Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
In a recent interview with Lollapalooza India, longtime members of Linkin Park, co-lead vocalist and producer Mike Shinoda, and DJ and video director Joe Hahn, discussed how the songwriting process for the band’s comeback album, “From Zero,” which came out in November 2024 via Warner, was impacted by the recent additions of singer Emily Armstrong and drummer Colin Brittain, a songwriter and producer for G Flip, Illenium, and One Ok Rock, as per Blabbermouth. Following the release of “One More Light” in 2017, the final Linkin Park album prior to singer Chester Bennington’s passing, it was the band’s first full-length album.
I think a big part of what makes us ‘us’ is when we’re in a room, usually at Mike’s house in his studio, before we even make the music, we’re hanging out. We’re talking about life, things that we’re interested in and something that’s bothering us and kind of sharing experiences with each other. And sometimes that’ll drive towards a topic or it might drive towards a feeling of a type of vibe when we start writing. It always comes from a different inspiration, but it really comes from like a collective… We get to the point where we’re excited to just try new things. And I think that’s really where Emily and Colin came in to that environment that we always have, and it was very natural for them to be part of it. So I would say a lot of that has to do with our friendship as well as the skills that we bring. – Joe Hahn
Yeah, I think that was — to Joe’s point, the chemistry, the dynamic, that was something that just kind of showed up over the course of days and then weeks, and it was the thing that drew us to them versus whatever other options we could have been thinking about. ‘Cause in the beginning of the new album, we weren’t necessarily thinking, like, ‘Okay, now we’re gonna restart the band and then we’re gonna go do shows.’ It was really just the question of, do we feel compelled to like get together and make stuff and be creative? And is it fun? Does it have energy that’ll go forward? And that was just between us, the original members. And then once that started happening and it was the first time there was real momentum, and then Emily and Colin came in separately and then together, and it all started happening.
And part of it, the thing that’s so nice is they have their own versions of the story of how they relate to the band. Emily had some formative years of when she was learning to sing, ‘Hybrid Theory’ was one of the albums that she was listening to a lot and how she sang ‘One Step Closer’ and it was the first song she had ever really screamed on. And then Colin, even when we were in the studio working on this record, he sometimes would switch gears from producer mode or songwriter mode, he’d switch to fan mode, and I could see it happen. I’d just be playing something and I was, like, ‘Why is that exciting to you? Why is that a good part?’ And he could tap in to fan mode and be, like, ‘Yeah, the thing I like about Linkin Park is this thing.’ And so it was a really good asset to have in both cases. – Mike Shinoda
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