Linkin Park introduce new vocalist Emily Armstrong (of Dead Sara), new drummer Colin Brittain, and share their first brand new music in seven years.
Linkin Park share a new single (HERE) and video (premiering HERE at 4pm PT/7pm ET), for āThe Emptiness Machine,ā plus a global livestream performance (happening now HERE and available only for 24 hours), and the launch of 6 upcoming arena shows in Los Angeles, New York, Hamburg, London, Seoul, and Bogota as part of the From Zero World Tour. LP Underground fan club exclusive pre-sales start September 6 and general on-sales September 7. Go to LinkinPark.com for more info.
These surprises herald the arrival of LINKIN PARKās first album since 2017, FROM ZERO, on November 15.
Tomorrow, Friday September 6th, the band joins long-time friend and Apple Music host Zane Lowe for an in-depth candid conversation about the incredible legacy of Linkin Park, the 7-year long journey to new music and their excitement for the future.
Without expectations, Shinoda, Delson, Farrell, and Hahn quietly began meeting up again in recent years. Rather than ātrying to restart the band,ā their instinct was to simply spend more time together, and reconnect with the creativity and camaraderie that has been at the core of their friendship since college. During this time, they invited various friends and cohorts to join them in the studio; among the guests, they found a special kinship with Armstong and Brittain. A natural chemistry drew these musicians back into its gravitational pull as they logged more and more hours in the studio. It was the sound of lifelong musicians rediscovering the uncontainable energy of a new beginning once again. Over this season, FROM ZERO was born.
FROM ZERO
FROM ZERO TRACKLIST
- From Zero (Intro)
- The Emptiness Machine
- Cut The Bridge
- Heavy Is The Crown
- Over Each Other
- Casualty
- Overflow
- Two Faced
- Stained
- IGYEIH
- Good Things Go
About the new era, Shinoda stated, āBefore LINKIN PARK, our first band name was Xero. This album title refers to both this humble beginning and the journey weāre currently undertaking. Sonically and emotionally, it is about past, present, and futureāembracing 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. We are proud of what LINKIN PARK has become over the years, and excited about the journey ahead.ā
Right out of the gate, āThe Emptiness Machineā channels the DNA of LINKIN PARK, harnessing the bandās explosive energy and retaining the hallmarks of their instantly identifiable and inimitable sound. A chameleonic and catchy anthem, Shinodaās hypnotic melodies hand off to Armstrongās blistering chorus, over distorted riffs and head-nodding drums.
Shinoda elaborated, āThe more we worked with Emily and Colin, the more we enjoyed their world-class talents, their company, and the things we created. We feel really empowered with this new lineup and the vibrant and energized new music weāve made together. Weāre weaving together the sonic touchpoints weāve been known for and still exploring new ones.ā
FROM ZERO WORLD TOUR 2024
September 11, 2024 | Kia Forum - Los Angeles, CA
September 16, 2024 | Barclays Center - New York, NY
September 22, 2024 | Barclays Arena - Hamburg, Germany
September 24, 2024 | The O2 - London, UK
September 28, 2024 | INSPIRE Arena - Seoul, South Korea
November 11, 2024 | Coliseo Medplus - Bogota, Colombia
A look at Brad Delson's touring gear, as well as his new favorite studio Strat.
Linkin Parkās lead guitarist Brad Delson is known for rocking signature PRS Custom 24s and Shure headphones onstage.
On their latest album, The Hunting Party, Linkin Park aimed heavier. Guitarist Brad Delson tells us he was more inspired than ever with making his guitar sound insanely different. Weāre excited to see the new setup Delson will bring out on tour this summer, but for now, hereās a look at what he brought on Living Things tour in 2012. Bonus: Check out the craziest-looking bass weāve seen in a while.
Determined not to repeat themselves, the nĆ¼-metal pioneers break new guitar ground on their latest album.
