Songs — Brave Faces Everyone

Brave Faces Everyone by Spanish Love Songs

As the year got worse, this roar of defiance only got more crucial for me to hear every so often; I was a big enough fan of it, even after writing it up for Dusted, that when they solicited fan footage for a subsequent music video you may just be able to get a glimpse of me in it. (I’m the one in a “No Tories” t-shirt.) My punk rock-loving twin brother was the one who introduced me to Spanish Love Songs and we were supposed to spend an evening in June screaming along to them live in a packed, sweaty room. I need that in my life again.

Julianna Barwick — Healing Is a Miracle

Healing Is A Miracle by Julianna Barwick

It’s a sign of what 2020 has been like here that even just this album title leaves bruises, and while I privately worried Barwick would have a hard time following up 2016’s sublime Will (probably my favorite record that year), it seems that continuing to take whatever downtime she needs to keep focusing and refining her particular muse has once again yielded amazing results. Anyone who thinks they know what a Barwick track sounds like should really check out, say, “Flowers”, but much of this record absolutely sounds like Barwick, just even better than before. She also boasted my wife and I's favorite streaming concert of 2020, an absolutely gorgeous rendition of this album with Mary Lattimore showing up.

Phoebe Bridgers — Punisher

Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers

I joked on Twitter recently that I have far too nice a dad (and far too good a relationship with him) to be as obsessed as I am with Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto”, but here we are. Like most of her generation, Bridgers’ social media presence ranges from shit-posting to inscrutable, but even though things are often just as hard to figure out in her beautiful songs (as they often are in life), there’s an emotional clarity to them that can just grab you deep down. Couple that with seriously impressive songcraft and the progress from her already astounding debut Stranger in the Alps and more than anyone else in 2020 I’m excited to see just where the hell Phoebe Bridgers is going to go, because it feels like she’s talented and hardworking enough to go just about anywhere and drag a lot of our hearts with her.

Other Favorites

Aidan Baker & Gareth Davis — Invisible Cities II

Anastasia Minster — Father

Deftones — Ohms

Hum — Inlet

Kelly Lee Owens — Inner Song

Mesarthim — The Degenerate Era

Perfume Genius — Set My Heart On Fire Immediately

Protomartyr — Ultimate Success Today

Rachel Kiel — Dream Logic

The Ridiculous Trio — The Ridiculous Trio Plays the Stooges

Sam Amidon — Sam Amidon

Shabason, Krgovich & Harris — Philadelphia

Stars Like Fleas — DWARS Session: Live on Radio VPRO

Well Yells — We Mirror the Dead

Yves Tumour — Heaven to a Tortured Mind

Five Reissues/Compilations/etc.

Aix Em Klemm — Aix Em Klemm

Bardo Pond — Adrop/Circuit VIII

Charles Curtis — Performances & Recordings 1998-2018

Coil — Musick to Play in the Dark

Hot Chip — LateNightTales

Ian Mathers

11 notes · View notes

volume11magazine · 6 years

Text

Get To Know: Josh Wickins

One of our newest journalists for Volume 11 (as well as host for “The Music Vault” on Riot Radio), is Josh Wickins, He’s a first-year student in the Music Business Management Program. He has been an avid music junkie and musician for well over 15 years. He’s ecstatic to share his passion for writing and music with all of you! Here is his top pick’s to get to know his music taste and influences better:

Deftones - Digital Bath: Deftones are easily one of my all-time favourite bands. It took me far too long to finally give them a good listen but when I did. It was game over. Extremely powerful and emotional music, but Digital Bath always suck out for me in that regard.

Tigers Jaw - The Sun: This is the band that honestly got me to start playing guitar and songwriting again. As soon as I heard this song, I picked up my guitar, found the tabs and learned it. I think that without Tigers Jaw, I would have given up on playing and singing, but they saved me and brought me back to what I love; making music.

