Beyond Linkin Park: A Band Inspired by the Ultimate Lifeform

You read that title correctly. I’m here to tell you how the late Chester Bennington and Shadow the Hedgehog all have ties in creating the supergroup, Dead by Sunrise. Depending on your knowledge of either material, a few names are going to be the keys to this puzzle. Most notably, Amir Derakh, Ryan Shuck and Julien-K, all of which you’ll be very familiar with by the end of this article. The history of Linkin Park is well known and documented, so I’ll keep that brief and recommend you read this article for more on that.

Orgy (the band)

Our story begins with a little nu metal band named Orgy, founded in 1997 by Jay Gordon, Amir Derakh and Ryan Shuck. Cleverly named for the fusion of genres the band produced, Orgy took industrial, electronic and gothic rock to create their own distinct sound. Fitting nicely into the nu metal genre, Orgy saw major success with their cover of New Order’s “Blue Monday”, which helped push their debut album Candyass into the mainstream.

It is important to note that Orgy and Linkin Park were working at the same recording studio during the turn of the millennium, NRG Recordings. Orgy was a huge influence over the recording of Hybrid Theory, and Jay Gordon even remixed “Points of Authority” for 2002’s Reanimation. To say the two bands had a close working relationship would be an understatement; fast friendships formed fleetly.

But there was a problem. Amir and Ryan wanted to experiment more with electronic sounds, and lead singer Jay wasn’t happy to sing or be part of this. This forced the duo to create their own separate project.

The Formation of Julien-K

Julien-K was a project that took a while to get going, as the duo’s time and energy were dedicated to their main band, Orgy. Being close friends with the two from their shared history, Chester pushed them to finish music and became the executive producer on their first album. His friendship and professional relationship with Amir and Ryan helped motivate them to get their sound down and create.

One of their first mainstream success stories was getting their single “Technical Difficulties” in the original Michael Bay Transformers movie, alongside Linkin Park’s “What I’ve Done”. They also scored the video game adaptation of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in 2009, the same year they released their debut album Death to Analog. This features their signature electronic sound and the aforementioned single “Technical Difficulties”.

The band continues to create to this day, releasing several albums, including 2025’s DRK|MODE, which features “Shadow Life”, a personal favourite. Julien-K are similar to Linkin Park, in that they both release remix albums of their work getting friends and industry colleagues to create reimagining’s of their work. Mike Shinoda has notably remixed “Death to Analog” on their Death to Digital X remix album, further demonstrating their close working relationship. Oh, and if you’re curious about the name, apparently it’s from Julian Kaye from American Gigolo. The more you know!

Sonic and Shadow the Hedgehog

Julien-K was approached by SEGA, who needed character themes recorded for two games, Sonic Heroes and Shadow the Hedgehog. This resulted in Team Dark’s theme, “This Machine” and “Waking Up”, the neutral ending theme for Shadow the Hedgehog. Both have become synonymous with Shadow the Hedgehog and E123 Omega as characters within the Sonic community. The question “why was this generally unknown side project of an American nu metal group chosen to create such important character themes for a SEGA title?” might be ringing through your head.

Well, that’s simple. Jun Senoue was a fan of glam rock band Rough Cutt, of which Amir was a former member before founding Orgy. So, Jun contacted Amir, who figured that Julien-K, his current passion project, could be up to the task. As Chester was the executive producer of all of the band’s other work at this time, it stands to reason that he was also likely involved in the creation of these themes, too. The exact nature of the involvement is unknown; unfortunately. The band haven’t spoken out much on the creation of these two songs.

However, it is a common belief that their involvement with SEGA helped push the band’s popularity and boosted their confidence in releasing new music. Their success with SEGA and newly gained confidence ultimately amalgamated into forming another experiment, with Chester at the helm.

Dead by Sunrise

If Julien-K was Amir and Ryan’s experiment, then Dead by Sunrise was Chester’s. The band consisted of Chester, Amir and Ryan, as well as Elias Andra, Brandon Belsky and Anthony Valcic, the performing band members of Julien-K, as well as Frank Zummo. The band was formed through Chester’s longing to create darker and moodier songs whilst recording 2007’s “Minutes to Midnight”. He approached his friends from Julien-K, and together they formed a supergroup to allow Chester this creative outlet.

