The mother of late Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington says she feels hurt and betrayed by the rap-rock band for launching its latest iteration without giving her a heads-up.
“I feel betrayed. They told me that if they were ever going to do something, they would let me know. They didn’t let me know, and they probably knew that I [wasn’t] going to be very happy. I’m very upset about it,” Susan Eubanks said in an interview with Rolling Stone published Thursday.
Linkin Park was co-founded in Agoura Hills in 1996 by Bennington and Linkin Park’s returning members, rapper-producer Mike Shinoda, guitarist Brad Delson, DJ Joe Hahn and Phoenix. The influential group, which went by Xero before Bennington joined its ranks, announced it was getting back together earlier this month, seven years after its lead singer’s death by suicide in 2017.
The relaunch notably includes new vocalist Emily Armstrong — previously of Los Angeles-based rock band Dead Sara — taking on Bennington’s role and new drummer Colin Brittain. The band will release new studio album “From Zero” on Nov. 15 and launch a corresponding tour to introduce the new lineup..
In a statement on Sept. 5, the four surviving founders said they had started hanging out in recent years in an attempt to “reconnect with the creativity and camaraderie” of their earliest days. Shinoda said the album title “From Zero” refers to “both this humble beginning and the journey we’re currently undertaking. Sonically and emotionally, it is about past, present and future — embracing our signature sound but new and full of life. It was made with a deep appreciation for our new and longtime bandmates, our friends, our family and our fans.”
During the band’s Sept. 11 show at the Kia Forum, Shinoda told the crowd that the band was “thrilled” to be back: “It is not about erasing the past. It is about starting this new chapter into the future.”
But none of that sat well with Bennington’s mother.
“I feel like they’re trying very hard to erase the past,” Eubanks told the Rolling Stone. “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.”
Bennington helped drive the group to mega-stardom with its 2000 debut, “Hybrid Theory,” combining heavy metal and hip-hop with angsty melodic choruses on songs such as “Crawling” and “In the End.” The group became an instant superstar that decade and a powerhouse in rock music throughout its career, going on to earn Grammy Awards for “Crawling” and “Numb/Encore.”
Eubanks added that she tuned into the band’s early September livestream announcement, accidentally, and briefly heard Armstrong singing Bennington’s parts. Her assessment: Armstrong was “screeching her way through a very high note.” She couldn’t bear to listen to more, left the stream and started to cry. She alleged that her son once told her that Shinoda thought Linkin Park’s songs would be better sung by a woman “because he often put Chester down” and that they would replace him with a woman if he ever decided to leave the group.
“Chester was dumbfounded and hurt,” Eubanks said of the remarks. “And the fact is that now they did it. So, of course, all that comes right back into my mind.” She said she might have been OK with Shinoda singing Bennington’s parts, although they wouldn’t be as high or as loud, but was not OK with someone else replacing him altogether, “trying to do exactly what Chester did, but they’re not succeeding at it.”
She also said that neither Bennington’s first wife, Samantha, nor his son, Draven, knew about the relaunch “until it was told to the world.”
“It was the same for me and it hurt,” she said, noting that Hahn, whom she saw four or five years ago, promised he would tell her if they reassembled and didn’t relay any intention of starting the band back up. She also alleged that Shinoda made a similar promise to her and Samantha Bennington.
But Samantha Bennington told the outlet that she had not spoken to Shinoda since she was married to Chester, nor had she seen Shinoda since before her 2005 divorce.
“I believe my mother-in-law is mixing up bands between Linkin Park and [Bennington’s earlier band] Grey Daze. Grief and sadness messes with your memory,” she told Rolling Stone after Eubanks’ reaction was published.
A spokeperson for Linkin Park declined to comment Friday when reached by The Times.
“I think the important thing for us is we never set out to like [say] ‘Let’s bring the band back. Or like, ‘Let’s find a singer.’ That was never our intention or our goal,” Shinoda said Tuesday on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon.” “
“It was more like there was a moment when our DJ Joe … said [we] should hang out a little more often, could we like get together and be creative,” Shinoda said. “One thing led to another, and it was almost like [for] this new record, we wrote it, we came up with the music while we were creating the new band. When we started the music we didn’t have a band and it just came together while the music came together, I guess.”
Times staff writers August Brown and Mikael Wood and freelancer Steve Appleford contributed to this report.