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Chester Bennington chases angels and demons in Dead By Sunrise (© Kabik/Retna Ltd./Corbis)

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Linkin Park's Chester Bennington calls his new band Dead By Sunrise. But the singer-songwriter is quick to stress that the name isn't simply a slogan or a neat word grouping - it comes from a real-life struggle he's still trying to reconcile.

"I'm a drinker," Bennington says. "And for far too long I was completely out of control, leading an existence and lifestyle that I'm definitely not proud of. There have been times where I literally thought, Oh my God, I might not wake up tomorrow - that's how bad it's been. So when I got this other group together, the name Dead By Sunrise stuck."

For Bennington, who has shared stages with Paul McCartney, Jay-Z and The Doors, among others, and who, along with Linkin Park, has sold over 50 million albums, the need to record a album of his own with a new band wasn't a mere vanity project - it was a necessity.

"I had to write these songs," he says. "I had to purge them from my system. Call it catharsis, therapy - they had to come out. Linkin Park is a terrific vehicle for me, but it's not the be-all and end-all. I have a lot of different shades and textures to what I do, and thankfully I found the right bunch of guys who could help me do this material justice."

"I don't want to say I'm more proud of this record than anything Linkin Park has done. But as the saying goes, 'This time it's personal'" Chester Bennington

Bennington is referring to ex-Orgy guitarists Amir Derakh and Ryan Shuck who round out Dead By Sunrise (the band performs live with bassist Brandon Belsky, drummer Elias Anda and keyboardist Anthony Valcic). On their debut album, Out Of Ashes, they crash their way through raging, harrowing rock (Fire, My Suffering) but they also slow things down for some surprisingly tender moments (Give Me Your Name, Into The Darkness).

"I don't want to say I'm more proud of this record than anything Linkin Park has done," says Bennington, " because obviously I'm very happy with all we've accomplished. But as the saying goes, 'This time it's personal,' and that's what this record really is for me. It's an accurate depiction of my moods and reflections, and I really dug deep to get it right."

Bennington recently say down with MusicRadar to discuss Dead By Sunrise, the status of Linkin Park and the internal demons he says are "still a daily battle."

Why do you think the music on Out Of Ashes couldn't have been recorded by Linkin Park?

"It's complicated. I think everything was relevant to the time. In 2005, after Linkin Park finished touring behind Meteora, we wanted to take a long break - we had been touring for pretty much five years straight.

"Also, I wasn't sure what kind of music the band wanted to make. Were we going to get experimental? Which we did kind of do with songs like Breaking The Habit. At the same time, we were in kind of a box, doing the sort of music that Linkin Park fans wanted to hear. That bothered me a bit - I don't want to have to write songs to order, to so speak.

"So I had these other song ideas that were kind of grungy, kind of punky, a little more singer-songwriter-oriented, very much 'me-centric' - I wasn't sure if it would make sense with Linkin Park."

Are you saying that Linkin Park isn't open to music that isn't 'Linkin Park music'?

"Well, see, this is tricky. I thought that at the time. At the moment I would say things are possibly different and that the band is super open-minded. We can go in any direction we want right now, and I'd say that's the result of working with Rick Rubin. He taught us that anything can work as long as we believe in the material."

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