In a recent chat with Rolling Stone, Chester Bennington’s mom, Susan Eubanks, revealed Mike Shinoda used to say he might replace Chester with a woman singer.
“He often put Chester down,” she said about Shinoda. “He said Mike told him at rehearsal that, ‘If you decide you’re leaving, we’re going to replace you with a girl.’ And Chester was dumbfounded and hurt.”
In the same interview, Eubanks also talked about Linkin Park’s choice to keep going as a band. She shared, “I feel like they’re trying very hard to erase the past. They’re performing songs that Chester sang. And I don’t know how the fans are taking it, but I know how I take it. And having [Armstrong] singing my son’s songs is hurtful.”
Susan continued, “I found out about Emily Armstrong joining the band on Google. I actually thought maybe the band was going back out, but that Mike would be the singer; Chester did teach Mike how to sing. He sang a song on [2017’s] ‘One More Light’ that I thought was beautiful until Chester died, then I couldn’t listen to it anymore. I thought if they were to go back out, it would just be the band not adding a singer.”
She couldn’t listen to Emily Armstrong sing her son’s parts as she further explained, “But it was her, I’m just going to say it, screeching her way through a very high note. And I got out of there as fast as I could. I cried.”
Chester’s son Jaime Bennington also commented on Linkin Park’s decision recently. “The band is not Mike Shinoda’s band. Fort Minor, ‘The Rising Tied,’ ‘Post Traumatic,2 those are Mike’s solo projects,” he said.
Jaime added, “I’ve antagonistically claimed that ‘Post Traumatic’ is actually a Linkin Park album and that they’ve never stopped Linkin Park — it’s just been undercover for multiple years experimenting with their process and on their audience using techniques that I believe are grooming techniques. I’ve spoken at length about in my Euphoria and ‘Post Traumatic’ highlights on my Instagram but also in my YouTube live streams.”
Shinoda denied both claims at a show. He said it wasn’t about forgetting the past but about starting a new chapter for the future. The band will play in Hamburg, Germany on September 22, and then in London on September 24.