Catie LaffoonJulia Michaels co-wrote Linkin Park’s most recent hit, “Heavy” with the band’s late frontman, Chester Bennington. She says in light of Bennington’s suicide last month, she finds it difficult to listen to the track now.
“I’ve listened to Linkin Park for years,” Julia tells Billboard. “When I was growing up, my brother was such a huge fan of theirs, so it was always around in my house.”
Julia co-wrote “Heavy” with her writing partner Justin Tranter, Bennington, LP vocalist and producer Mike Shinoda and LP guitarist Brad Delson. The track was a deeply personal one for Chester, who wanted to write a song about being negatively affected by personal issues.
“He was like, ‘I wanna write a song about how sometimes you get really weighed down by all your problems, and sometimes it’s really hard to get out of that,'” Julia explains. “I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s do that.’ And we wrote the song in about two hours.”
Michaels also remembers Chester being “really funny” and “really warm” while they were working together.
“[The band] was so excited about putting out new music, and just so happy and just so lovely,” she says. “So it’s really strange that these circumstances have happened. I have a really hard time listening to the song now because of it.”
Bennington died July 20 at age 41.
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