Linkin Park is making a return with new co-vocalist Emily Armstrong after several years on hiatus, announcing a world tour and an upcoming album Thursday in a live-streamed performance that amped up their long-standing fan base around the world.
By Kelsey Ables
Linkin Park debuted Armstrong — who co-founded the rock group Dead Sara — as co-vocalist during their performance Thursday, which featured new track “The Emptiness Machine” as well as old favorites such as “Numb” and “In the End.” They also brought on a new drummer, Colin Brittain, also a producer and songwriter who has worked with artists including All Time Low and A Day to Remember.
One of the most prominent rock bands of the early 21st century, Linkin Park courted a loyal online fan base in its early days and skyrocketed to mainstream success with its first album, “Hybrid Theory.” Known for its blend of rap, rock and early-aughts angst, Linkin Park won the hearts of headbanging teens — now nostalgia-seeking adults — around the world.
In an interview with Billboard, founding member and co-lead vocalist Mike Shinoda said that in the years after Bennington’s death, the group would get together occasionally and play “but there wasn’t any creative momentum.”
While the band met Armstrong around 2019 and did some sessions with her over the years, they didn’t call their work together by the name Linkin Park until the songs started coming together and it became clear that calling it “anything else would be strange and misleading,” Shinoda said.
Armstrong, who is from Los Angeles, told the Salt Lake Tribune in 2012 that she knew wanted to be in a rock band since she was a kid — and subsisted for years on bean burritos from Taco Bell as she built her career.
In the Billboard interview, she described herself as an early fan of Linkin Park and said that when she joined, she wrestled with: “How do I be myself in this, but also carry on the emotion and what [Bennington] brought in this band?”
Shinoda did not frame Armstrong as a replacement for Bennington on Thursday’s live stream. “In the role of Chester Bennington this afternoon is each of you,” he said instead, addressing the crowd. “Are you ready to sing with us?”
