Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 24 hours, then you know Linkin Park is back. Linkin Park recruited Dead Sara vocalist Emily Armstrong to front the new iteration of the band, who will release their new record From Zero on November 15.
So how did Linkin Park come back after the death of iconic vocalist Chester Bennington? In a lengthy interview with Billboard, Linkin Park bassist Dave "Phoenix" Farrell said it took some time for things to feel right for him again. Farrell noted that Armstrong and new drummer Colin Brittain make Linkin Park whole again and that he feels energized by their newfound bandhood.
"It's so fun to look at it from this vantage point now, but in the midst of it, we didn't know where it was going. I sincerely didn't know if it was going to be something completely different than Linkin Park or a new version of it. In my head, I would shut down when I started asking myself, 'OK, well, if this is new stuff, then how do you play old stuff?'
"Mike [Shinoda] was talking earlier about him doing music [after Bennington's death] — I was the opposite. For a long time, I was like, 'I don't want to do any music. That hurts. I want to avoid that.' It took a while to get to a stage where I started feeling like this is actually energizing. And that was the shift for me, where it went from like, 'Is it Linkin Park? Is it something else?' Emily feels like Linkin Park, Colin feels like Linkin Park. The six of us working together, figuring stuff out — that's energizing, and I want to keep doing it. It was like filling a battery instead of draining it."
Shinoda later elaborated on the decision to continue as Linkin Park and how From Zero came together. Shinoda also added that he originally wanted Linkin Park to do some shows with a bunch of different vocalists, but Farrell argued against the idea as being a half-assed way of the band coming back.
"As the songs came into focus, the band's DNA was really thick with this body of work. To call it anything else would be strange and misleading. We teach our kids that when you fall down, you have to get back up and you have to go try again, right? The idea of us doing some other thing, with this group of people and the sound of this music, feels like it would have been a resignation, in a way. I hate to say 'cowardly,' but it would feel like hedging a bet.
"Really early on, I think I was just spitballing out loud, and I was like, 'If we do some shows or something, maybe there'll be a few people doing vocals.' Because we weren't fully committed [to a new lineup] yet, and at that point, I didn't want to put expectations super high on Emily. But it was a real thought: 'Maybe it's a bunch of people onstage.'
"And then Dave was one of the first people who was like, 'I don't want to half-ass anything. If we're going to do something, let's do it bold. If people don't like it, so what? As long as we like it, and we're confident, then let's be bold with it!' So that's what we've done, and that's part of why I felt so empowered when we were making the record — to be like, 'This is a Linkin Park song.'
Shinoda also discussed the absence of drummer Rob Bourdon, who played for Linkin Park through their career and even before it when they were still called Xero. Bourdon simply wanted to put some distance between himself and Linkin Park, and ultimately bowed out of everything to do with the band.
"Rob had said to us at a point, I guess it was a few years ago now, that he wanted to put some distance between himself and the band. And we understood that — it was already apparent. He was starting to just show up less, be in less contact, and I know the fans noticed it too. The Hybrid Theory rerelease and Papercuts release, he didn't show up for anything. So for me, as a friend, that was sad, but at the same time, I want him to do whatever makes him happy, and obviously everybody wishes him the best.
"I had done sessions with Colin — I met him around 2021, when I got an invite to a session with a couple of different writers, and Colin was one of the guys in the room, and I immediately clicked with him. He's playing drums in the live show, and drums are his first instrument, but he plays guitar and bass and keyboard, and he produces and mixes. We have a similar way of looking at music, of starting from scratch, and I really enjoyed working with him and bouncing ideas back-and-forth.
"I don't know if any of these songs are going to be released, but we had done something with grandson, Bea Miller, Sueco — just getting in the room together to make stuff. And then when Linkin Park started making stuff, for whatever we were going to do, it was just like, 'Oh, Colin. We're making stuff. You should come over.'"
