Mike Shinoda didn’t want Linkin Park to sound like “a cover band” after Chester Bennington’s death.
The 47-year-old guitarist and the rest of the ‘Numb’ hitmakers recently reunited with new singer Emily Armstrong – seven years after their late frontman tragically took his own life aged 41 – and he didn’t want to replace his friend with someone who sounded similar.
Appearing on Los Angeles radio station Alt 98.7, he said: “We just want Emily to be Emily. The songs are the songs. Emily is Emily…
“There was a time early on, like 2020-ish, 2019, whatever — like, I remembered I was watching videos… I think a video of a cover band, a Linkin Park cover band, showed up in my feed.
“Fans were loving it. They were all like, ‘Oh my God, this person’s so good. They sound so much like Chester.’ “
However, Mike compared the covers to the “uncanny Valley”, and explained that “the moment before it becomes exactly as real, your brain goes completely in the opposite direction”.
He added: “Right back down to ‘I hate it’, because your brain can tell that it’s trying to be tricked. And nobody’s brain likes that.
“So, when I was watching this YouTube video, or Instagram video, of this cover band, I was like, ‘That’s really cool, but it’s also creepy that it sounds so much like Chester.’
“I don’t like it, it weirds me out. It made me immediately know that it wasn’t the move for us. I don’t like it.
“I like it for [the cover bands], I just don’t like it for us… These bands do a great job, but I wouldn’t put that in our band.”
Linkin Park recently released new album ‘From Zero’ with the former Dead Sara singer, and Emily recently opened up on the influence Chester had on her own vocals.
She told the Daily Star Sunday newspaper: “That mix of singing and screaming, of energy and empathy, that he possessed had a monumental impact on me.
“Chester has shaped me so much as a musician.”