Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda has opened up about coping with the death of his bandmate Chester Bennington, saying that he questioned doing a memorial show as the loss was “very raw.”

Longtime frontman Bennington at the age of 41, which led to the nu-metal megaband going on a hiatus.

and began touring a year later, with Emily Armstrong joining as singer.

But before they re-formed, the band held a memorial concert at the Hollywood Bowl for their late frontman, called Linkin Park and Friends, Celebrate Life in Honor of Chester Bennington. Some of the bands that performed at the October 2017 concert included Blink-182, members of System of a Down, Korn, Avenged Sevenfold, Machine Gun Kelly and Sum 41.

Asked about the concert in the January 7 episode of Mythical Kitchen’s , Shinoda said: “Even thinking about doing the show, there’s a part of me that’s like, ‘Oh, it’s too dark’ because that stuff is still very raw.”

“There are very few humans I’ve spent that much time with in my life… We had a very… a very, like, this interesting relationship with this very serious stuff inside, right next door to us being the biggest idiots and so silly and just really, really not as serious as the other stuff,” he said.

Regalrumination.com has contacted Shinoda’s representatives by email for comment.

Bennington and Shinoda often shared responsibility of fronting the band for its first seven albums. Along with vocals, Shinoda plays the keyboard and rhythm guitar.

The rocker described how before the frontman’s death, he that believed that people who make light of serious events in their lives were “in denial” and thought to himself, “isn’t that sad?” But he would later change his view.

“And , I’m like, no, denial is actually a very useful tool. It’s very efficient at dealing with a thing because with something that’s that heavy, you can’t just, like, drink out of the fire hose and do it all at once. You can’t,” Shinoda said.

“It would be horrible to deal with it like that. So you’ve got to space it out. And having a little bit of levity, having a little bit of denial, a little avoidance [is useful].”

“I just wish there wasn’t such a stigma attached to it because it’s actually effective. It actually helps us protect ourselves, taking things bite by bite,” he added.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, contact the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988, text “988” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741 or go to 988lifeline.org