In a recent interview with Kerrang, Lamb Of God guitarist Mark Morton discussed his collaboration with LINKIN PARK singer Chester Bennington on a song for his upcoming solo album, “Anesthetic”.
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He said:
“I didn’t even know if I was on his radar at all, but through the channels, I reached out, and it turns out he was very respectful of my work with LAMB and that kind of thing,” Mark said. “And, obviously, everyone in the world knows how good Chester is.”
According to Morton, Chester “loved” the song “Cross Off” in its initial form and “we kind of went back and forth about doing it. And then we got in the same room and did it,” he explained. “But the great part of the experience — a lot of it was great, but one of the great parts of the experience — is that the template, the outline I had for the song when I presented it to Chesteris different than what it became, because we really sat together over a table and just really hashed stuff out and kind of tore it apart and built it back up together. And that was, to me, one of the more memorable parts of that experience.”
He further added:
“We very quickly got into kind of a creative mode and very quickly were just two guys working on a song that we both really dug,” he said. “So that felt very natural. In terms of what he was excited… I think he just genuinely really liked the song — I think that’s why he was there, ’cause he really liked that song. And I happen to know he was very, very excited about the idea of screaming and doing something heavier than what he’s been doing lately. That meant a lot to him — he was very vocal about being excited about that.”
“Chester‘s ability was undeniable,” he said. “Just sitting in the control room and watching him do takes… I’m not gonna say it was effortless, ’cause I’m sure it’s not, but it seemed that way. And you could just ask him to do something — change a little pitch thing or something like that — and he’d just drill it every time. It was pretty remarkable to watch.”
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On lyrical approach:
“The lyrics to ‘Cross Off’ are very personal to me,” he said. “I didn’t write all of them. As I said, when I brought it in, I had an outline for the song, and then Chester and I kind of went through it. It’s sort of about codependency. Parts of it reference directly a relationship ending in my life, but parts of it are about self-destruction and codependency and just the ways we beat ourselves up. And regret, I guess, is a theme in there too.”