Producer Howard Benson recently revealed Chester Bennington’s opinion on the secret behind Linkin Park’s success.
Howard Benson reveals what Chester Bennington said
During a conversation with GRAMMY.com, he said before sharing the late singer’s answer:
“When I was producing Chester Bennington, last time we met, I asked him, ‘Why does Linkin Park sell so many records? What do you think it is?’” Benson said
The producer continued, “He said, ‘Because we write the same song every time: I’m 17, I’m feeling something, and I don’t know what it is.’ If you’re a 17-year-old, you totally get it. These guys are confused. I’m confused.”
“Those things are never going to go out of style. That’s why you get new fans too. That 17-year-old is now 27 but there’s a new 17-year-old who’s confused. The 27-year old’s probably still confused, but in a different way,” he then added.
Bennington had recorded Dead By Sunrise’s only studio album ‘Out of Ashes’ with Benson. “For one, Rick was already working on two other projects. So that kind of took him out of the running right away,” Chester previously told about why he chose Benson instead of Rick Rubin.
He added, “Plus, I just worked with him in Linkin Park, and I’m pretty confident that we’ll work with him again. I didn’t want to dip in that well too many times. I think that’s smart. I looked at the list of producers that I wanted to work with, and timing is everything. I am in Linkin Park, and we were going to start working on something.”
“Howard was on the list and said he was available to do it and work on it with me. I had met with a couple producers before. One I don’t want to name who it was because I don’t want to talk bad about him. It was the most uninspiring meeting that I’ve ever had. It was like, Wow,” Chester also noted.
He went on to explain, “Then I met with Howard, and he got what we were doing. He was excited about it, he wanted to work on it, he liked the band, he liked the people in the band, and we all talked about stuff. He was smart about gear and how the songs come together. We all walked out and were like, F*ck yeah!”
‘Out of Ashes’ arrived on October 13th, 2009. The album is darker and more rock-focused than Linkin Park’s style.
