Mike Shinoda on Thinking ‘You Can’t Play Shows as Linkin Park Anymore’

Linkin Park is heading back on tour with new co-vocalist Emily Armstrong, and the band’s co-founder Mike Shinoda is opening up about returning to the stage with the group seven years after the untimely death of frontman, Chester Bennington.

In an upcoming interview with The Zach Sang Show alongside Armstrong, Shinoda shared that getting back in the swing of Linkin Park has been “amazing,” despite his initial nervousness. “Part of it is going from the band being an indefinite hiatus or whatever it was — we didn’t put names on it, it was just like, ‘We’re not doing it anymore.’ From it being that to standing on the stage doing it, there were all these weird little moments that were so surreal,” he explained. “Getting in a room and doing it was so cool.”

He added that there were moments that were “stressful,” because he wanted to “set aside enough time for us to get this right,” continuing that with Armstong’s vocal talent, “We were changing keys on songs we played for 20 years. I had to relearn ‘Breaking the Habit’ from scratch basically.”

“It’s like, having a thing that you felt like it was taken away and then being able to get it back like, ‘Oh, you can’t play shows as Linkin Park anymore,’ even though Linkin Park is like Part of my DNA,” he added.

Shinoda concluded by noting, “Linkin Park is part of my DNA. Everybody’s got a core identity diagram, like, this is who I am. If you were to sit down with a piece of paper and write down the things that make you you, that’s a crazy exercise when you think about it. It’s things you love to do, your family, your kids, your spouse, whatever. The things that make you you and your beliefs, right there in the middle of it is Linkin Park for me. There are many other things too, but to have that one out was painful. To have it back in, there’s nothing like it. There never will be anything like it.”

Ahead of their 2025 tour, Linkin Park is set to drop their eighth studio album, From Zero, on Nov. 15 via Warner Records. Check out the exclusive clip from the interview via Billboard below, and catch the full episode of The Zach Sang Show on Friday (Nov. 15).