In a new interview with Chile’s Futuro, LINKIN PARK‘s Mike Shinoda spoke about how fans have been reacting to singer Emily Armstrong joining the band in 2024, seven years after Chester Bennington‘s death in 2017. The band went on hiatus shortly after. He said: “ It’s just a very exciting time. It’s kind of a rebirth of the band.

“We had kind of started getting back together a few years ago, and it was a very slow and organic build. When it started, we didn’t say, like, ‘We’re going to bring the band back.’ We didn’t say, ‘We’re going to go tour.’ We just kind of got together and wanted to see what it would be like to get together and write music and spend time together again. And we hoped we would end up here, but a lot of things had to go right in order for that to happen. And they did. So we’re very grateful for that, the opportunity, and thrilled with the new music and the tour and the way the fans have responded to it.”

LINKIN PARK introduced its new lineup during a September 2024 live performance event, with Armstrong and Colin Brittain, a songwriter and producer for G FLIP, ILLENIUM and ONE OK ROCK, joining Shinoda, Brad Delson, Dave “Phoenix” Farrell and Joe Hahn. LINKIN PARK also released a new single, “The Emptiness Machine”, and announced an album “From Zero”, which arrived in November 2024 via Warner. It marked LINKIN PARK‘s first full-length effort since 2017’s “One More Light”, which was the last LINKIN PARK album before Bennington‘s death.

Regarding what it has been like working with Emily and Colin, Mike told Futuro: “It’s been awesome. When they were coming into this era, this chapter, they were already so prepared, they were so ready for it. They just hadn’t done it. I mean, Emily has played for — I don’t know how many years, like 10 years or more with DEAD SARA. Colin was in multiple bands before he got into producing and writing with other people. And when I met Colin, I could tell that we had a lot of similar ways of looking at music and similar ways of thinking. I was just writing and producing stuff with him, and all of a sudden he got behind the drum kit and I was, like, ‘Oh my God. He’s an amazing drummer.’ And as it turned out, Rob (Bourdon), our previous drummer, he didn’t wanna keep playing. So that was almost just like good luck for us that we knew a guy already that that was so great. Emily is a total phenomenon. For us to find a once-in-a-generation voice like Chester and then to find another one like Emily is crazy. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Asked how he knew Emily was “the one” when it came to finding a replacement for Chester, Mike said: “Well, it’s not just the singing, ’cause there’s thousands and thousands of great singers out there. And when I worked with people, I’ve had a bunch of experiences where I worked with lots of different singers who are so talented and I’ve played shows with lots of singers who are so talented, but there’s an an intangible thing that happens when people get in a room and they make things together, and you just feel like the vibe is so effortless and strong and easy. It’s easy to hang out with each other. Even when you have differences of opinion on something that you’re making or something that you’re doing, it doesn’t turn into arguments. Nobody’s killing the energy, the vibe. And that was the experience we had with Emily and Colin. But as we were starting to make music a couple of years ago, we just found ourselves wanting to do more with them because they were so fun to hang out with and we would always make such good stuff together.”

Shinoda went on to say that he and his LINKIN PARK bandmates had no expectations that “From Zero” would turn out to be a commercial success. “When we’re making things, we’re not thinking about hits,” he explained. “That’s not part of our process at all, really. First and foremost, we wanna love what we’re doing, we wanna love playing it every night, we wanna feel like it artistically represents an important chapter for the band and that we’re proud of where it sits in our catalog. And that’s been the way we’ve approached things every time since the beginning. There are, of course, moments when it’s, like, ‘Okay, well, the label wants to release a single,’ so you have to do marketing and you have to do promotion. And I totally enjoy doing that stuff. I love making surprises and scavenger hunts. Like the timer — in the beginning of our launch (for the new era of LINKIN PARK), we did a timer on the band’s web site that counted down to zero and then the fans expected something to happen and it didn’t happen; it just bounced back up and started… It went to 3, 2, 1, 0 and then it went 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and they were, like, so mad. But they realized later, the album is called ‘From Zero’. The whole point was this is an actual marking of something that’s gonna start at that point and go on until whenever. It’s not just a countdown to something happening and then it’s over. So the process of doing these things, the creative process, making things and sharing them with people, that’s an everyday thing for us. I don’t get too caught up in numbers and comparisons, unless it’s like just checking in to see, like, ‘Oh, do people like it? How are we doing with the fans in terms of maybe the show. Are fans excited about the show?’ And so far the tour has been so much fun and such an undertaking and it’s a lot of joy every night, I think.”