Linkin Park is back with new co-vocalist Emily Armstrong, after several years of hiatus, having announced a world tour and a new album on Thursday during a live-streamed performance that excited their long-time fans around the globe.
The band revealed six initial concerts, starting in Los Angeles next week and ending in Bogotá, Colombia, in November, marking their first tour since the death of vocalist Chester Bennington. The album, poetically titled From Zero and set to be released on November 15, will be the group’s first record since One More Light, released in 2017.
Linkin Park debuted on stage with Armstrong — who co-founded the rock group Dead Sara — as co-vocalist during their performance on Thursday, which unveiled the new track The Emptiness Machine, as well as old favorites like Numb and In the End. They also added a new drummer, Colin Brittain, a producer and songwriter who has worked with names like All Time Low and A Day to Remember.
One of the most prominent rock bands of the early 21st century, Linkin Park initially garnered a loyal fanbase through the Internet and shot to success with their debut album, Hybrid Theory. Known for their blend of rap, rock, and early 2000s angst, Linkin Park captured the hearts of teenagers who enjoyed heavier music — and who are now adults seeking nostalgia — all over the world.
In an interview with Billboard, founding member and co-vocalist Mike Shinoda said that in the years following Bennington’s death, the group would occasionally come together and play “but there was no creative drive.”
Although the band met Armstrong around 2019 and had done some sessions with her over the years, they did not call their work together Linkin Park until the songs started being composed and it became clear that calling it “something else would be strange and misleading,” Shinoda said.
Armstrong, who is from Los Angeles, told the Salt Lake Tribune in 2012 that she knew she wanted to be part of a rock band since she was a child — and that she survived for years on Mexican fast food while building her career.
In her interview with Billboard, she described herself as one of Linkin Park’s earliest fans and said that when she joined the band, she struggled with the following: “How can I be myself in this, but also maintain the emotion and what [Bennington] brought to this band?” Shinoda did not present Armstrong as a replacement for Bennington during Thursday’s live broadcast. “In the role of Chester Bennington this afternoon, is each one of you,” he said, addressing the crowd. “Are you ready to sing with us?”