“I made my mind up three years ago: I don’t want to scream anymore,” said Bennington, 34, stepping into the studio after a drive up from home in Orange County, his hair cut close to the scalp. “I think all of us at that point were going, ‘If I keep doing this, this is just what I’m going to keep doing for the rest of my life.’”
He attributes his willingness to step into new emotional territory to his experience raising four boys (ages 4, 8, 13 and 14 years), along with a widening of his musical tastes: “I’m a father now. I’m inspired to sing that way.”
“When I was 20 years old, I would have told you ‘I hate the Beatles. There is no way I will listen to that,’” added Bennington, whose personal model then was the roaring creep show punk-rock of the Misfits. “Now, I would tell you that I love the Beatles, and I didn’t figure it out until I was 27: ‘Oh. This is what everybody … talks about.’ It was weird. It was like all of a sudden I like broccoli. Now I love broccoli.”
Via LPTimes.