AFI - Sing The Sorrow(Full Album): I know this is a playlist so I will pick one song from it, but honestly this is one album meant to be heard in its entirety. It is such a beautiful piece of art that truly shaped my musical being and will forever be one of my go-to favourite albums. Check out the song The Great Disappointment.

Refused - New Noise: I remember seeing the music video for this song on “Much Loud” way back in the day and it blew my mind. It was a new sound to me, but it reminded me of Marilyn Manson, Korn, and Slipknot. This song opened me up to hardcore and punk music, and it’s never left me since. PUNK KID FOREVER!

Iron Maiden - Powerslave: I have to give Iron Maiden credit where it’s due. I was that kid in public school; rocking a Maiden shirt, and I honestly still am. I have the Powerslave album on cassette and would listen to it religiously. This band was my gateway to metal music and very much shaped my music taste.

Basement - Covet: This was the first song I heard from Basement and it’s phenomenal. I was in a rough spot in my life and this song made me feel every emotion possible. It is kind of a sad song, but it is just so powerful and impacted me immensely.

Big L - 98 Freestyle: If you want to hear a real MC, a true lyrical genius, look up “Big L” and listen to anything he’s created. This song was done in one take, late at night. I love old rap and Big L is one of my favourite rappers to listen to.

RZA - The Birth: I would describe RZA as another rap pioneer. The quintessential leader of the almighty Wu-Tang Clan, and my hands-down personal favourite rap artist. As well as an A + producer, he’s been killing the rap game for a long time now. This song always stuck out to me but the whole Birth of a Prince album is amazing.

Code Orange Kids - Flowermouth (The Leech): I have to start off by saying that this band is now called Code Orange, dropping the Kids off and taking the heavy music world by storm. When I first heard this song, from their first album, I was captivated instantly. These dudes hit, and they hit hard; sometimes you need heavy, aggressive music. Its cathartic, and a great release, especially, if you like raw, emotional, and extremely heavy music.

Nothing - Beat Around the Bush: This band was my first step into shoe-gaze music, and I’m so glad I stumbled upon them. Some of the best soft vocals, over beautiful, melodic and sonically pleasing instrumentals I’ve heard to date. Every album they have released has been fantastic and will be in my music library for a long time coming.

Check out Josh’s playlist on Volume 11’s Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/user/volume11mag/playlist/5D6ynBRjbRH5Fq7cXJOnKX?si=IwC5e7lpSCuWcMyiDbD_8Q

#get to know me #journalist #Music Journalism #article #spotify #listen #music #MBM #volume 11 #the music vault #playlists

4 notes · View notes

autpunkenby-blog · 6 years

Text

30 days of autism acceptance and appreciation; days 1-5

i figured i still want to do this, but since i haven’t even had the energy to start yet, i’ll catch up now with the first 5 days in one post!

day 1: intro post

hi, i’m raz! i am autistic, and honestly, i wouldn’t have it any other way. i am also non-binary! they/them pronouns please!

i guess for a little bit about myself, i’ll just say that i love being creative, and i’m always making something. you can find more about what interests i have on my profile. just click the second red line of text under my sidebar picture!

day 2: what i love about being autistic

one thing, would definitely be how much deeper of a connection i can have to things? like, i notice myself really caring and focusing on things that many NT people call “boring”. i guess i can see things that others can’t.

that’s all i’m really going to say for this one, but there’s definitely much more i love about it. like i said for day 1, i wouldn’t have it any other way.

day 3: my discovery story

so, technically i’m self dx. but i have been advised by doctors in the past of it being very likely that i’m on the spectrum. this was always brought up on the side, after i was there for something completely different and not having to do with that. i always just sorta... never paid attention to it? that was until last year.

i can’t even remember what made me seek out information on autism, in connection with myself, but i started researching about it late in the summer or 2017. there have always been so many unanswered questions in my life. things going all the way back to early childhood. i had a much different experience in school than any other kid i knew, and always wondered why. i definitely had that moment of overwhelming realization that many late diagnosed autistic have, even just being self dx for now. and trust me, i’m not one to put self dx lightly. not that it makes it really more valid in the end, since we are the only ones who truly know our body and brain, but i have put hours and hours and hours in researching this. i deal with all of these things daily, and always have.

