Emily Armstrong, the new-ish vocalist with Linkin Park, has been talking about her journey from fan to band member and how she’s clicked with her new colleagues.
She was talking to Lauren O’Neil of the Chicago Modern Rock station Q101 for their Women Who Make Q101 podcast. Armstrong described the last six months as “the craziest that I’ve ever experienced”. The 38-year-old vocalist with LA rockers Dead Sara was unveiled as the reformed Linkin Park’s new singer back in September, a brave move for both her and the band. Many of the group’s fanbase would have struggled to accept any replacement for the late Chester Bennington, yet by all accounts, From Zero, the album they brought out last autumn, has been well received and the majority of fans are on board with the reconfigured line-up.
Armstrong revealed that she was a fan of the band back in high school. “Hybrid Theory came out and nu metal was everything. I bought the album and showed it to everybody at school and I was like ‘you guys this album is so f**ing good.’ I was like ‘oh man, if he could do that, I could do that’, cos I was learning to sing. I can scream and sing, hell yeah!”
Fast forward 25 years and Armstrong explained how she made the transition from fan to colleague. “We didn't [run] in the same circles,” she said. “It was so far and few between. But when we started writing again for the second time in the studio, things started to really click in a way where we found so many similarities that didn't quite click before. I don't know if this makes any sense, but there was so many things of being, like, 'Wait, you worked with this guy? We did that with our first album.' Literally so many things started to like come together where it's just the synergy that is a kismet. Everything was just aligning in a way where it was so surreal to me.
“I'm, like, how have I never met any of these people before, and then all of a sudden at this point where everything starts to really make sense and where we are in our lives as them as people in their band and me as an artist and in my band, how it really came together at a time where we both were looking for this. We found so many similarities that it just started bringing us closer and closer together. It was, like, 'OK, this is it.'"
Fans will get a chance to see Armstrong and the reformed Linkin Park when they play their only UK date of the year at Wembley Stadium on June 28.
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