Linkin Park Talk Upcoming ‘Let You Fade’ Single and Why Mike Shinoda’s Daughters Thinks Emily Armstrong Is Coolest Member
New singer Armstrong also joked to Billboard that the band's live shows should be "four hours long" at this point.
Linkin Park have been on such a roll over the past year that they recently did something they’ve rarely done in the past: write new music on the road. Fans will get to hear the fruits of that labor on May 16 with the release of a deluxe edition of last year’s surprise comeback album, From Zero.
Two of the three new bonus tracks on that special edition, “Up From the Bottom and “Let You Fade,” were finished after the initial sessions for the long-running rock band’s first effort with new singer Emily Armstrong; the former was written in between tour dates and the latter was started during the album sessions and finished after its release.
With “Up From the Bottom” just out, Billboard asked what it feels like to keep the chart momentum of the 2.0 lineup rolling after the group announced their revival in 2024, seven years after the 2017 death of original singer Chester Bennington. “A day in the life,” Armstrong laughed, as singer/guitarist Mike Shinoda teased that his newest bandmate is already “super jaded” at this point. “She’s just so used to it,” he said in the video you can watch in full above. “She was so down to earth in the beginning.”
Shinoda said LP wrote “Up From the Bottom” at the end of last year and though it was the last new song they laid down for the deluxe, it was the quickest one to wrap. “It’s kind of fun having that shorter momentum,” he said, noting that typically the band is “so meticulous” that it was a breath of fresh air to turn something so quickly.
He also said that “Let You Fade” started off as a not-as-loud song on a demo that just didn’t make the cut before the group pivoted to a piano-and-vocals only arrangement that was transformed into a song that starts off really loud and goes quiet on the bridge. “That piano and vocal thing was the second demo [we recorded during the initial sessions],” Shinoda said. “Of the three it’s probably my favorite.”
The expanded album will also feature the new song “Unshatter,” a track Shinoda said LP began working on when they were first just getting to know Armstrong.
In fact, she was so new that Shinoda said when he began playing back Armstrong’s wailing vocal on the song new drummer Colin Brittain heard the screaming on the bridge from the control room and said, “‘oh you know who she sounds like? The singer from Dead Sara,'” which, of course is exactly who she is. “He said, ‘dude, really? She’s soooo good!'”
And while Armstrong said they’re thinking about putting a small recording studio on their tour bus, Shinoda cautioned fans not to expect more new music this year since LP will be on the road for much of 2025. Speaking of which, with a 27-song, two-hour running time straining their ability to get all the fan favorites and deep tracks into the mix, Armstrong joked, “I think we should play four hours.”
Perhaps it’s that adrenalin, or maybe her take-no-prisoners performance style, but Shinoda said having Armstrong front the band has earned him some serious cool dad points at home. “I have daughters and having them see Emily and be like, ‘Whoa! She is so cool!’,” is a huge boost. “They say this all the time… they’re like, ‘Emily’s so cool,'” he said as Armstrong soaked up the kind words. “They think she’s the coolest human on Earth. They’re like, ‘dad, you’re not that cool. She’s very cool.'”
The band will be on stage on Tuesday night (May 6) at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, N.C.
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