{"id":14030,"date":"2025-07-18T12:04:49","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T12:04:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=14030"},"modified":"2025-07-18T12:04:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T12:04:49","slug":"linkin-parks-new-era-has-fans-divided-but-mike-shinoda-is-undeterred","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=14030","title":{"rendered":"Linkin Park\u2019s new era has fans divided, but Mike Shinoda is undeterred"},"content":{"rendered":"
After the death of Linkin Park\u2019s 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\u2019s rebirth and the backlash they have dealt with.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s death.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were people who lashed out at Emily and it was really because she wasn\u2019t a guy.\u201d Shinoda narrated, \u201c(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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite fan backlash, Shinoda was fully confident in Armstrong’s enthusiasm to carry their legacy forward. \u201cThere are a lot of people for whom it\u2019s all about follower count. It\u2019s a very greedy way to live. And these guys aren\u2019t that way,\u201d he said. The singer thinks that Armstrong, \u201cWho had a sassy little sister energy around Shinoda \u2013 seemed like a natural fit.\u201d when he met her in the studio in 2023, \u201cSomething clicked.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Staging a comeback\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Armstrong\u2019s selection was made on the basis of trials held at the band\u2019s studio.\u201dI didn\u2019t tell them this was part of a potential Linkin Park comeback,\u201d Shinoda revealed,\u201cthings could get awkwardly vague. Two hours into the session, they\u2019d be like, \u2018Hey, can I ask you a question? What\u2019s going on here? Who are we writing for?\u2019 And we\u2019d be like: \u2018Yeah, we don\u2019t know.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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, \u201cExcited to write with Mike Shinoda\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Armstrong was the frontwoman for Dead Sara, a bluesy LA punk band that never really made it big. When she first heard about Shinoda\u2019s offer, she was in disbelief,\u201cI\u2019ve (previously) been in a band for 20 years and I could only dream of this kind of success,\u201d the new lead shared. Being Bennington\u2019s replacement, Armstrong was slightly under pressure, she recalled, \u201cI was scared at the prospect of stepping into such big shoes. \u2018Why do I think I can do this?\u2019 I wondered, I told Shinoda that I didn\u2019t want to \u2018ruin\u2019 Linkin Park. I was like \u2018you guys are a legacy band \u2013 you guys are so important.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

New horizons<\/p>\n

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, \u201cI 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.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, it soon became exhausting, \u201cI would go to the show and spend 90 minutes with half the crowd crying. And I\u2019m like, this is exhausting. You know how therapists see patients all day and help them, but then they need therapy themselves? That\u2019s how I felt.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Having processed his band-member\u2019s death, Shinoda decided to recruit musicians, work on new music and move forward. Their eighth studio album, FROM ZERO, came out on November 15 via Warner Records. The new album is similar to the band\u2019s original music, with rock rap fusion, easy to catch melodies, loud guitar harbouring and angry lyrics.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now that the rock band is complete again, Linkin Park is all set to tour the US from July 29. While fans still look for traces of Bennington in their work, the hype for new music has not died. \u201cThis tour and this album are one of our most successful of all time.\u201d marveled Shinoda,\u201cThat, for me, is insane. That is way beyond my hopes and dreams for what this whole thing could be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Have something you want to add to the story? Share it in the comments below.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the death of Linkin Park\u2019s 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\u2019s rebirth and the backlash they have dealt with. 25 years since its formation, Linkin Park has become one of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}