Steve Aoki reveals he plays Linkin Park songs in every set to help him accept Chester Bennington’s death
The artists recorded the tracks A Light That Never Comes and Darker Than Blood together
STEVE Aoki has told how he plays his collaborations with Linkin Park in every set to help him come to terms with the tragic death of the band's frontman Chester Bennington.
The DJ, 39, and the nu-metal giants made A Light That Never Comes and Darker Than Blood together, with Steve calling Chester his favourite singer.
The much-loved rocker was found hanged in his LA home last month on his good friend Chris Cornell's birthday - the Soundgarden singer who also took his own life this year.
Speaking to The Sun Online at V Festival, Steve said: "It's really tough, but it's really good for me to play their music in my sets. To hear his voice and play our songs, we did a few songs together. First of all it's acceptance, right. It's accepting he did actually pass away. That's a very strange thought because it's so tragic and I didn't expect it.
"I play his songs in my set every night. You want to remember everything and you want to share those memories.
"What we did together was so beautiful. I want to share that even more now. I'm so proud of doing something with, to me, one of the greatest singers of all time. He's my favourite singer. The crowd are singing every word, in the moment, it's amazing."
Steve's sets at this weekend's festivals were typically raucous, and the American even packed his rider list with six pages of baking products ahead of his cake-filled slots.
Famed for showering his audience with cakes launched from the stage, his festival slots certainly didn't disappoint.
Prior to taking the stage at Weston Park, Staffordshire, on Sunday, Steve filmed as the finishing touches were made to eight huge cakes.
After whipping the audience into a frenzy with his energetic set, Steve brought out the desserts one by one and threw them into the crowd leaving those at the front covered in icing.
The Aoki cake craze began when the DJ came up with a novel way to try to promote a group on his label called Autoerotique.
Speaking to, he said: "They did a video for their song, 'Turn Up the Volume,' where these cakes would explode in slow motion in peoples' face after they blew out the candles. It was really cinematic—beautifully shot.
"The song went viral because of the video, so I came up with the idea of promoting the song by caking someone. That was the concept—the actual cake I had in the beginning would say 'Autoerotique, Turn Up the Volume' on it.
"For the first six months when I added that to my rider, someone would have to write that on it. By the time I retired the song, caking people had just became part of the show."
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