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Linkin Park Documentary: The Sad Story Of the Band & Death of Chester Bennington

Rock N' Roll True Stories | March 17, 2026



The sad story of Linkin Park and death of Chester Bennington

0:00 – Early Years
14:48 – Hybrid Theory
23:04 – Meteora
31:28 – – Minutes to Midnight
33:30 – Final Decade/Chester’s Death

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#linkinpark #chesterbennington #mikeshinoda

I cite my sources and they may differ than other people’s accounts, so I don’t guarantee the actual accuracy of my videos.

Linkin Park’s celebrated debut album 2000’s Hybrid Theory would come out during the peak of the nu-metal’s popularity. Linkin Park over the next several years became inescapable if you listened to rock radio or watched MTV. What came next is truly amazing. Linkin Park did something that so few bands could do, their popularity eclipsed trends in music and they soon ventured into uncharted territory, much to the chagrin of some of their fans. But sadly their nearly two decade run came to an abrupt end following the death of frontman Chester Bennington. Today, let’s take a deep dive into the career of Linkin Park.

Linkin Park’s story begins with Rapper/vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist/producer Mike Shinoda. Shinoda would be born to a japanese father and a white mother with the musician telling Howard Stern that being mixed race resulted in him not really knowing where he belonged in school. His mother would encourage him by the age of 6 to take up piano lessons thinking it would look good on his college applications. In addition to music lessons Shinoda would tell the shock jock that he he spent a lot of his time as a young child painting and doing artwork with the idea that perhaps someday he’d become an artist

It was by the time he became a teenager he soon started to get into the blues, jazz and hip hop. Shinoda by the mid 80’s would be hugely influenced by Run-DMC’s second record King of Rock and Beastie Boys’ License to Ill as well as LL Cool J’s Bad in addition to Public Enemy and NWA. It would be the collaborations and blending of rock and rap that gave Shinoda an idea of what he wanted to pursue musically telling Rolling Stone “The first show I went to was Anthrax and Public Enemy. They did ‘Bring the Noise’ together, and I was like, ‘That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.

Wanting to follow in the footsteps of his music idols who sampled popular rock music in their songs he would ask his musical teacher to teach him how to do just that recalling to to Rolling Stone. When I was about thirteen, I told my teacher, Eileen, I wanted to get more into playing jazz and blues and maybe hip-hop. She said she couldn’t help me out with that because that wasn’t her training. She said, “Maybe you just wanna get a keyboard and start learning those things on your own.” I thought that was really big of her to say, and definitely led to an important point in my life where I bought a keyboard. Then I got a sampler, started making beats and playing around with MIDI and digital-based music.”

Shinoda would tell Stern that prior to Chester Bennington fronting Linkin Park the seeds of the band began with him and a childhood friend of his named Mark Wakefield who he first started making music with recalling to the shock jock “the band was just originally me and Mark and i would mostly do all the rap stuff and he would do most of the rock stuff and then we’d teach each other the other side. Mark also happened to be living next door to guitarist Brad Delson with Shinoda adding “Almost like a TV Sitcom they were next door neighbours and there windows were across from each other…We’d be in mark’s room playing sega genesis and you’d hear brad playing metallica on the guitar from the other window.” Delson was also a schoolmate of Shinoda Agoura High School in southern california. The trio soon recruited a bandmate of Delson, drummer Rob Bourdon, who played with him in the band Relative Degree.“ Bourdon, got his start drumming in the third grade after his parents took him to an aerosmith concert. Fun fact . (Bourdon’s mother, Patty, was a high school girlfriend of Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer, who he credits with coming up with the band name.

It was following high school Shinoda attended Pasadena’s California’s Art of College Design where he studied illustration. Shinoda would refer to the school a

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Written by Rock N' Roll True Stories

Comments

This post currently has 33 comments.

  1. @rnrtruestories

    March 17, 2026 at 6:25 pm

    Favourite LP album? It's tough choice for me either Meteora or Minutes to Midnight. This video was a labor of love. I hadn't listened to Linkin Park in quite some years but it was great to go back and revisit those songs I listened to as a kid.

  4. @dyanyork5027

    March 17, 2026 at 6:25 pm

    CHESTER AND CHRIS WERE CLOSE, VERY… THEY ALSO HAD SIMIALAR DAMAGE. I ALWAYS FELT LIKE CHRIS'S SUICIDE MADE IT OK TO DO WHAT CHESTER ALWAYS WANTED TO DO. IT WAS LIKE AN OK FROM SOMEONE HE LOVED. THE DATE CHESTER CHOSE WAS NO MISTAKE 💔💔

  7. @judastheman

    March 17, 2026 at 6:25 pm

    "I was never a fan of In The End, I didnt want it on the record. How wrong could I have been? I decided at that point i didnt know wtf i was talking about"

    RIP Chester. On behalf of all of Arizona, we love you.

  12. @Dj.MODÆO

    March 17, 2026 at 6:25 pm

    When hybrid theory came out it was a game changer in the music industry. The whole album was full of bangers and hits and was one of the few albums you could just let play on full blast or hit shuffle knowing you won’t have to skip songs you don’t like.

  26. @micahfoley9572

    March 17, 2026 at 6:25 pm

    "punk rock attitude"

    yeah, the idea that getting signed to a major label is "making it" and that you should quit if you can't do that is kinda the opposite of punk rock. their whole story sounds super corporate tbh. which is fine, as long as you own that.

  30. @lisabelle7553

    March 17, 2026 at 6:25 pm

    Chester's lyrics were always foreshadowing for a sad ending. I loved a Thousand Suns. Don't hear much love for it. The world lost Avicii the same year. Why?? 😞

  33. @davisprice2859

    March 17, 2026 at 6:25 pm

    Chester suggested Linkin Park in reference to a facility in Canada called Linkin Park where MK Ultra experiments were performed on children… the fact that this guy made a whole ass documentary and didnt know this about the band baffles me

Comments are closed.

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