As part of our extensive tribute to Chester Bennington in this week’s issue of the magazine, we spoke to Oli Sykes of Bring Me The Horizon. We thought it’d be cool to share what he said here. Without further ado:

“I first met Chester in 2014 in America. It was for a Kerrang! cover shoot, and I was really nervous about it. I was excited too, but I didn’t know whether to play it cool or just gush at him. I went with the latter option, and he was so cool and really nice to me.

“We asked each other questions about a bunch of stuff. We were on Warped Tour at the time and he was asking me about how I did it, playing shows every day for six to eight weeks without losing my voice. I told him Linkin Park were the first band I ever saw live and the reason I wanted to be in one. He seemed really taken aback about it all when I said how much he influenced me. He seemed to really appreciate it and be humbled by it. He was really nice, really genuine, really calm. Like a lot of things in my life, if I could go back to tell 14-year-old me that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have believed it.

“I remember an issue of Kerrang! back in the day where my eyeball and a bit of my head was in the background of a photo from the Linkin Park gig I went to. When I got home and I saw myself in the magazine, I cried my eyes out because I thought it was so amazing. If someone had taken hold of me then and said, ‘One day you’re going to be on the front cover of Kerrang! with Chester,’ I would have had my mind blown. It’s one of those moments that makes you stop to look back at everything you’ve done and appreciate how much you’ve achieved.