Mike Shinoda Shares Why Emily Armstrong Was A 'Good Fit' For Linkin Park

Linkin Park recently released their new album, From Zero, on November 15th, and the band's Mike Shinoda and new lead singer, Emily Armstrong sat down with iHeartRadio's Woody to talk about their new music and more during iHeartRadio LIVE with Linkin Park.

From Zero is Linkin Park's eighth full-length studio album, and their first since Emily Armstrong joined the band. The album showcases 11 new songs, including previously-released tracks "The Emptiness Machine," "Heavy Is The Crown," "Over Each Other" and "Two Faced."

During iHeartRadio LIVE with Linkin Park, Shinoda explained why Armstrong (co-founder of Dead Sara) was a good fit for Linkin Park. He explained, "She's done it for a long time and knows she's a seasoned professional. She hasn't experienced playing a headline show in Paris in front of that huge stadium. But she's played that whole thing about having 10,000 hours of experience to do things. She is well over 10,000 hours doing shows, writing songs, being a performer. So we already knew that we were in a good spot, a good position to be very comfortable and no going on."

Shinoda also explained why the band wasn't looking for someone who sounded similar to their late bandmate, Chester Bennington, to fill in as their new lead singer. He shared, "We just want Emily to be Emily. The songs are the songs, Emily is Emily. I was watching videos, I think a video of a cover band, a Linkin Park cover band showed up in my feed, fans were loving it and they were all like, 'Oh my God, this person's so good. They sound so much like Chester.' And I was watching it. And have you ever heard of 'Uncanny Valley?' It's usually applied to CGI — think of Carrie Fisher and Star Wars. She passed away, they did a CGI version of her. You look at it on the screen and you're like, man, that looks almost exactly like a real life Carrie Fisher on the screen. But your brain knows the freaking difference. So that's the 'uncanny valley.' It's like your brain likes it better and better the more it gets more real and close to the real thing. And then the moment before it becomes exactly as real, the moment before that, your brain goes completely the opposite direction. It goes right back down to, 'I hate it' because your brain can tell that it's trying to be tricked. And nobody's brain likes that. So, when I was watching this YouTube video or Instagram video of this cover band, I was like, 'That's really cool. And it's also creepy.' It made me immediately know that that wasn't the move for us. I don't like it. I like it for them."

Listen to Linkin Park's new album From Zero on iHeartRadio.