i’ve learned a lot about myself in the last half year. i’ve been more aware of what i can do, can’t do, and what my needs are.

day 4: reactions to “coming out”

my parents actually understood and agreed with me on most of the things, when i came to them with the information about all of this. fortunately they’ve been right there with me throughout my life, and seen a good amount of the things i’ve dealt with that are unique to autistic people. i wouldn’t say that they’ve completely adjusted to the idea of it, but in general it’s definitely a good case scenario compared to some of the stories i’ve read from other autistic people having to deal with some extremely bullshit ableist family.

the few friends i’ve told, thankfully have been very supportive and just... really good about it.

day 5: special interests

the first special interest i ever had, was batman. from about when i was 3, until i was 12 or so. you can’t even imagine how many batman things i had. shirts, underwear, pajamas, shoes, blankets, posters, figurines, toy cars, dvds, vhs tapes, books, etc etc. spongebob squarepants was also a pretty major one. those 2 things were definitely the biggest parts of my childhood.

nowadays, i would definitely say that my biggest special interest is the band Deftones. to give you an idea, i have 3 different versions of the SAME ALBUM on my ipod. that album being White Pony, which was released on June 20th, 2000! i own 4 physical copies of it, and my computer wallpaper that i made, is in theme of it! i even have a winamp skin with that same theme! i have soaked up so much information on the history of that band like a straight up SPONGE. i could go on for hours about it, but i’m really tired right now, so i won’t! :)

also, Alan Resnick is a huge special interest of mine. boy oh boy oh boyyy. RIP anybody who has ever asked me about him, hahaha. i have pretty much every single video he has made and posted onto the internet that i have been able to find, saved to my computer. and even some, to my desktop. ;)))

THAT’S IT FOR NOW! i’m going to bed! bye-bye!

#actuallyautistic #autism acceptance #long post #raz 2000

2 notes · View notes

bleedingsandshq · 4 years

Photo

[ SAM UNDERWOOD, SKEET ULRICH & RICHARD HARMON, CIS MALE, HE/HIM, 30+ ] Whenever I hear MINERVA by DEFTONES it always makes me think of ELIJAH BLACK. They have been so PREPARED & UNIQUE, but occasionally they have gotten a little bit MORBID & STRANGE through the years. They currently work as an CITY MORGUE ATTENDANT. COLD METAL IN IRIDESCENT LIGHTING, SQUINTING OVER CHICKEN SCRATCH DESPITE BROKEN GLASSES & FLANNEL SHIRTS THAT SMELL LIKE BONFIRES make them easy to spot on the strip.

You come into the world kicking and screaming, sure, but you never expect to live your life like that. That’s the side they don’t put on television, the rigorous training that tries to beat the softness out of their children while they prepare for the end of the world. Elijah wasn’t even born in a hospital, but instead a makeshift shed, out in the so called protection of their home, the desert. They came into town every two months for supplies, and he learned to never question the world that lie just outside of his reach under he started to read. His parents still say that was their biggest mistake, giving the boy books to occupy his mind when they couldn’t. They taught him, by accident, how to give in to his own curiosity, and how to want more. First, it was simple things, putting together moving pieces, or taking apart some of the living ones (which, by the way, his mother knew good and well was the sign of a young killer, but she ignored it). Thankfully, he never wanted to know what it was like to take a person apart without the comfort of knowledge behind him. When he announced he got his GED, he was ridiculed, shamed for his accomplishments. When he announced he was leaving for school? He was excommunicated, banished from the only place he ever knew, but that was what he needed, the chance to save himself. So he grew, he became a man who learned to navigate his own social awkwardness despite the odds being stacked against him. The became a functioning adult, regardless of his heavy habits and old tendencies. Fittingly enough, the first time he got to sit in on an autopsy, he knew that was the cold metal comfort he desired. So, he followed it. Now, he’s still working his way up the food chain, not quite reaching his goal of becoming the Medical Examiner, but it’s within his reach. Hopefully, when it comes time to go for it, they see his talent rather than the collection of animal skulls in his living room, or the imported bug carcasses pinned in display boxes, all decorated with a stack of synth and old punk records that play on repeat. His brushes with darkness all had a soundtrack, hopefully this one would end up letting the light in.

