Although Emily Armstrong, the vocalist for Dead Sara, is currently a member of Linkin Park, she nearly joined the group years ago. One of her earliest encounters with the band occurred when they were organizing the Chester Bennington celebration of life show at the Hollywood Bowl, according to an interview on the Zach Sang Show (seen below).

The question of how the two musicians met was posed throughout the conversation. Although he acknowledges that other friends had also suggested it, Mike Shinoda stated that he believed drummer Rob Bourdon was the one who first wanted Mike to meet Emily. Shinoda explained that the people who suggested they meet weren’t trying to pressure her into becoming the band’s singer. But after learning of the Bennington celebration, Armstrong also made contact with Linkin Park’s members for the first time at this time.

Armstrong recalled that she had considered participating in the performance but changed her mind. “Oh, I’d really like to do that,” I said. And while I was talking a lot to friends and other people, they said, ‘Why don’t you ask?’ “Oh, right,” I thought. Well, but, well, okay. They have all of them.

I thought, ‘Who the fuck is this? What makes them want me? However, she clarified, “I asked, but it was a little too late.” “Somebody got word of it at some point, but it was just like, yeah, we already have it all.”

“We were literally, it was like the week of or something,” Shinoda said during the discussion hearing when he recalled that Armstrong had contacted him. All of the songs were already being practiced. We didn’t want to interfere with what we were working with since we had a lot on our plates to bring that show together.”

In hindsight, Shinoda remarked, that was beneficial for all parties. “[It] was lucky that it didn’t work out that way because, by not having Emily present in that kind of space, later when we got together and started making new things and getting to know each other and stuff I think it was more of a blank slate,” he said.