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Linkin Park have reacted to becoming the first band with a female singer to headline Download festival.
During an interview with BBC News recorded at the Donington gathering over the weekend, co-singer/multi-instrumentalist Mike Shinoda offers new member Emily Armstrong’s response to the distinction.
The nu metal hit-makers headlined to an estimated 95,000 people on Sunday (June 14), playing a 23-song show which Metal Hammer called “the most significant Download set of 2026”.
“So, I’ll start with the fact that I don’t feel like I should be answering the question, that Emily should be answering, so I went and asked her, because she can’t be here right now,” says Shinoda.
“I asked her and she said: ‘If it wasn’t us, it would’ve just been someone else, because there are so many great female-fronted bands.’ But, she’s so grateful, she wanted you guys to know, she’s so grateful that she is the one and that she’ll remember it forever.”
Armstrong assumed the co-vocalist role in Linkin Park in 2024, as the band reunited following a seven-year hiatus, which began shortly after the death of her predecessor Chester Bennington in July 2017, aged 41. During the same BBC interview, Shinoda speaks about how the surviving members picked Armstrong to join the lineup.
“Even when it was, like, choosing Emily as a singer, the top priority was, like, whoever the person is, are they somebody that we can spend a lot of time with?” he remembers.
“Do we get along, both personally and creatively? We were all just a good fit that way. Obviously, the person has to be a world-class singer, but they don’t have to be a world-class female singer. It’s just whoever’s the best singer. So, for us, all of those things connected us with Em.”
Armstrong’s appointment was initially met with controversy from fans, some of whom expressed concern over her past ties to the Church Of Scientology and her previous support of convicted rapist Danny Masterson. She responded in a statement, saying, “I do not condone abuse or violence against women.”
Although she didn’t clarify whether she was or has ever been a follower of Scientology, the BBC has reported that several of her lyrics in her rock band Dead Sara “suggest criticism and rejection of Scientology's teachings”. It highlighted lines in 2018’s Heaven’s Got A Back Door, which criticised conservative religious attitudes towards sexuality.
Armstrong was announced as Linkin Park’s new co-singer on September 5, 2024: the same day that the band played an intimate show in Los Angeles which was broadcast worldwide via livestream, released their comeback single The Emptiness Machine, announced a world tour starting the following week and confirmed their eighth album, From Zero.
From Zero came out on November 15 the same year and topped charts worldwide. It has already been certified Platinum in six markets. The near-two-year-long world tour promoting the album wraps up on June 30 in Zürich, Switzerland.
