The band also consisted of Amir Derakh, Ryan Shuck, Brandon Belsky, Elias Andra, and Anthony "Fu" Valcic from Julien-K and Orgy.

Dead by Sunrise started to form in 2005 while Chester Bennington was writing songs for Linkin Park's album Minutes to Midnight.

"[2] 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.

[3]On May 10, 2008, Dead by Sunrise performed three songs ("Walking in Circles", "Morning After", and "My Suffering") at the 13th anniversary party for Club Tattoo in Tempe, Arizona.

[8][9] Working simultaneously on his solo album and Linkin Park's next record, Bennington recorded Out of Ashes with producer Howard Benson and bandmates from Julien-K.[3] 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.

"[17] 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 focused on raising donations for pediatric rehabilitation.

[18][19] On April 20, 2012, during a Love and Death concert played at an event by The Whosoevers, Elias Andra announced that in December 2011 he had left the band.

[24] In September 2018, Julien-K performed the One More Light 2 memorial in Milan Italy to honor Chester Bennington with a massive number of Italian fans.