How + Why Linkin Park Hired Emily Armstrong as New Vocalist

In a new interview with Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, Mike Shinoda explained how and why Linkin Park hired Emily Armstrong as their new vocalist.

Linkin Park performed in front of a small crowd in Los Angeles yesterday (Sept. 5) and it marked their first show as a band since the death of Chester Bennington in July of 2017. Fans saw the return of Shinoda, Brad Delson (who missed the livestream performance), Joe Hahn and Dave “Phoenix” Farrell to the lineup, with the addition of Armstrong and new drummer Colin Brittain.

In addition to the lineup reveal, the band also shared a new track called “The Emptiness Machine,” announced a new album titled From Zero and revealed a handful of 2024 tour dates.

Armstrong is best known as the vocalist for the Los Angeles band Dead Sara, which released three studio albums between 2012 and 2021. So how did she become the new co-vocalist for one of the biggest and most beloved bands to emerge from the 2000s rock and metal scene?

“We started writing, actually, in 2019,” Armstrong told Lowe, referring to how her working relationship with Shinoda started. “We did a couple of songs, and everything was a question mark. It was just fun to go in and write some stuff.”

The COVID-19 pandemic obviously put their plans on pause, and then Shinoda called Armstrong to continue working again a few years later. Armstrong recalled feeling open-minded during the sessions, though she admitted she didn’t know what was going to come out of them at the time.

A bit later in the interview, Shinoda added his perspective about Armstrong and how he came to realize she was a good fit for Linkin Park despite his “audio baggage.”

“When I’m processing things in general, I’m thinking a lot. When I’m processing our music, I’m thinking more. We did a lot of sessions with a lot of people. They weren’t try-outs, they were just sessions,” he remembered.

“And certainly, when I started to hear Emily’s voice on things, it was the first time that my brain would accept it as a Linkin Park song. When it was just my voice, I could accept it. But when we put other people on the songs… having Emily’s voice on it over and over again, it went, Yeah, that feels good.”

At one point during the conversation, Armstrong also shared her own personal connection to Linkin Park as a longtime fan of the band. She cited Hybrid Theory as one of her favorite albums and said that it was the record that inspired her to want to sing and scream.

“So of course it gets to this point and is like, This is crazy. I would’ve never imagined,” she said, adding, “I would love to do [Bennington] proud.”

Watch the full interview below.