B.J. LISKO 2 weeks ago

Linkin Park Bassist Shares Honest Opinion Of Band’s New Singer

Original Photo Credit: youtube.com/watch?v=9hFl-dnAUcY

Linkin Park released a new song, “Up From The Bottom,” earlier this month. Last year the band recruited former Dead Sara singer Emily Armstrong to take the place of the late Chester Bennington, and the band has had a run of successful live dates and both critical and fan acclaim to their new material.

The band’s bassist, Dave “Phoenix” Farrell, recently spoke with 98 Rock radio and was asked about what it was like working with Armstrong in the studio.

“We had started writing,” Farrell said of the time just prior to Armstrong joining the band. “Our writing process is pretty open generally, and there isn’t like a start-stop put on anything. We’re always doing a version of writing.”

“But when Mike and Joe and myself kind of first got back together and were saying, ‘Let’s even see what we can do,’ that process took a while and we gradually were adding people in and working with writers and vocalists and instrumentalists and whatever.”

“But in that process, yeah, gradually just Emily and Colin were the fit. They were the ones that — it just jelled. It’s hard to talk about ’cause there isn’t an easy set of words to make that make sense, but it was just right.”

Farrell also had high praise for Armstrong’s vocal ability. “I was telling people very early on — they’d ask me about Emily,” he explained. “My inner circle or family would know obviously what I’m doing and what we’re looking at, and my description of Emily was that she is the absolute destroyer vocally. She can do all the things and can just do them in a way that seems so effortless and awesome. But even more importantly, Emily just fits with us. It felt like we had known each other forever when we first started getting together, and it was just easy and fluid, relationally, in that sense. So for us, that was one of the biggest things.”

Farrell’s full interview can be seen below.