About Dead By Sunrise

Dead by Sunrise (formerly known as Snow White Tan) is an American rock band. The band features Chester Bennington of Linkin Park, Amir Derakh, Ryan Shuck, Brandon Belsky, Frank Zummo (Street Drum Corps), and Anthony "Fu" Valcic from Julien-K and Orgy. Dead by Sunrise's debut album, Out of Ashes, was released worldwide on October 13, 2009. Dead by Sunrise started to form in 2005 while Chester Bennington was writing songs for Linkin Park's album Minutes to Midnight. According to Bennington, "I came up with a few songs that felt and sounded really good, but I knew they weren't right stylistically for Linkin Park. They were darker and moodier than anything I'd come up with for the band. So I decided to work on them on my own rather than turn them over and have them transformed into Linkin Park tracks." However, the foundation for Dead by Sunrise was laid much earlier, when future bandmate Shuck met Bennington during the recording of Linkin Park's first album Hybrid Theory. In an interview, Shuck states that "I always used to go to his house and hear him play acoustic guitar. And I always thought to myself, 'Oh my God, these are such good songs.'" Recording of the band's debut album began in July 2008 after touring for Linkin Park had finished. Working simultaneously on his solo album and Linkin Park's next record, Bennington recorded Out of Ashes with producer Howard Benson (who has also worked with Three Days Grace, My Chemical Romance, Daughtry, and simultaneously Full Circle by Creed) and bandmates from Julien-K. Bennington wrote most of the songs on an acoustic guitar before working with his band to reshape the track into hard rock, a ballad, or even removing all rock influence and creating a synth-driven track. Linkin Park bandmate Mike Shinoda confirmed that Out of Ashes is "much more of a rock album [than Linkin Park's albums]." Also of note, Bennington participated in all aspects of creating the record, including programming and production. In a 2009 interview with Billboard, Bennington said that "This isn't a one-time thing for us. Every five years or so I could imagine there'd be a Dead By Sunrise record." Despite this, in 2010, he has stated there was a small chance a new album may be created. The frontman also noted that because of Linkin Park's new direction "it becomes very difficult to choose where the songs that he writes will go." On November 4, 2011, Bennington's wife, Talinda, revealed that Dead by Sunrise will perform at the 2011 Stars of the Season Gala event, which will focus on raising donations for pediatric rehabilitation. Videos have been filmed for "Crawl Back In" (September 8, 2009) and "Let Down" with the songs serving as the album's first two singles. "Crawl Back In" has reached the 11th spot on the Mainstream Rock chart. On the 20th of April 2012, during a Love and Death concert played at an event by The Whosoevers, Elias Andra announced that he had converted to Christianity in November 2011 and that he had left his band. In 2012, Andra was replaced with Frank Zummo from Street Drum Corps.