Linkin Park announce new female lead singer

US rock band Linkin Park have announced a new singer, Emily Armstrong, will join them for their new album and tour.

The group’s former lead singer, Chester Bennington, took his own life in 2017.
Armstrong will join returning members Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Phoenix and Joe Hahn for the band’s forthcoming projects, BBC reports.

Armstrong will share vocals with Shinoda, while Colin Brittain will also join as the group’s new drummer.

The band announced their new line-up ahead of the launch of their forthcoming album From Zero and a new world tour.

Armstrong grew up in Los Angeles and is best known as the singer in alt-rock band Dead Sara, which she co-founded with guitarist Siouxsie Medley in 2005. In an interview with Billboard, Amstrong recalled the impact Linkin Park’s 2000 album Hybrid Theory had on her.

“I was in a band when it came out,” she recalled. “One Step Closer was the song for me, and I was just like, ‘that’s what I want to do. As a singer, I want to be able to scream’.
“That album was everything – I’ve listened to it a trillion times. I would skate to it. I would mosh to it.”

In an era dominated by solo artists, Linkin Park are one of the most successful bands of the streaming age.

They are the only band to feature in Spotify’s top 10 most-streamed albums of all time, with their greatest hits collection Papercuts attracting more than 9m streams per day.