Linkin Park announce new female lead singer
US rock band Linkin Park have announced a new singer, Emily Armstrong, will join them for their new album and tour.
The group’s former lead singer, Chester Bennington, took his own life in 2017.
Armstrong will join returning members Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Phoenix and Joe Hahn for the band’s forthcoming projects.
Armstrong will share vocals with Shinoda, while Colin Brittain will also join as the group’s new drummer.
The band announced their new line-up ahead of the launch of their forthcoming album From Zero and a new world tour.
Armstrong grew up in Los Angeles and is best known as the singer in alt-rock band Dead Sara, which she co-founded with guitarist Siouxsie Medley in 2005.
In an interview with Billboard, Amstrong recalled the impact Linkin Park’s 2000 album Hybrid Theory had on her.
“I was in a band when it came out,” she recalled. “One Step Closer was the song for me, and I was just like, ‘that’s what I want to do. As a singer, I want to be able to scream’.
“That album was everything – I’ve listened to it a trillion times. I would skate to it. I would mosh to it.”
In an era dominated by solo artists, Linkin Park are one of the most successful bands of the streaming age.
They are the only band to feature in Spotify’s top 10 most-streamed albums of all time, with their greatest hits collection Papercuts attracting more than 9m streams per day.
Linkin Park are not the first band to appoint a new lead singer following the death of a frontman – Alice in Chains and Sublime have previously done the same.
Most notably, Queen have regularly toured with singer Adam Lambert in recent years, following Freddie Mercury’s death in 1991.
Meanwhile, Brittain will replace the band’s previous drummer, Rob Bourdon.
Speaking to Billboard, Shinoda explained: “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.
“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.”
Brittain has previously worked with rock bands Papa Roach and All Time Low.
The band’s new world tour will visit Los Angeles, New York, Hamburg, Seoul and London this month, and Bogotá in November.
The tour will be their first run of live performance since Bennington’s death in 2017, aged 41.
Their new album will be preceded by a single, titled The Emptiness Machine, the group’s first new music since Bennington’s death.
The band performed the song as part of an hour-long concert, broadcast on the band’s social platforms on Thursday, to officially launch their new line-up.
