Chester Bennington
Chester Charles Bennington (born March 20, 1976) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and actor. He is best known as the lead vocalist of rock bands Linkin Park and Dead by Sunrise. He was originally the lead vocalist for Sean Dowdell And His Friends? and Grey Daze. He is also the current lead vocalist for Stone Temple Pilots and rock cover band Bucket of Weenies. Bennington became known as a vocalist with Linkin Park's debut album, Hybrid Theory, in 2000, which was a massive commercial success. The album was certified Diamond by the RIAA in 2005, making it the best-selling debut album of the decade, as well as one of the few albums to ever hit that many sales. Linkin Park's following studio albums, Meteora, Minutes to Midnight, A Thousand Suns, Living Things, and The Hunting Party, released in 2003, 2007, 2010, 2012, and 2014 respectively, continued the band's success. Bennington formed his own band, Dead by Sunrise as a side project in 2005. The band's debut album, Out of Ashes was released on October 13, 2009. He worked on new material with Stone Temple Pilots in 2013 to release the EP High Rise on October 8, 2013 via their own record label, Play Pen LLC. Bennington has been ranked in the Top 100 Heavy Metal Vocalists by Hit Parader (No. 46).