In the end, it wasn’t actually the end for Linkin Park. The rock band is back with new music for the first time in seven years — and a new singer as well. Emily Armstrong joined the band, replacing the late Chester Bennington, who died in 2017. Armstrong has sung in the band Dead Sara since 2005 and makes her Linkin Park debut on new single “The Emptiness Machine,” sharing vocal duties with Linkin Park co-founder Mike Shinoda. (Colin Brittain is also joining Linkin Park as their new drummer with Rob Bourdon not returning.) She joined the band onstage for the first time September 5 and will feature on their new album, From Zero, out November 15. But Armstrong’s addition has already been controversial, as fans scrutinize her history with Scientology and convicted rapist Danny Masterson. She has since addressed her past support of Masterson in an Instagram Story statement.
Who is Emily Armstrong, anyway?
Armstrong has been playing music for over 20 years, forming her band Dead Sara with guitarist Siouxsie Medley in the early aughts. The band released its first EP in 2008 but didn’t break out until 2012, when they independently released a self-titled debut album and their single “Weatherman” cracked the rock and alternative charts. Maybe you remember them from Warped Tour 2012 or season four of Vampire Diaries? Dead Sara has since released two more albums: Pleasure to Meet You in 2015 and Ain’t It Tragic in 2021. More recently, they featured on Demi Lovato’s song “Help Me” off Holy Fvck and opened for her corresponding tour.
Armstrong had a lot of respect in the rock world before joining Linkin Park. She sang on Courtney Love’s 2010 album, Nobody’s Daughter, and has been praised by Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick and Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl. And she’s a Linkin Park fan: She told Billboard she especially loved the band’s 2000 album, Hybrid Theory, when it came out and the song “One Step Closer.”
Why did Linkin Park add a new singer?
After Bennington’s death in 2017, Linkin Park went on hiatus, only performing publicly for a tribute concert. In the years that followed, Shinoda and the band went back and forth publicly about the future of Linkin Park. “I’m unable to say what will happen with the band,” Shinoda told Vulture in 2018. The band’s members soon started spending time together again afterward but didn’t intend to make another album. “I would float the idea of getting together, [we’d] get together and it was fun, but there wasn’t any creative momentum,” Shinoda told Billboard.
Linkin Park invited Armstrong to Shinoda’s studio for “maybe three” days in 2019, she said, but she hadn’t joined the band. A few years later, Shinoda started working with her again, along with some other singers. Once Linkin Park started booking shows, Shinoda began wondering how to handle vocals. “Am I going to be carrying a bunch of vocals?” he told Apple Music. “Are we going to have another vocalist? Are we going to have multiple vocalists onstage?” He said the band considered making Armstrong a featured artist, before inviting her to be a member. “When I started to hear Emily’s voice on things, my brain, it was like the first time that my brain would accept it as a Linkin Park song,” Shinoda said. And yes, she can scream — the band’s DJ, Joe Hahn, said the first time Shinoda asked Armstrong to scream, “for me, that did it.”
If you can sit down, watch this and not think Emily Armstrong is the perfect fit for the new direction Linkin Park are headed then I can only assume you are deaf
— Oli Hope (@ItsJustOlisWork) September 5, 2024
She is incredible! ???? pic.twitter.com/9WIXlnBxJ3
But uh, is Armstrong a Scientologist?
That’s the big question! Armstrong has never publicly identified with the Church of Scientology, though she did attend a gala in 2013. More recently, Armstrong supported actor and prominent Scientologist Danny Masterson at his 2020 rape trial, where he was convicted on two counts.
How have people responded to Armstrong joining the band?
Masterson accuser Chrissie Carnell-Bixler and her husband, Mars Volta singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala — both former Scientologists — each spoke out against Armstrong after she joined the band. Carnell-Bixler called Armstrong “a hardcore Scientologist who supported convicted serial rapist both in and out of court” on her Instagram Story. (Carnell-Bixler’s specific accusation resulted in a hung jury.) “Emily Armstrong is a true believer of the Scientology cult/criminal organization that engages in human and child trafficking, child and elder abuse, the cover ups of countless SAs [sexual assaults] on children and adults,” she continued. Bixler-Zavala, meanwhile, reposted a comment he’d previously left on Dead Sara’s Instagram about Armstrong’s support of Masterson. “Remember Emily? Remember how your fellow scientologist goon squad surrounded one of the Jane Doe’s when she was trying to leave the elevators?” he wrote. “The court sheriffs had to escort her away from your awful cult …” He also called Armstrong “a born in Scientologist” and called her “corny ass” multiple times. Bixler-Zavala since deleted the Instagram Story, but Carnell-Bixler still has his comment up.
Cedric repartiendo recibos a Linkin Park pic.twitter.com/qjuYPf2IKX
— Bort (@S_emaforo) September 6, 2024
Meanwhile, many Linkin Park fans online quickly expressed dismay at Armstrong’s Scientology associations. “Growing up really is just your favorite bands disappointing you,” one wrote.
Twitter's experience with Emily Armstrong tonight:#LinkinPark pic.twitter.com/Dj9vpCyexm
— Gallerhi (@Gallerhi) September 6, 2024
What has Armstrong said?
Without identifying Masterson by name, Armstrong walked back her past support of him in a brief Notes-app statement posted to her Instagram Story in the evening on September 6. The singer, who said she “wanted to clear the air about something that happened a while back,” described being asked to support “someone I considered a friend” at a court appearance and attending an early court hearing as an observer. “Soon after, I realized I shouldn’t have,” she said. “I always try to see the good in people, and I misjudged him. I have never spoken with him since.” Armstrong added that “unimaginable details” emerged, and the person was found guilty. “To say it as clearly as possible: I do not condone abuse or violence against women, and I empathize with the victims of these crimes,” she concluded.
Emily Armstrong, new vocalist of Linkin Park, has released a statement in regards to her past support of Danny Masterson. pic.twitter.com/yQoZYYrVnl
— State of the Scene (@SOTSPodcast) September 7, 2024
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