He had full creative control over Dead by Sunrise, whereas he lamented and loved the fact that Linkin Park was a collaborative effort and that he and Mike Shinoda had a 50-50 split over the vocal range. One aspect that Chester noted loving about the experiment was that he could have three-way harmonisation on vocals, something impossible with Linkin Park. The band spent years toying with songs before releasing their one and only album, but what we get is something distinct from Linkin Park and Julien-K, but deeply personal to Chester.

Name Origins

The band name was deeply personal to Chester, too, and I’m just going to leave a quote from an interview he did with MTV in 2009, as I could not do it any justice.

I came up with the band name because in the beginnings of making this album, I was partying … we’ll call it partying. It wasn’t much fun, but we partied a lot. And there was a lot of times where I was kind of in a really self-destructive place, and sometimes it felt like you weren’t sure if you were going to make it to the next day. The name kind of evolved from that lifestyle, and the title of the record, Out of Ashes, is kind of coming out of that self-destructive path I was on, and rising from the ashes, so to speak.

Chester Bennington, interview with MTV, July 16th 2009.

Out of Ashes

One thing you’ll notice immediately upon listening is that Out of Ashes is a sombre, slower and more emotional album. It isn’t nu metal, nor does it try to be. There are hints of its electronic roots, but for the most part is a fairly vanilla alternative rock album and very easy on the ears. The songs do match in tone, some of the slower and more ballad-oriented songs from Linkin Park’s library, but with their own sadness.

Tonally, Chester put it perfectly himself in the same interview mentioned earlier: “the album represents what had been going on in my life over the past couple of years — really great moments happening at the same time as these really terrible things were happening“. It’s a very consistent sound, lots of harmonies, emotion and this light roughness that emanates from Chester’s vocal range. You really feel the authenticity in raw emotion and can feel the inner thoughts coming through.

This is most prominent in “My Suffering”, there are elements of Chester’s nu metal origins with the light screaming vocals. But it’s subdued, in the background and more of a supplementary feature to the song, and not the main attraction, unlike something from Hybrid Theory. “Into You” is another song that wears its heart on its sleeve; this recurring theme of self-reflection and pushing through a traumatic experience resonates here.

More Than an Album

“Morning After”, the bonus song for the deluxe edition of the album, has origins that date back to before the formation of even Linkin Park. Chester wrote it in the early 90s and had been playing it for friends and at shows as early as 2001, but this never came to pass as a Linkin Park song. It’s a track that nearly didn’t make the album; it’s Chester’s heart song and the one he’s most proud of. This seems true about other songs on the album, too. “Give Me Your Name” was written for Talinda (Chester’s wife). It was written as an engagement song, and he even called it his favourite track on the album.

As a complete set, the album is a fantastic listen; it’s consistent, tragic, but somehow hopeful. It’s a hidden gem in his discography and often overlooked by Linkin Park fans. If you’ve not had a chance, I’d implore you to give it a listen. With the context of his painful experiences that shaped his later life, it hits especially hard and is a far better tribute than the demos they released that he wasn’t happy enough to release whilst he was with us.

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To conclude, listen to Julien-K and Dead by Sunrise

So there you go, who’d have thought that Shadow the Hedgehog, Linkin Park and even Transformers were so intrinsically linked? Alternative music and Sonic the Hedgehog have always had an interesting relationship. From the origins of the rock fusion of Crush 40, to their recent work with Kellin Quinn and Tyler Smyth. It’s always been a nurturing and experimental process, allowing the work to grow and expand into different genres.

We have Jun Senoue and Tomoya Ohtani to thank for this. Without their dedication and love for music and experimentation, Sonic music would not be as prolific as it is today. Here’s to many more years of incredible tracks.

I hope this article opened your eyes and ears to the bands beyond the character themes, and maybe you’ll check out Julien-K and Dead by Sunrise. If they’re your cup of tea, of course! Rest in peace, Chester. You’ve had an undeniable impact on the music industry, with ripples emanating from Linkin Park and beyond.