The Chester Bennington Interview That Still Hurts to Watch

In February 2017, Chester Bennington visited Los Angeles radio station 102.7 KISS-FM for a long on-air conversation with host JoJo Wright. It started as a conversation about family and the band’s new music...and then Chester shared a haunting description of his inner-monologue. He spoke about demons he battled for years, what it felt like to get trapped in his own head, and why connecting with others (and avoiding solitude) helped alleviate the pain.

Chester was found dead at his home on July 20, 2017. The news stunned fans, friends, and the entire music community. Still, just five months before his death—he sat in that KIIS-FM studio talking openly about the pressure inside his head, the habits he watched for, and the steps he tried to take to stay connected to the people he loved. It was him trying to explain what his day-to-day felt like and how he fought to stay present.

The full interview, which runs about 21 minutes, is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jky8GTCIuYA

Below is the complete transcript, presented for awareness and understanding. It shows Chester in his own words, talking about how he tried to recognize early warning signs and break the cycles that pulled him inward.

But first... remember THERE IS HOPE. If you’re worried about yourself or someone close to you, there are places to turn for help at any hour:

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – Dial or text 988 to reach trained counselors who can talk

  with you privately, day or night.

• Crisis Text Line – Text HOME to 741741 to start a text conversation with a counselor.

• Veterans Crisis Line – Veterans, service members, and their families can call 988 and press 1, text 838255, or use the chat tool at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat.

• The Trevor Project – LGBTQ young people can speak with a counselor by calling 1-866-488-7386, texting 678-678, or using the online chat service.

• Emergency Services – If someone is in immediate danger, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.

Chester: I don't know if anybody out there can relate but like I have a hard time with life sometimes, right? Sometimes it's great but a lot of times for me it's really hard. And um… and no matter how I'm feeling, like I always find myself like struggling with certain patterns of beh— I find myself like stuck in like a… in like the same thing that keeps repeating over and over again and I'm just like, “How do I end up— how am I… in this?” And it's that moment where you're in it, and then you can separate yourself from that situation and you look at it and you see it for what it is, and you're able to then do something about it. Like you've… you've now broken out of that circle, that cycle.

Host: Is that tied to overthinking?

Chester: It could— I mean honestly like there's so many, there's so many circumstances for me that relate to this situation. But like, I know that for me when I'm inside— inside myself, when I'm in my own head, it gets… this place right here, this skull between my ears, that is a bad neighborhood. And I am— I should not be in there alone. I need— I can't be in there by myself.

Host: You mean that inner voice that turns on you?

Chester: You talking about— it's just… you just— it's insane. It's crazy in here. This is a bad place for me to be by myself. And so when I'm in that, like I get— my whole life gets thrown off. Like if I'm in there, like I don't say nice things to myself. Like there's another Chester in there that's like, …wants to take me down and so um and I find that it could be whether it's substances or whether it's behavior or whether it's like depressive stuff or whatever it is. Like if I'm not like actively like doing— getting out of myself and being with other people, like being a dad, being a husband, being a bandmate, like being a friend, helping someone out… like if I'm out of myself I'm great. If I'm inside all the time I'm— I'm horrible. I'm a mess.

And so for me it's like that was kind of where “I don't like my mind right now, stacking up problems that are so unnecessary,” you know? That's where that— that was where that came from for me.

And that's— but it's the moment where it's like realizing like I drive myself nuts, like actually thinking that all these are real problems. Like all the stuff that's going on in here is actually just— I'm doing this to myself.

And regardless of whatever that thing is. And so this is that like conscious awareness of that thing. And like when you— when you can step back and look at something, like you're actually elevating yourself consciously. Like you're— you're enlightened at that point, right? To a certain degree.

And so this is that moment of enlightenment where you go, “You know, I could do something about this, and by doing it I can move forward and get unstuck from this.” And then I could actually be able to— for me it's like I can live with life on life's terms. Like I can— can experience the whole spectrum of humanity and not want to get out of it, whether it's happiness, sadness, or whatever.

Like I just want to— like when I'm in it I just want to get out of however I'm feeling, no matter what it is.

Host: So when you wrote this song, you were clearly in that bad neighborhood in your brain, or—

Chester: This time last year I was a mess. Like a total wreck, you know? And like I think for a lot of people, they think like if you're successful, like all of a sudden you get like a green— like you get like some card in the mail that says like you're going to be totally satisfied and happy for the rest of your life.

It— it doesn't happen like that. Like life for me happens the way it always— it's my… the only difference is I'm in Linkin Park. Like what goes on inside my head, it's always been that. It's always been this way for me. So when I'm not working on that, like my life gets messy.

And that's kind of how the inspiration for all these songs came from— conversations about life and what was going on as friends, as husbands, as fathers, as, you know, whatever— business partners. Like we were all talking about what was going on in all aspects of our lives at certain times throughout the process of this record, and we realized like, “Man, we've all gone through like some really crazy stuff.”

And we don't need to find the source of inspiration— like, “What's this record about?” Like— this is our life, you know? We always have written about our lives and like that should just be enough. We don't need to find some new thing.

Like life is always throwing these curveballs at you, whether they're good or bad— like it just happens.

And eventually what I found is, especially with the bad stuff— ’cause that's the stuff that I kind of lean— that's stuff that sticks to me a little bit more— coming out at the other side and being like, “Man, I'm a better person because of that,” or “I'm more compassionate because of that,” or “I feel like I can understand people or humanity a little bit differently because I've been through some pretty crazy stuff.”

And that's a positive. So finding the positive in all these things— that's what we always try to do. But we still talk about the feelings we had going through all these different circumstances.

Again, remember THERE IS HOPE. If you’re worried about yourself or someone close to you, there are places to turn for help at any hour:

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – Dial or text 988 to reach trained counselors who can talk with you privately, day or night.

• Crisis Text Line – Text HOME to 741741 to start a text conversation with a counselor.

• Veterans Crisis Line – Veterans, service members, and their families can call 988 and press 1, text 838255, or use the chat tool at VeteransCrisisLine.net/Chat.

• The Trevor Project – LGBTQ young people can speak with a counselor by calling 1-866-488-7386, texting 678-678, or using the online chat service.

• Emergency Services – If someone is in immediate danger, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.