ELIJAH IS CURRENTLY OPEN.

#sands.unaffiliated #sands.open

0 notes

kb9-ships-mistercriky · 7 years

Text

Linkin Park, Kerrang! January 23, 2008

[You have to read all this. I’m crying. Chester, Mike and the guys are so amazing!]

PHOENIX, ARIZONA, 1992. A thin, wiry kid – 115 pounds of sinew and bone – sits in a friend’s house, “the place where we used to crash,” he says now. Around him is the detritus of a normal day: wraps of speed, opium, booze and weed.

Suddenly the door bursts open, members of the “Mexican Mafia” swagger into the room, guns at their side. Someone starts to say something; the butt of a gun to the side of his head the reply. Someone else gets pistol-whipped for good measure, the better to keep order.

They want money, these gangsters, and they get it. Pointing guns, they sweep through the house taking cash, what meagre valuables there are, and the bike parked out front. The bike belonging to one Chester Bennington, sitting cowering inside. His internal monologue: “This isn’t cool. I’ve got to change my ways, I’ve got to stop the drugs. I’ve got to change my life.”

The story that led him to that life had been just as ugly.

“I STARTED getting molested when I was about seven or eight,” says Bennington, now. “It was by a friend who was a few years older than me. It escalated from a touchy, curious, ‘what does this thing do’ into full-on, crazy violations. I was getting beaten up and being forced to do things I didn’t want to do. It destroyed my self-confidence.

“Like most people, I was too afraid to say anything. I didn’t want people to think I was gay or that I was lying. It was a horrible experience. The sexual assaults continued until I was 13.”

Thoughts whirring around his head, he would sit alone in his room, his parents having divorced when he was 11 years’ old. His older brother and one sister had left home, his other sister was never around. Left in his father’s custody – a police detective pulling endless double shifts – he was virtually ignored, no-one to confide to.

“It was an awful time. I hated everybody in my family: I felt abandoned by my mom, my dad was not very emotionally stable then, and there was no-one I could turn to – at least that’s how my young mind felt. The only thing I wanted to do was kill everybody and run away.”

Instead, he drew pictures and wrote poetry – reams and reams of the stuff, all in the form of songs, all with verses, with choruses and all with the intention of making sense of his feelings. On the stereo in the background would be Depeche Mode and the Stone Temple Pilots; in the future would be Grey Daze, Bennington’s first band, and then would come the music that would save his life.

“The relationship I had with that band was the first time I felt I had a connection with anybody. I knew those guys would back me up. From then on, I started getting some confidence back. The problem was, I also found a good way to escape the abuse of my past. Getting high, drinking a lot and having sex with a lot of great girls is a pretty good escape.”

And so, what started out as a way to fit in, a way to block out his childhood, soon became a raging habit.

“I took everything. I got really, really bad. Until I was 16, I was doing a ton of LSD and a lot of drinking. Then, when we couldn’t find acid, we turned to speed because it was cheap and it worked really, really well. I got really bad, really quickly. On a normal day, my friends and I would go through an eight-ball. We were smoking it in bongs – I was doing bong-hits of meth. It was ridiculous. Then we’d smoke opium to come down, or we’d take pills, or I’d drink so much that I’d shit my pants. It was not pretty.”

GANGSTERS OR not, Bennington’s wake-up call was inevitable. Aged 17, he moved back in with his mother who was so shocked by his emaciated, drugged-out appearance that she banned him from leaving the house. He took to drinking heavily and smoking weed to ward off the cravings from his speed-ravaged body. Soon he was, he admits, “a full-blown, raging alcoholic. In later years, the drinking would come to take over my life.”

