Sunday Conversation: Linkin Park Open Up On Friendship, Music And More

Forbes

a day ago

MONTERREY, MEXICO - FEBRUARY 5: performs during a concert as part of the 'From Zero World Tour' at ... More Estadio Banorte on February 5, 2025 in Monterrey, Mexico. (Photo by Medios)
Back in 2004 I went on the road with Linkin Park to do a coffee table book, From The Inside: Linkin Park's Meteora. I became friends with all the band members, but over time I became closest with Chester Bennington as he spent time in Long Beach, California, where I lived at the time.
Fast forward to 2012, when I get invited down to the Viper Room to see L.A. breakout rock band Dead Sara. I did their first major story, for Rolling Stone, and became good friends with frontwoman Emily Armstrong.
So, when Armstrong was announced in 2024 as the new lead singer of Linkin Park, I definitely understood fans' conflicted emotions. However, whatever you felt as a fan or associate or anything, only Brad Delson, Joe Hahn, Dave Farrell, Mike Shinoda and former drummer Rob Bourdon had a right to decide the band's future.
As someone who has, by this point, interviewed as many bands as anyone in the world, I have seen what losing a band mate does to someone. I will never forget sitting with Who frontman Roger Daltrey at the legendary Sunset Marquis in L.A. and asking him if he ever went into the Morrison Hotel Gallery in the front of the hotel. His response: 'No, because all I see are pictures of dead friends.'
I just did a piece for The L.A. Times on the sixtieth anniversary of The Doors. More than 50 years later, John Densmore and Robby Krieger are still impacted by the loss of Jim Morrison. Losing a band mate is like losing a brother or a sister, someone you traveled with, created with, fought with, loved, and one of the only people who experienced the highs and lows with you.
It is a loss that requires grieving and as anyone who has suffered loss knows, there is no right way to grieve. It is up to you to decide.
So, as someone who still considers LP friends I am thrilled to see their new chapter because it is their right. Now with Armstrong and new drummer Colin Brittain, as well as touring guitarist Alex Feder, the band is conducting a huge worldwide tour at the moment behind the From Zero record.
I spoke with Delson and Farrell in in-depth separate conversations over two days. It was great to catch up with two old friends to look at this new chapter of Linkin Park.
Steve Baltin: Not touring with them, does it allow you the freedom to do stuff that you would not otherwise do?
Brad Delson: I don't look at it that way. I look at it as really focusing on the aspects of the band that are the most energizing for me, which in this chapter really is the creative stuff, the stuff in the studio, even like the show itself, like the conceptual design behind the show, which I worked on. That, to me, is the most fun thing to do in this moment. And so I think Steve, one of the benefits of having taken time off from making new stuff is we all gained the ability to look at the creative opportunity of the band with fresh eyes and not just do things because we've done them in the past but really opting into what is fun and what we love. That's kind of an ethos for the whole band. And I think actually that's one of the reasons we've worked together so well in this chapter together and we've had success creatively together, is that openness. Maybe some of it is maturity, and just the experience of having done things a certain way and now having the gift of being able to approach things with a new perspective.
Baltin: I hadn't thought about this, but unfortunately you reach a certain age we've all gone through way too much loss and it gives you a lot of perspective. During that time when you're thinking about stuff does it also let you gain perspective on what you want and what you don't want?
Delson: I think one of the benefits of experience is just having more self-awareness of what you know, what makes us tick, what fills our cup, what gives us energy, how we can be most contributive. As humans when we're happy, it's easier to fill someone else's cup. So, for me, yeah, just moving toward what feels energizing and we're really excited about this chapter, just the way it's all come together. The album, for me, the most important things are the relationships and then the art. The album itself we've always been hyper intentional as you know about anything we put out including an incredible coffee table book that a very prominent prestigious writer helped us create back in the day. We never want to put out anything that we don't put all our love and care into and really believe in and this album is no exception. Even the fact that there's only 10 songs on the album, there was a lot of music written and creative exploration. So, whittling it down to its most essential parts was really a privilege. And even with the deluxe, there are only three new songs on the deluxe and each of them felt like an important song to share for different reasons. We take our contract with our fan base really seriously and we want to share stuff that we believe in and that we love. That's served us well in the past and that's something I love participating in.
