The news of Chester taking his own in July was met with great shock and sadness, following the similar loss of Soundgarden frontman and Chester’s friend Chris Cornell just two months prior in May.
In honour of Chester, his lyrics and what he meant to his fans, Brisbane promoter and musician Phoenix Daniels will stage a tribute show along with local bands. Like many others, Phoenix says the sad news dealt him a devastating blow. “It dropped me, personally,” Phoenix says.
Phoenix Daniels
“I wouldn’t go as far to say I’m a big Linkin Park fan, but I’m 34 now and I came out of high school with clinical depression. I never realised just how important his lyrics and his voice were to me because when I found out it all came crashing back quite intensely.
“I’m not someone who lives with depression anymore; I’ve done a whole bunch of things to help people in their lives coming out of it and it hit me like a ton of bricks. All the feelings I haven’t had in ten years overwhelmed me and it dropped me to the ground and I broke down from it.”
Through his voice and lyrics, Chester spoke to a generation of listeners who felt dislocated from the accepted norm. Together with his bandmates, Linkin Park created music that resonated on a deeply personal level for their fans. Phoenix says that for him, that connection was forged by letting him know in his darkest moments: “That somebody understood what I was going through.
“When I was in the depths… When you’re in that state of mind your mind isn’t behaving in a normal fashion and the thoughts and the ideas that echo and bounce around your head aren’t necessarily sane.
“There would be moments when just having his voice going off in my head and listening to that music would actually bring me a sense of calm, because it was someone that said, ‘look, I understand how you feel, I have felt that way and it’s ok; there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with you. You’re a human being, you’re just different from other people and you’ve had a different experience.'”
{youtube}eVTXPUF4Oz4{/youtube}
For the tribute show, Phoenix will be presenting an evening of music dedicated to Chester and Linkin Park, with all proceeds donated to not-for-profit charity Community Action For The Prevention of Suicide (CAPS Inc). Enlisted to perform are the bands DeadNerve, All Hours, FriendlyFire and a supergroup of Phoenix's own creation.
“We’ve got a number of bands playing,” Phoenix says. “I've put together a local supergroup of artists, which includes the bassist from my band Micropsia.
“We’ve got other artists playing as well and they’re all going to play their own set as well as some Linkin Park covers. Whereas the band I'm putting together, we’re just going to be playing 45 minutes straight-up of Linkin Park.”
