It's no surprise that many alternative bands on the scene have been influenced, even if only slightly, by Linkin Park. Their debut album Hybrid Theory sold 50,000 copies in the first week and continues to hold the title of best-selling debut album of the 21st century. Just one of the people who have spoken about Linkin Park and particularly Chester Bennington's impact of their work is Skillet frontman, John Cooper, who recently told a crowd about Chester Bennington and the influence he had at a recent show in Georgia.
"In the last few years, as you guys know, we've had a lot of celebrity deaths. Lots of celebrity suicides and they all have hurt me in certain different kinds of ways. I was really very upset when one of my favourite singers from one of my favourite bands, Chester Bennington, took his own life. I want to make this clear, I did not know him, we never toured with Linkin Park, but I always assumed we would because we had a lot of similar fans and I looked forward to that tour and it will never, ever happen now." Cooper continues, "I was so down and so depressed about it and I wanted to write a song for people who feel that they would rather end their own lives than to keep fighting. I wanted to write a song for people who feel they are the only ones who feel alone. You are not the only one, we all feel that way, we all feel ugly sometimes, we all feel worthless sometimes, we all feel useless sometimes. The song we will be playing for you is the title track to the brand new record. This song was written for Chester and it is written to anyone else who is struggling and feels all alone. This song is called Victorious."
In an interview with New Release Today, Cooper revealed, "I always want to be delicate with this as I don’t want people to, you know, make money off of someone’s loss here. That’s not how I made this. I made it from the heart. I was reading about his life and what people who knew him said. Depression and the things that he was struggling with. I wanna write a song to Chester or a song to people going through the things that Chester went through. I meet these fans all the time. With depression, anxiety, and there are certain things I can relate to. But I cannot relate to the levels of that and not wanting to live. I can’t relate to that. But, I want to say something to those people like, “Yes, I hear you, I see you, I know life is hard, but you can make it. That is what the song Victorious is all about. It ended up becoming such a special song to me personally. It kind of encapsulated what this record was about and why we ended up calling the record that."
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised, help and resources can be found at Buddy Project.org.