Baltin: Has stepping back from the road reinvigorated you?
Delson: Yeah, super energized. Then when other creative stuff comes up behind the scenes, I'm fresh I can be helpful. Our whole ecosystem is really, as you know, quite elaborate. The band is creatively prolific and ambitious, and we love making things and sharing things with our supporters, whether it's the zine that we're putting out, the LPU, the tour and the production of the tour, the merch, little popups that we've been doing, or it's stuff online. We just like putting care into it and a lot goes into all of it. So, it's been fun to focus on some of that stuff. Just being creative, working on song ideas and supporting everything that's going on. Yeah, very privileged to be a part of it all, very stoked and really grateful that our fan base continues to evolve and has embraced this new chapter with so much passion. That's ultimately the dream of any artist is to share what they love with other people and then get some kind of connection back. You look at 'The Emptiness Machine' for example, that exceeded everyone's wildest imagination. When that happens it's not something we take for granted. The band is focused on playing great shows, making great music and being really intentional about what we're able to do as musicians and as artists.
Baltin: I talked about this with Gerard Way and there is no way to predict this, but it seems like for certain bands the absence just builds the legacy. And it seems like for you guys as well, there's been that hunger of people who miss you. Then there's a new generation who didn't get to experience it.
Delson: Yeah, when we put out "Lost," which was the song that we held off of Meteora -- I remember it was with Andy Wallace in New York, and we intentionally held that one off. Then to release it over 20 years later and it was number one that year, it signaled to us yeah, that there really is a very hungry appetite for the music. It's really cool to see shows, I've been hearing feedback of fans that have supported the band since our early history, standing next to people who are seeing Linkin Park for the first time. When I started playing guitar my favorite band was Led Zeppelin. I had the whole songbook and I tried to learn all the songs and 14-year-olds today learning guitar, I've heard that our band is the one that they're learning all the songs from. That was always our goal, to make timeless music. It's an ambitious thing to say. It's a pretty surreal thing when that actually happens. There's also this really interesting juxtaposition of the early history having a recurring Impact on culture today and then the new stuff like right along with it. So, I think that's a really exciting thing about the show, you're getting these classic songs and then you've got 'Heavy Is The Crown' or 'Up From The Bottom' or 'Emptiness Machine' or whatever and those songs are brand new. So, it's like this weird pastiche of moments that emerge at different junctures throughout our career all coming together for this really amazing celebration that's moving around the world on stage in front of our fans.
Baltin: Talk about working with Emily.
Delson: I think what's amazing about her integration into our creative DNA is she's clearly her own ingredient. It's not Emily trying to be somebody else, it's just Emily being herself. That's what really stuck out to me. Even when we were hanging out at East West, just her presence, her energy, even without her singing, something about her energy felt right to me. It felt like a natural fit.
Baltin: I talked to Brad yesterday and he and I talked about the fact that during the unexpected hiatus, each of you got some chance to decide what you did and didn't miss. What did you miss?
Dave Farrell: Yeah, I think it was definitely something I'd missed. Music, for me, has been a big part of my life since I was really little. I was still able to obviously enjoy so many of the different aspects of that that I've always loved. I could still listen to music, I could still go to shows with my wife and kids, still experience that connection that I've always loved and had with it, but I definitely missed not being able to play and share that experience and feeling with fans and with the crowd. And I think, yes, definitely there was a chance to zoom out a little bit and look at what we had done and how we had done it and say, 'This aspect I loved, this aspect of it I'd like to change.' And watch the whole process with that new framework.
Baltin: As he and I talked about yesterday as well, unfortunately loss is one of those things that shapes you immensely. So, while you never planned on the break, it's one of those things that during that time off you're going to readjust everything.
