Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington 'took his own life'
Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington
has died aged 41, LA County Coroner says.
The coroner said Bennington apparently hanged himself.
His body was found at a private home in the county at 09:00 local time (17:00
GMT) on Thursday.
Bennington was said to be close to Soundgarden vocalist
Chris Cornell, who took his own life in
May.
Formed in 1996, Linkin Park have
sold more than 70 million albums worldwide and won two Grammy Awards.
The band had a string of hits including Faint, In The End
and Crawling, and collaborated with the rapper Jay-Z.
The album Meteora topped the
Billboard 200 chart in 2003 and is regarded as one of the biggest indie rock
records of all time.
The band had been due to begin
a tour next week.
For a generation growing up in
the early 2000s, it would have been hard not to find someone who didn't own a
copy of the band's debut album Hybrid Theory.
It's sold more than 30 million
copies worldwide and remains one of the biggest selling albums released since
the start of the millennium.
Linkin Park's successful trick
was to fuse elements of metal and rock with rap and hip-hop to shape the
nu-metal genre on songs such as Crawling, In The End and Numb.
Arguably their biggest asset
was Chester's powerhouse voice. He had a huge, raspy vocal which suited their
stadium-filling, singalong anthems.
Whilst his vocal persona could
be described as angry and harsh, in person he was warm, articulate and funny.
The band's most recent album,
One More Light, saw a different direction as they worked with prolific pop
songwriters Julia Michaels and Justin Tranter - and collaborated with UK grime
artist Stormzy.
He leaves a wife, and six
children from two marriages.
The singer is said to have
struggled for years with alcohol and drug abuse, and has talked in the past
about contemplating suicide as a result of being a victim of abuse as a child.
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