Linkin Park are reportedly planning a 2025 tour and potentially looking to recruit a female vocalist to succeed late frontman Chester Bennington.
The band have been on hiatus ever since the death of Bennington in 2017, who took his own life aged 41.
However, according to reports from Billboard, the band’s booking agency WME are now taking offers for concerts and festivals featuring Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson and Dave Farrell. Though it’s unclear who will succeed Bennington, a source has apparently told Billboard that the band are looking for a female vocalist for their reunion.
The news follows a rumour sparked by Orgy’s Jay Gordon, who said he “heard” that Linkin Park “had a girl singer now” back in March. He later issued a statement clarifying his comments, writing: “With regards to this Linkin Park singer thing,” he wrote. “I know nothing about any of that. People sure do love to take my words out of context. I love those guys and wish them the best.”
NME have approached Linkin Park’s representatives for comment.
Since Bennington’s death, there have been some discussions on how to continue the band. Shinoda has spoken against the idea of having a Bennington hologram, calling it “creepy”, whilst Evanescence’s Amy Lee has emphatically shot down rumours that she would replace Bennington.
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Responding to the rumours, she said: “That is an incredible compliment. I have not heard that. No, I have not been contacted or anything like that. But [I’m a] huge fan feel like our worlds, our fanbases are a lot of the same people.”
Linkin Park released the 20th anniversary edition of ‘Meteora’ last year, where Shinoda and Delson spoke with NME in April about the potential for releasing new unheard material.
“It’s about honouring each creative opportunity as it comes along,” said Delson. “It was an embarrassingly haphazard accident that we found ‘Lost’ and it’s like doing as well as it’s doing. There was not a lot of premeditation beyond, ‘This feels good in the moment, let’s honour that’. It was organic and that’s always really served us. We’ve always done our best work when the creative opportunity feels right.”
Speaking to NME separately in November, Shinoda commented on the future of Linkin Park, confirming that there was “nothing planned right now”.
“I always just tell people like when there’s news I’ll give you the news. We’ve been doing it for a while and I think our expectation for what’s a proper reissue is kind of high.
“I don’t love putting out Greatest Hits stuff or putting out re-masters of things we’ve done, [so] if we were to do a re-reissue of one of our Linkin Park albums, we want it to be a big deal. If we can’t make it that quality then we won’t do it. If it’s not great then I don’t think we should do it.”
Since that interview, Linkin Park have released the previously unheard ‘Friendly Fire’ with Bennington on vocals, which was originally recorded for the band’s 2017 sessions for ‘One More Light’. They also went on to release ‘Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000-2023)’ in April, a 20-song overview of the band’s best-selling tracks over the past two decades.
In other news, Chester Bennington’s son Draven dropped his debut single ‘F_w_Me’ last spring.