Farrell: Yeah, 100 percent. You don't get to choose if you're going to suffer or not in life. You're going to suffer, but you do get to choose how you try to navigate it and you do get to choose what you do with it and how you try to move forward. This was putting that mentality to the test for me and just taking the punches and then kind of saying, 'Okay, how do we move forward from here? What feels good? What doesn't? Where do you go?' A big part of that process too was even taking a first step when it came to the band. I was pretty paralyzed early on with the mentality that I needed to figure out everything before I even was able to take a step. Questions like, 'Are we going to do a new album? Are we just going to do a new single? Then if we do play shows, are we going to play old stuff? Or is it just going to be new stuff? And then what's the band going to look like?' Then at a certain point I was like, 'I can create these crazy questions to try to figure out, or I could just get in a room with Mike and Joe and make stuff and see if we even like it. Let's just take a step and then see what the next step may or may not be.' It was so freeing when I finally got to that space because it just took so much pressure off of the whole thing that is Linkin Park. It's like, 'Let's pursue what we enjoy about this and let's not have any preconceived ideas of where it's going or what it needs to be, but let's just see if we even like it.' There was a moment when I didn't know if we would still write music that I liked as weird as that might sound to some people. A lot of stuff that you do, sometimes you get it to a place and you're like, "This isn't working for me. I'm not connecting with it.' Similarly, I didn't know if I would want to go out and play the old songs. I didn't know what that might feel like, I didn't know if it would hurt too much. So, it was just a process of, let's just take each little step and see what that opens up for the next step, and then fast forward. Here we are.
Baltin: Did you find when you started writing with Mike and Joe, was it something like excuse the cliché, of riding a bicycle?
Farrell: No, it was more for a period of months, I would say, we'd have time scheduled to be together, where for eight hours it was just eat lunch, talk about a bunch of stuff, talk about what we might do, talk about what that is then, we're going to eat dinner and then it's like, 'Let's just mess around on some guitar riffs and then okay cool, see you tomorrow.' We did versions of that in different ways for a long time and even in the early phases of it, it was like this is a great excuse just for us to get together and be friends and hang out and have a scheduled reason for that. We didn't know what we were doing, or if it was even going to be Linkin Park. We didn't know if it would feel like that or fit for that. And even when we started bringing in other people to write with and to play with, we were very intentional about telling them, we're just getting together to work on music and enjoy it and have fun. But this is not Linkin Park. That's not what we are writing for or that's not what we're working on exactly. So even super early in the process with Colin first and then with Emily it was just an opportunity for us to get together and hang out with people, write music, play music and eventually those two were not only extremely talented but just so fun to be around and so enjoyable to spend time with it just grew into a thing. I don't know what that is or where that goes. We don't know, but we want to now pour more time, energy, effort into whatever this group is and see what this can do.
Baltin: It's not something I had thought of, but the idea of you guys just reconnecting as friends is interesting because when you go through a tragedy, it's natural to pull away.
Farrell: At least for me, I have different groups of friends that I do different things with. Some of my friends are friends that my wife and I go out to dinner with. Some of my friends are friends that I play golf with or are interested in soccer or whatever, friends that I grew up with. Linkin Park is a group of my closest friends, but what we do together is play and make music. When we're on periods of time when we're not playing or making music, we're still close, but we don't have that same connection or reason that's pulling us together. With Chester passing, we lost Chester, but we also lost this thing that we get to do together. So, a part of the journey of the whole thing has been us saying, 'What do we do now? When we get together, what does that look like? How does that work? What's our new relationship going to be? Are we still doing music together? We're obviously still friends and have shared so much life experience together that we're going to be friends and we're going to be in each other's lives if we're not doing music but it's different. That relationship has changed if we're no longer doing music together.' But rediscovering that initially with Mike and Joe and then adding Brad into the mix down the road that was like a new pathway to having these relationships that are just so special and awesome for me. And having it then work in a scale with the fans that's the icing on the cake. Or that's the cherry on the sundae for me is that it came together and people have enjoyed it.