The mother of late Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington says she felt hurt and betrayed by the rap-rock group for releasing their latest release without caring about her.
“I feel betrayed. They told me they would let me know if they were going to do something. They didn’t tell me and maybe they knew I wasn’t going to be very happy. I’m very sad about this,” Susan Eubanks said in an interview with Rolling Stone published on Thursday.
Linkin Park was formed in 1996 in Agoura Hills by returning members of Bennington and Linkin Park, rapper and producer Mike Shinoda, guitarist Brad Delson, DJ Joe Hahn and Phoenix. The high-profile band that left Xero before Bennington joined announced earlier this month that it would be reuniting, seven years after the death by suicide of its lead singer in 2017.
The return includes new vocalist Emily Armstrong, formerly of Los Angeles rock band Dead Sara, who replaces Bennington and drummer Colin Brittain. The band will release their new studio album “From Zero” on November 15 and embark on a tour to present the new lineup.
In a statement on Sept. 5, the four surviving founders said they began meeting in recent years to “reconnect with the creativity and camaraderie” of their early days. Shinoda said the album title From Zero refers to “both these humble beginnings and the journey we’re on now.” Sonically and emotionally, it’s about the past, present, and future, embracing our signature sound, yet new and full of life. It was made with deep gratitude toward our new and old colleagues, our friends, our family, and our fans.”
During the band’s September 11 show at the Kia Forum, Shinoda told the crowd that the band was “surprised” to be back: “It’s not about erasing the past. It’s about the beginning of this new chapter in the future.”
Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda and Emily Armstrong performed at the Kia Forum in Inglewood in early September.
(Jordan Straus/Invision/Associated Press)
But none of this sat well with Bennington’s mother.
“I feel like they’re trying to erase the past,” Eubanks told Rolling Stone. “They’re playing songs that Chester used to sing. And I don’t know how the fans are going to take it, but I know how I’m going to take it. And having (Armstrong) ‘My son singing is sad.’”
Bennington catapulted the group to megastardom with their 2000 debut, Hybrid Theory, which combined heavy metal and hip-hop with haunting melodic choruses on songs like “Crawling” and “In the End.” The band became instant superstars throughout the decade and a rock powerhouse throughout their career, winning Grammy Awards for “Crawling” and “Numb/Encore.”
Eubanks added that he tuned into the band’s live announcement in September and briefly heard Armstrong sing the Bennington pieces. His assessment: Armstrong was “singing on a very high note.” He couldn’t bear to hear any more, left the stream and began to cry. He claimed that his son once told him that Shinoda thought Linkin Park songs would be better sung by a woman “because he often puts Chester down” and that if he decided to leave the band, he would be replaced by a woman.
“Chester was dismayed and upset,” Eubanks said of the statement. “And the truth is, now they’ve done it. So of course, that’s all I remember.” He said he might have been fine with Shinoda singing Bennington’s pieces, even if they weren’t as loud or as high, but he wasn’t fine with someone else replacing him entirely, “trying to do exactly what Chester did, interpret, but they didn’t get it.”
He also said that neither Bennington’s first wife, Samantha, nor his son Draven knew about the reboot “until they told the world.”
“That was it for me and it was painful,” she said, noting that Hahn, whom she had seen four or five years ago, had promised to let her know if they got back together and had no intention of ever expressing the group. She also claimed that Shinoda made the same promise to her and Samantha Bennington.
But Samantha Bennington told the publication she had not spoken to Shinoda since she married Chester and had not seen him since their divorce in 2005.
“I think my mother-in-law is somewhere between Linkin Park and (Bennington’s earlier band) Gray Daze. Grief and sadness affect your memory,” he told Rolling Stone after Eubanks’ reaction was published.
A Linkin Park spokesman declined to comment Friday when contacted by The Times.
“I think the important thing for us is that we’ve never been complacent (say) – Let’s bring the group back. Or like, ‘Let’s find a singer.’ That was never our intention or our goal,” Shinoda said Tuesday. “Tonight’s Show with Jimmy Fallon.” “
“It was more like there was a moment where our DJ Joe said… (we) should have hung out a little bit more, we wanted to be together and be creative,” Shinoda said. “One thing led to another, and it was almost (for) this new record, we wrote it, we found the music when we started the new band. When we started making music, we didn’t have a band and I guess it just came together as music.”
Times staff writers August Brown and Michael Wood and freelancer Steve Appleford contributed to this report.