Yet despite all this, Grey Daze would continue to gather momentum. They would open for any national act coming through Phoenix, they could sell out 2,000 seater venues on their own, they could, as Bennington remembers, “Sign autographs from the minute we finished playing until they closed the venue”.

They released two albums to huge local acclaim – but, crucially, to very little national interest. “We had a grungey sound and, though I’m proud of the songs, there wasn’t anything super original about most of them,” says Bennington. It was a lack of interest that led to arguments, the gradual dissolution of the band inevitable.

So it was that, aged 22, Chester Bennington found himself married, working at a digital services firm, and with a future that pointed anywhere but towards music. He didn’t know it, but his 23rd birthday would change his life.

HUNDREDS OF miles away, in Los Angeles, were five musicians who could not have cared less who Chester Bennington was. Ensconced in a practice studio, all they wanted to do was to work out how to blend hip-hop and rock, and to have fun while they were doing it.

Centred on the childhood friends Mike Shinoda and Mark Wakefield, they had met when Wakefield introduced Shinoda to members of his High-School hardcore band – drummer Rob Bourdon and guitarist Brad Delson. Soon Delson’s college roommate, guitarist and bassist Dave ‘Phoenix’ Farrell, was hanging out with them too, before a college friend of Shinoda’s – Joe Hahn – also joined in. Their name: Xero.

“We would write a lot more than we played,” says Shinoda now. “A lot of bands rush their songs, and go out and play a ton of shows; we spent weeks and weeks on the music, and probably only played one or two shows a month.”

“We definitely weren’t polished but we had a lot of potential,” adds Farrell. “We only really played shows as an excuse to get our friends together for a party afterwards. In the early stages, it wasn’t about getting a record deal. But the more we played, the more we realised we might have a chance.”

Their demo began doing the rounds of LA’s A+R men, most of whom passed on Xero quickly. One though, Zomba’s Jeff Blue, heard enough to persuade him to keep in touch with the band. But despite this, Wakefield began to drift away. Now working in management with the likes of Deftones, his amicable departure left Shinoda in something of a predicament.

“I never pretended I could carry the vocals on my own,” he admits. “I had these great melodies in my head, and I couldn’t get them across. I wanted to find someone who could do them justice.”

They handed their demo to Blue, among others, and asked him to send it out. Then sat back and hoped for a bite.

CHESTER BENNINGTON picked up the phone, on 20 March, 1999 – his 23rd birthday – and found Jeff Blue on the line. “I'm going to give you your big break. I have a great band for you,” he said. “I’m going to mail you a demo.”

“He told me he they had a hip-hop meets rock thing going on,” says Bennington. “I wasn’t really into the hip-hop thing but I told him to send it anyway. The music was really cool and the band were very talented but I knew I could do it better. I went into a studio and cut my vocals over their demo the very next day. That was a Saturday and on Sunday I called Jeff Blue back and said: ‘I’m done, when should I come out?’ He laughed and said: ‘No, we need you to record some vocals before sending it to us.’

“I was really cocky, so I put the tape in my stereo, pushed the phone to the speaker, played him 15 seconds of the song and went, ‘Is that good enough for you?’ He went, ‘When can you be here?’ The next day, I was on the steps of Zomba Music at 9am, waiting for the doors to open.”

But though Blue thought Bennington was the man for the job, the band had other ideas. Having already lined up a set of auditions with other singers, they were reluctant to just hand Bennington the mic.

“It was really awkward because, as I met them, they were auditioning people,” says Bennington. “In between the auditions, I would sing with them but then we’d have to stop because another guy would turn up. I just had to sit there and watch them audition someone else. I was thinking, ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!’

“They seemed very indecisive, as though they were always looking for something a little better. Personally, I thought I was the best thing they were going to find. I had been in a band for along time and we had been quite well known, so I thought I was a big deal. I thought I was doing them a favour and they were looking at me like as just some other guy they might consider. I thought they were crazy, I seriously contemplated telling them to fuck off.”

