Mike Shinoda has opened up concerning the resolution to choose Emily Armstrong because the singer for a reunited Linkin Park as an alternative of a Chester Bennington sound-alike.
The announcement of Armstrong was greeted with some backlash, partially attributable to drama surrounding her ties to scientology and Danny Masterson; nonetheless, some followers have been merely upset that the band didn’t choose somebody who sounds identical to Bennington.
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Shinoda in contrast it to the Linkin Park cowl bands he’d seen on YouTube, defending the selection of Armstrong because the singer for the reunion in an interview with Los Angeles radio station Alt 98.7.
“We simply need Emily to be Emily,” he stated. “The songs are the songs. Emily is Emily… There was a time early on, like 2020-ish, 2019, no matter — like, I remembered I used to be watching movies… I feel a video of a canopy band, a Linkin Park cowl band, confirmed up in my feed. Followers have been loving it. They have been all like, ‘Oh my God, this individual’s so good. They sound a lot like Chester.’”
Shinoda likened his response to the “uncanny valley” — “your mind likes it higher and higher and higher the extra it will get extra actual and near the true factor, after which the second earlier than it turns into precisely as actual, your mind goes fully the wrong way … proper again right down to ‘I hate it,’ as a result of your mind can inform that it’s attempting to be tricked. And no person’s mind likes that.”
He continued, “So, once I was watching this YouTube video, or Instagram video, of this cowl band, I used to be like, ‘That’s actually cool, however it’s additionally creepy that it sounds a lot like Chester.’ I don’t prefer it, it weirds me out. It made me instantly know that it wasn’t the transfer for us. I don’t prefer it. I prefer it for [the cover bands], I simply don’t prefer it for us… These bands do an important job, however I wouldn’t put that in our band.”
Recent off the discharge of their new album From Zero, Linkin Park have a busy 2025 marketing campaign forward, together with an enormous world tour that includes over 30 North American dates (get tickets right here).
You possibly can try the interview with Shinoda within the TikTok video beneath.
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