Being asked to fill the vacant position of singer in a popular band like Linkin Park can be quite overwhelming.

Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara faced this challenge, and it took her a while to comprehend the task and its enormity. In an official podcast episode, Armstrong told Mike Shinoda how afraid she was to slip up and tell someone that she’d been selected (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar):

“I mean, I’ve been invited to a lot of things like birthdays and stuff like that, and then I go in my head. I’m like ‘So I’m gonna go and hang out, have a couple drinks, and they’re gonna ask what I’m doing. And then I’m gonna feel weird by saying ‘Yeah, just rehearsing.” And it feels weird to just say ‘Yeah, rehearsing.'”

“Like, ‘So how’s Dead Sara doing? You guys writing something?’ And then I just talk myself out of going anywhere. I don’t want to have these fake conversations where I can’t say everything and I’m so happy, and I don’t want to pretend that I’m not as happy. And so I just talked myself out of it and just stayed here.”

Further, Armstrong revealed the moment when she finally began to process the fact that this was real and that she was Linkin Park’s new singer:

“Once we left the studio, that’s when I was just like, ‘Oh my fucking God.’ I was allowed to just throw myself into this new world. It was like I stepped into Disney World. It was like, fucking full of magic and full of opportunity, and everything you could possibly imagine.”