His bemusement can only have deepened on seeing his competition.

“There was one guy who never wore shoes, and he told us he wanted to do stand-up comedy during our show,” laughs Shinoda. “When I met Chester, my first impression was that he seemed smaller that I thought. He was really skinny, with glasses, and he was wearing this awful butterfly collar shirt that hung all over him. It made him look like a cheesy guy from an Arizona nightclub bar. But his vocals on our demo were incredible. He sang like a fucking beast, the same way he sings now.”

The job was his.

FROM THEN on, they worked feverishly on their music. Now known as Hybrid Theory, they rehearsed intensively. Shinoda would first work with Delson on the music before he and Bennington would write lyrics – often dredging up painful memories from Bennington’s childhood.

“There really wasn’t any room for bashfulness,” says Shinoda. “Some of his lyrics addressed that stuff [the sexual abuse], so when he and I were talking about the songs, he told me about it. It was a weird way to get to know each other, but that’s how it happened.”

Bennington, meanwhile, was homeless in LA. Despite owning a house in Phoenix, he was forced to sleep on his new bandmates’ sofas, in his car and then at a rehearsal studio.

“It was tough,” says Bennington. “I was fucking miserable. The only thing that was keeping me going was knowing we had something special going on. I knew this was the one.”

He, Shinoda and the rest of the band would go online when not working on their music, posting mp3 files and generating interest from fans on internet message boards. But, despite favourable responses there, Hybrid Theory still couldn’t get a record company interested.

“We played over 50 showcases for label guys,” says Bennington. “We got turned by everybody multiple times. We were thinking: ‘You guys have to be out of your minds, we’re awesome!’”

And then they got their break – old friend Jeff Blue was hired by the Warner Brothers A+R department and made Hybrid Theory his first signing. Their luck was about to change… or so they thought.

TO DATE, Linkin Park’s debut album has sold over 24 million copies worldwide. Last year it was certified Diamond (10 million copies) in the US alone. But when they signed to Warner Brothers in 2000, the record company weren’t even sure they wanted them on their books.

“[Some people there] hated us,” says Bennington. “I don’t mean that lightly. Literally fucking <i>hated</i> us.”

The first problem was the name Hybrid Theory. Another recent signing to Warners, a band called Hybrid, were considered the next big thing, forcing Hybrid Theory to change their name to Linkin Park. The next problem was their music. As they started pre-production work with Don Gilmore, the producer told them he didn’t like any of their songs.

“Well, actually he liked two – Points Of Authority and With You,” says Bennington. “We basically had to write a new record in two months. We stayed at Mike’s house around the clock and wrote that album.”

But there were further – and far more serious – problems ahead. Bennington claims he was told he "the star" and that Linkin Park should be his band. Shinoda would be relegated to just being the keyboard player or, worse, jettisoned. Bennington resisted immediately: “I said, ‘Fuck you guys. Are you serious? I’ve only just got into the band, and you’re telling me to start a coup against the guy who writes all the music? It’s <i>his</i> band. If he could sing, I wouldn’t have a job. You fucking idiots, what’s wrong with you?’

“Then they wanted to bring in this other rapper, a reggae guy called Matt Lyons. After that, they told Mike to try and rap like Fred Durst. It was like, are we on the same fucking planet here? Suck our dicks!”

“We cut off all communications with the label unless absolutely necessary,” adds Shinoda. “At the end of it all, we stood our ground and essentially told everybody, ‘We’re going to do this all on our own, our way. If you don’t like it, you can drop us, we’ll take that risk’. When we finished that record, I felt like we had run a marathon. I remember thinking, ‘I can’t believe we did that.’ It was exhaustion and pride.”

FOUR MONTHS later, on 23 October 2000, the band found themselves in Washington State just outside Seattle. Their debut album would be released the next day and, thanks to the support of the Warner Bros radio pluggers, its songs had been riding high on the airwaves. Bassist Phoenix Farrell, who had missed the recording process after temporarily leaving the band to fulfil a commitment to his old band Tasty Snax, had rejoined.

