In a new interview with Chuck Shute, Skillet frontman John Cooper has shared his thoughts on Linkin Park’s decision to move on with a new singer.
“I will be honest and say I don’t really have an opinion,” the rocker revealed. “Probably the reason is because Linkin Park is one of my favorite bands of all time. ‘Hybrid Theory’ is in my top 10 favorite rock albums ever, probably top seven, and I thought it was genius.”
“This might sound silly to people, I never met Chester so we weren’t friends. I never met him. As dumb as it sounds, I always thought me and Chester are going to eventually be good friends because we have so much of the same influences and fan base, we sing about the same things. I think me and him are cut from the same cloth. I just thought we’re gonna be buddies. I’m still not over his death, it still grieves me to this day.”
“I’m just being honest with you, I don’t care who they got for their lead singer. I’m not ready to move on yet but I am happy for them that they are they’re doing something new and they’re trying something new and I think that’s cool. I think trying something out of the box could be a really good thing,” Cooper finished.
Since joining the band, Armstrong didn’t just receive backlash from fans, but both from the late singer’s mother and son too. However, other rockers don’t think the same as them.
“I’m, like, ‘Yeah, go do that, dude. People wanna hear this [music],’ Papa Roach frontman Jacoby Shaddix told The Bailey Show. “And so it’s awesome that their music can be celebrated. I know people are very polarized about this, but I look at it like when Stone Temple Pilots lost [singer] Scott Weiland.”
“Who stepped in? [Linkin Park’s late singer] Chester [Bennington]. Chester stepped in to carry that flag for rock and roll. So it makes sense why somebody would step in in his place and in his absence to carry that flag and to bring that message to the people, because it’s a hopeful message,” he added.
KISS rocker Gene Simmons also shared some insight about it. “I listened. I saw some videos. The new female singer, great! She fits the band. She sounds great and good luck to them,” Gene Simmons recently told Forbes. “Life is short. Go out there and live it up, enjoy it. Linkin Park got fans. They want to hear the songs and the music. Why not? There are bands that tour, Lynyrd Skynyrd, lots of bands that barely have any original members or no original members. People want to hear those songs.”
Emily Armstrong gave her first performance with the band three weeks ago in a live-streamed private show. Armstrong got mixed reviews from fans, but she received positive feedback from rockers and even from Bennington’s widow Talinda Bennington.
Linkin Park recently released a new song called ‘Heavy Is The Crown,’ and fans think it resembles the band’s earlier sound.