Singer stands by new member Emily Armstrong amid backlash and new tour
After the death of Linkin Park’s lead vocalist, Chester Bennington in 2017, the band is finally ready to make a comeback. In conversation with The Guardian, singer-songwriter Mike Shinoda and vocalist Emily Armstrong discussed the band’s rebirth and the backlash they have dealt with.
25 years since its formation, Linkin Park has become one of the biggest US rock bands of this millennium. Their debut Hybrid Theory was one of the best selling albums of 2001 and since then, the band has garnered a massive worldwide fanbase. While they have given us bangers such as Numb and In the End, Linkin Park has struggled with deciding the course of their music career after Bennington’s death.
After much experimentation, the originally six person group decided to add two more people to the mix. Armstrong joined as co-lead vocalist and Colin Brittain as the drummer. This addition to the band was made while navigating fan reaction to Bennington’s death and understanding what musical path the group wants to take in future. Shinoda, who founded Linkin Park at 19 years of age, described what prompted him to pick Armstrong for lead vocals and why it upset fans.
“There were people who lashed out at Emily and it was really because she wasn’t a guy.” Shinoda narrated, “(The fans) are used to Linkin Park being six guys and the voice of a guy leading this song. They were just so uncomfortable with what it was that they chose a ton of things to complain about.”
Despite fan backlash, Shinoda was fully confident in Armstrong’s enthusiasm to carry their legacy forward. “There are a lot of people for whom it’s all about follower count. It’s a very greedy way to live. And these guys aren’t that way,” he said. The singer thinks that Armstrong, “Who had a sassy little sister energy around Shinoda – seemed like a natural fit.” when he met her in the studio in 2023, “Something clicked.”
Staging a comeback
Armstrong’s selection was made on the basis of trials held at the band’s studio.”I didn’t tell them this was part of a potential Linkin Park comeback,” Shinoda revealed,“things could get awkwardly vague. Two hours into the session, they’d be like, ‘Hey, can I ask you a question? What’s going on here? Who are we writing for?’ And we’d be like: ‘Yeah, we don’t know.’”
Finally he came across Armstong and was impressed by her respectability and enthusiasm for the kind of music we asked her to play. She was simply, “Excited to write with Mike Shinoda”.
Armstrong was the frontwoman for Dead Sara, a bluesy LA punk band that never really made it big. When she first heard about Shinoda’s offer, she was in disbelief,“I’ve (previously) been in a band for 20 years and I could only dream of this kind of success,” the new lead shared. Being Bennington’s replacement, Armstrong was slightly under pressure, she recalled, “I was scared at the prospect of stepping into such big shoes. ‘Why do I think I can do this?’ I wondered, I told Shinoda that I didn’t want to ‘ruin’ Linkin Park. I was like ‘you guys are a legacy band – you guys are so important.’”
New horizons
Despite her hesitation, Shinoda is eager to take his music forward. In honour of Bennington, he released Post Traumatic on June 15, 2018, which was an emotional solo album that detailed his journey of processing grief. He described the tours as, “I felt like I was coping well and I was able to get up in the morning and not think about it, and I was evolving from the terrible stuff that had happened.”
However, it soon became exhausting, “I would go to the show and spend 90 minutes with half the crowd crying. And I’m like, this is exhausting. You know how therapists see patients all day and help them, but then they need therapy themselves? That’s how I felt.”
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