Parked outside a 24hr record store, waiting to go in on the stroke of midnight to buy the first copy of their new album, they started dreaming about what Hybrid Theory might sell in its first week of release.

“I thought it would be awesome if it sold 3,000 copies,” says Farrell. “I thought that was something to build on. But Chester said he thought it would sell 8,000 copies. My gut reaction to that was panic. You’ve got to set your expectations high but you don’t want to be stupid.”

In fact, by the end of that first week, Hybrid Theory had sold 47,000 copies, “and we all just went, ‘Holy shit!’” says Bennington.

For the next 12 months, if you wanted to get in touch with members of Linkin Park, you would have to have scoured the globe for them. In the 365 days following the release of Hybrid Theory, Farrell estimates that the band played a shade over 300 gigs. “We were averaging about five or six shows a week and then travelling too. I think I only spent about 30 nights in my own bed that year.”

And everywhere they went, they were hailed as a success story, as the leaders of the nu-metal movement. It was not a tag that sat comfortably on their shoulders.

“We never liked it. People lazily slapped that label on bands like us, but we never shared much in common with most of the bands we were grouped with,” says Shinoda. “We didn’t have the same interests, goals, musical influences, or sound. I felt like we weren’t from the same scene.”

Elsewhere, including in this magazine, there was other criticism – that Linkin Park hadn’t earned their success, that they were a flash in the pan, that they were a boy-band put together by their label.

“Certain people hated us,” remembers Bennington. “They said, ‘Who’s this fucking Backstreet Boys rock band? Look at these white kids singing and rapping about how hard life is!’ I felt I had to defend myself against that stuff, we had to fight from that point on.”

“Those rumours were totally untrue, but it’s what happens when a band finds success; this was our first taste of it,” says Shinoda. “We tried to tell ourselves that it was complimentary, that they were just saying, ‘it’s too good to be true,’ but to be honest, we were a little bitter that magazines like Kerrang! would have our backs one minute and then would turn on us quickly without doing their proper research on a bullshit rumour.”

BUT THERE were deeper problems than just that. As their tour rumbled on across Europe and then the rest of the world, they hit morale-snapping lows.

“We followed winter around the globe for almost a year, it was raining or snowing everywhere we went, and we were getting exhausted,” say Shinoda.

“To be touring in front of larger and larger crowds across the world was incredible,” adds Farrell. “The experience was simultaneously rewarding but absolutely draining too. I’m glad I did it, but I never want to have to do it again.”

More worryingly, Bennington was beginning to feel ever more estranged from his new bandmates.

“I was drinking a lot then,” he admits. “I was smoking pot and that segregated me from the rest of the band because they didn’t smoke. I didn’t feel like I was connected with the guys, we didn’t feel like close friends. Also, my then wife and I were at each other’s throats constantly. It was a pretty miserable experience.”

So fragile and notorious were Bennington’s moods that the rest of Linkin Park would actively avoid speaking to him about anything inflammatory, further forcing him to the sidelines.

“I felt like I was doomed to be this lonely person,” says Bennington. “I thought I would never have a fulfilling relationship with anyone. I thought the only friends I had were Jack Daniels and Mary Jane. At that time, I never performed a show completely sober, I was always smoking weed right up until the moment we went onstage. Immediately after we finished the show, I’d go and get hammered.”

AS 2001 became 2002, Linkin Park’s schedule became ever more relentless. Remarkably, in the precious downtime they had, Mike Shinoda managed to remix most of Hybrid Theory for the Reanimation project – pulling in contributions from the likes of Black Thought, Jonathan Davis and Aaron Lewis while he was at it. And, while the project was occasionally criticised by rock fans as a cash-in, the album met with critical acclaim in hip-hop circles.

“I thought I was just going to do a remix or two, and other people were going to do all the work,” remembers Shinoda. “I ended up overseeing the whole thing and juggling over 30 artists’ work and schedule. I vowed never to do it again!”

