Mike Shinoda, the founder of Linkin Park, has stated that the band’s new vocalist is not attempting to take Chester Bennington’s place as frontman.

Many fans are upset over the band’s decision to release new songs recorded with vocalist Emily Armstrong when they announced their reunion earlier this month.

Jaime, Chester’s son, has accused the surviving members of Linkin Park of “quietly erasing” his father’s “life and legacy in real time” after Chester committed suicide in 2017.

Original bandmate Mike Shinoda stated that their comeback was “not meant to be a redo or a rewrite of Linkin Park” in an interview with Radio 1’s New Music Show on Monday.

The band is one of the most well-known rock artists in the world, having amassed billions of streams.

“One of the most important albums of all time” is how Kerrang! magazine described their debut album, Hybrid Theory, from 2000.

Emily sang Chester’s parts during their comeback show, which featured new songs and some of their greatest hits and served as an announcement of their reunion.

Mike said on Radio 1, “This is meant to be a new chapter of Linkin Park.”

“We cherished the last episode, which was fantastic.

“It ran its course and now we were faced with a challenge of: ‘well OK, if you start from scratch with another voice, what do you do?'”

Mike informed host Jack Saunders that although he had been producing songs and seeing Emily from the hard rock band Dead Sara since 2019, the “intention wasn’t to start the band up again.”

“We were just slowly coming together and then eventually things just started to fall into place with Emily and with Colin our new drummer,” he explained.

We discussed adding her voice to pieces we had previously created that solely featured my voice.

“Once we did that, we were like, ‘that sounds really good, we should try that on even more songs’.”

Both new and classic tunes are on the set list for their upcoming world tour, which will stop in London.

During the interview, Mike did not respond to Chester’s family’s criticisms.

Rolling Stone magazine reported that the singer’s mother felt “betrayed” because she had not been informed beforehand.

Concerned about Emily’s purported affiliation with the Church of Scientology and her prior backing of convicted rapist Danny Masterson, his son Jaime also directly criticized Emily.

Emily issued a statement separating herself from the former sitcom star, but she made no mention of her affiliation with Scientology, the contentious organization founded as a religion in the United States in the 1950s by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.

“Passion is the driver” of Emily’s voice, Mike said, focusing on her singing.

“When she sings, it’s like the passion and she’s just 100% her, that’s the best part,” he stated.

“Neither is she attempting to be Chester or anybody else.

“She’s her and that’s why it works.”