LOOK: Linkin Park rapper Mike Shinoda posts artful tribute to Chester Bennington
Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda. Image: Screen grab via Twitter/@m_shinoda
Over a week after Chester Bennington’s passing, Mike Shinoda posted an illustrated tribute on Instagram for his Linkin Park bandmate.
The posted illustration contained the band’s logo with six arms circled around it, and with Bennington’s tattooed arm faded off.
Image: Screen grab via Instagram/@mikeshinoda
“One week. Feels like forever,” the rapper wrote.
On his profile, he uses an updated band logo with one of the lines in the hexagon removed to symbolize the band’s loss:
Image: Screen grab via Twitter/@m_shinoda
His caption centered on how to commemorate Bennington and on suicide prevention:
“1.) If you need a (local) place to celebrate Chester, look to tiny.cc/lpmemorial and all the amazing fan sites I’ve previously mentioned.
2.) If you’re having suicidal thoughts, go to chester.linkinpark.com
3.) If you’re going to buy merch in honor of Chester, consider who the purchase benefits. Don’t give money to scumbag bootleggers and opportunists. Linkin Park official merchandise is at store.linkinpark.com
4.) If you want to donate in honor of Chester, do it at musicforrelief.org
5.) Brad, Joe, Rob, Dave, and I love you all very much. Thank you for respecting our privacy during this extremely difficult time.”
Shortly after Bennington’s death, Shinoda commemorated the moment they completed the band with their first picture together.
Bennington, father to six and survived by second wife Talinda, was also a vocalist and songwriter for the bands Dead by Sunrise and Stone Temple Pilots. Bennington succeeded Scott Weiland as vocalist of Stone Temple Pilots; incidentally, Weiland also died an unexpected death, due to accidental drug overdose in 2015.
Bennington was found dead in July 20, with the cause of death determined as suicide by hanging.
Shinoda affirmed in a Radio.com interview that Bennington was a close friend of Soundgarden and Audioslave singer Chris Cornell, who committed suicide two months prior. During a tribute to Cornell, the Linkin Park lead man struggled to perform “One More Light” which was written about “the loss of a friend,” said Shinoda. JB
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