Barely pausing for breath, the band went straight back into the studio with Don Gilmore, this time to record their second album Meteora – with the success of their first album a weight hanging around their necks.

“There was pressure on us,” admits Farrell. “No matter what we did, we knew it would probably be considered a disappointment. Clearly, there was no way we could repeat the insanity of Hybrid Theory.”

Its release, on 25 March 2003, was greeted with both commercial and critical success – though there were those who claimed that rather than develop their sound, Linkin Park had found a successful modus operandi and stuck to it. It’s something, retrospectively, that Bennington admits too.

“Within the band, we call Hybrid Theory and Meteora Volumes I and II,” he says. “They’re very similar in a lot of ways. There’s almost a formula to them, you can tell what each song is going to do next.”

“But, on the other hand,” counters Shinoda, “we wanted to further define and evolve our sound as well. A song like Breaking The Habit, for example, could never have existed on Hybrid Theory; it was a more mature song, lyrically and sonically. When I listen to that album now, I think it has its strengths and weaknesses. There are things that sound really stiff to me now but I love it for the period in time it represents for us.”

Then, once again, Linkin Park hit the road, without stopping for another two years.

“FOR FOUR or five years, we went at a hundred miles an hour,” says Farrell. “At the end of that, we needed a break. By the end of 2004, we were about to burn out.”

While Mike Shinoda found time to both oversee the band’s mash-up collaboration with rapper Jay-Z and to release his own solo record, Fort Minor, the rest of Linkin Park found themselves worn out as they finished the Meteora touring cycle.

It was perhaps Chester Bennington who was in the worst position. Trapped in a marriage that was no longer working, and drinking more and more heavily, he was in a bad way.

“I wasn’t leaving my house. I’d shack up in my closet in the dark and shake all day. I’d wake up and have a pint of Jack Daniels to calm down, then I’d pop a bunch of pills and go back in my closet and fucking freak out for the rest of the day. I was a mess. I was falling through windows, having seizures and going to hospital the whole time. It was fucking ridiculous. I was a total wreck.

“Eventually I just gave in. I had to give up and ask for help. If I had tried to do it on my own, I wouldn’t have made it. But everybody came to my rescue.”

He sobered up, divorced, and remarried, opening himself up to the rest of his band during emotional counselling sessions in the meantime. Forced to examine his behaviour over the past few years, he crumpled in front of his bandmates.

“I had no idea I had been such a nightmare,” he says. “I didn’t realise how much my drinking and drug use was affecting the people around me. It was a shock and I’ve done everything possible to stay sober since. That’s made a huge difference to my relationship with the band. We all hang out now because they actually want to be around me. That’s a huge deal for me.”

THE NEW atmosphere in the Linkin Park camp led to a renewed creativity. Though the writing process for third album Minutes To Midnight was both lengthy and complicated, what emerged on the other side was a new band, “a band free to do what we like,” as Bennington puts it.

While Shinoda admits there was an obvious temptation to repeat the formula – and thus the success – of their first two albums, he says Linkin Park are in a far healthier place for redefining their sound along side new producer Rick Rubin.

“We sold 35 million records of that old sound,” he says. “Saying that we wanted to leave it behind and make something new and equally good was horrifying but thrilling. We were prepared for complete backlash. ‘Where’s Hybrid Theory? Where’s Meteora?’ and we got some of that but, finishing that album, was the first time since Hybrid Theory that I had that particular mixed feeling of exhaustion and pride.”

It’s an album that went to Number 1 in 23 of the countries in which it was released, whose singles have gone Top Ten in virtually every territory and whose sales have taken Linkin Park’s total album sales past the 45 million mark.

As they once again stride out across the globe, from continent to continent, enormodome to enormodome, Chester Bennington stops for a minute to look back.

“After everything we’ve been through to get here, we’re in the best place we could possibly be.” He stops for just one more second. “We couldn’t be enjoying ourselves more.”

[Source]

#Linkin Park #Mike Shinoda #Chester Bennington #bennoda

23 notes · View notes