In a new chat with Brian Haddad and Kenzie Roman of Chicago’s Q101 radio station, Mike Shinoda said he feels it’s not right to call the new band anything other than Linkin Park.
“In the middle of the process, we were open to, like, maybe the lineup is like a moving lineup, maybe there’s multiple vocalists, maybe it’s a different name, stuff like that,” the rocker explained.
Shinoda continued, “And then as the music came into focus, we were, like, ‘This is as Linkin Park an album as we could make. It’s so Linkin Park that if we call it something else, then we are idiots.’ Because it would be like misrepresentation. It’d be silly. And when people hear more of the album, they will understand that.”
Linkin Park is making music again, seven years after Chester Bennington’s death. On September 5, they announced Emily Armstrong as the new singer. They also released a single called ‘The Emptiness Machine’ and announced a new album, ‘From Zero,’ coming on November 15 through Warner.
Shinoda recently talked to KROQ about Armstrong joining Linkin Park and the pressure she might feel replacing Bennington. He noted, “We’ve all talked about it with each other and with her a million times, and we’re still talking about it.”
“One difficult thing that people are experiencing is just that they’ve heard Linkin Park for so long with Chester’s voice and the idea of somebody else being in that role, it feels really different,” Mike added. “I know that in the context of the music that’s not released yet, I know that I love it. I think her voice is incredible.”
Shinoda also responded to fans saying Armstrong is trying to sound like their old singer, “And the best thing for people who have such a strong connection to Chester to know, just to know about me, is that Chester was a one-of-a-kind person and a one-of-a-kind voice, and Emily is also a one-of-a-kind person and a one-of-a-kind voice. She’s not trying to be him. She’s trying to be her. And it so happens that I think she singing on these songs sounds like Linkin Park.”
Armstrong had her first live show with Linkin Park in a one-hour livestream concert in Los Angeles on September 5. They played ‘The Emptiness Machine’ and hits like ‘Somewhere I Belong,’ ‘Numb,’ ‘Faint,’ ‘Bleed It Out,’ ‘One Step Closer,’ ‘What I’ve Done,’ and ‘In The End.’
