Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park has said that the band’s new singer, Emily Armstrong, is not trying to replace late frontman Chester Bennington.

The group announced a comeback earlier this month with original members Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Dave “Phoenix” Farrell, and Joe Hahn, alongside Armstrong of LA rock band Dead Sara and songwriter and producer Colin Brittain as drummer.

Armstrong’s debut did not go down well with fans, or with Bennington’s family. Bennington’s son Jaime expressed his unhappiness on social media, accusing Shinoda of erasing his father’s life and legacy in real time and “during international suicide prevention month”.

He noted Armstrong’s support of That ‘70s Show star Danny Masterson during a sexual assault trial that saw him convicted of rape.

Shinoda, however, said their return was “not meant to be a redo or a rewrite of Linkin Park”.

“This is intended to be a new chapter of Linkin Park,” he told Jack Saunders on New Music Show of Radio 1 on Monday.

“The old chapter was a great chapter and we loved that chapter. It ran its course and now we were faced with a challenge of: ‘Well OK, if you start from scratch with another voice, what do you do?’”

Shinoda said that he had been writing music with Armstrong since 2019, but his “intention wasn’t to start the band up again”.

“We were just slowly coming together and then eventually things just started to fall into place with Emily and with Colin our new drummer,” he said.

“We talked about putting her voice on things we’d already written that only had my voice on them.

“Once we did that, we were like, ‘That sounds really good, we should try that on even more songs.’”

open image in galleryMike Shinoda said Emily Armstrong is not trying to replace the late Chester Bennington (Getty)

Armstrong, earlier this month, shared a statement addressing the backlash, in which she said she was once “asked to support someone I considered a friend at a court appearance”.

The post read: “Hi, I’m Emily. I’m new to so many of you, and I wanted to clear the air about something that happened a while back. I went to one early hearing as an observer. Soon after, I realised I shouldn’t have.

“I always try to see the good in people and I misjudged him. I have never spoken with him since. Unimaginable details emerged and he was later found guilty.”

 

“To say it as clearly as possible: I do not condone abuse or violence against women, and I empathise with the victims of these crimes,” she said.

Chester’s mother Susan Eubanks told Rolling Stone magazine last week that the band was “trying very hard to erase the past” and she felt “betrayed” that she wasn’t told about the comeback.

“They told me if they were ever going to do something, they would let me know. They didn’t let me know, and they probably knew that I wasn’t going to be very happy. I’m very upset about it.”

Shinoda did not address Jaime or Susan’s comments.