Linkin Parkās Brad Delson caught me by surprise in the lobby of Larrabee, the North Hollywood, California, studio where he was working on a new record, The Hunting Party. His bandās angst-ridden lyrics and thick, ominous guitar parts suggested that Delson might be on the disaffected side, with a rebellious appearance. But he was gracious and approachableābeaming, even. Sporting a tidy hairdo, beard, and horn-rimmed eyeglasses, he looked less like a purveyor of nĆ¼ metal than a cool grad student.
āFollow me around the pool table,ā he said, leading me into the control room, clearly excited to show off his latest work. The room was immaculate, everything arranged just so. There were two boats of guitars that seemed to be organized for quick and easy access. On the mixing board four different-colored Sharpies were lined up perfectly. A pair of Muppet Show dolls, Statler and Waldorf, surveyed the scene from atop a corner shelf. Delson, who produced the record with his band mate and co-guitarist Mike Shinoda, sank into in a black Aeron chair behind the board. He looked bright-eyed despite long studio hours.
āWeāve been here five or six days every week for about five months,ā he said. āThis week [drummer] Rob [Bourdon] and Mike are recording drums to tape at EastWest, and Iām here on my own working on other aspects of songs.ā
I make all day.ā āBrad Delson
Itās a new methodology for the band: writing from scratch while recording. On their first two albums, Hybrid Theory (2000) and Meteora (2003), Linkin Park worked in a more traditional way, writing songs before demoing them, and then rerecording everything in the studio. But the band learned that careful preparation didnāt necessarily yield the most satisfying results.
āWhen we worked with [producer] Rick Rubin [for 2007ās Minutes to Midnight, 2010ās A Thousand Suns, and 2012ās Living Things] we brought him a bunch of demos along with the recorded versions that weād spent days working on in a perfectly good studio environment,ā recalled Delson. āWhen Rick A/Bād the versions, he always thought the demos were more compelling. That was an expensive and painful lesson.ā
But for The Hunting Party Linkin Park used the studio as a compositional tool, recording as inspiration struck, compiling the best bits and pieces, and stitching them together as new songs. āEarly in the process, Mike wrote a bunch of demosāintroverted, indie-sounding stuff inspired by what you hear on the radio these days,ā said Delson. āBut we threw them all away in favor of making a more personal record, something more visceral and aggressive in a way that only we could do.ā
Delson rocking out during a show at the First Midwest Bank Ampitheater in Tinley Park, IL,
on August 24, 2012.
This off-the-cuff approach left open the possibility of happy accidents, explains Delson: āSomething unintentional might be the coolest sound I make all day, and knowing how to allow those mistakes to happen and to shape them potentially makes for some great music. Weāre trying to approach things with openness and childlike wonder. I just dive in and play a lot of guitar every day here in the studio. I might freely improvise riffs and noise to a fast click track for an hour, and then go back and sort through the recording. Sorting is so much more time-consuming than playing. But when I hear something I like, I say āThat!ā and build layers around it.ā
In the past, Delson often labored to compose the perfect backdrop for a track, only to discover that it didnāt quite work as a song. This time, after assembling a rough collection of riffs, he would submit the work to singer Chester Bennington for consideration. āWe used to record the vocals last,ā says Delson, ābut now we do that closer to the beginning of the process, so we know if a track will survive as a song. It could have the coolest musical elements, but if doesnāt lend itself to a great vocal, then itās time to move on to the next thing.ā
A collage of Delson's workhorses that included several custom PRS models and two well-loved Strats.
Sensing I was curious about his armada of guitars, Delson pulled a few favorites from their boats. He talked about how much heād enjoyed using unfamiliar instruments like a 1973 Fender Mustang in a competition blue finish and a 1970 Gibson ES-335 with its walnut-colored stain. Seeing that a 1978 Gibson SG was absent from one of the racks, he chided his cohort. āMike keeps taking the choice stuff to EastWest,ā he said, chuckling.
Delson was relieved to see that Shinoda hadnāt made off with a guitar belonging to Ethan Mates, the recordās chief engineer: a reissue Fender 1962 Stratocaster from the Fender Custom Shopās Master Built series, made by master builder Jason Smith in a relic Coral Pink finish. Delson was so taken with this guitar that he used it extensively on the record. He retrieved it from the rack and tremolo-picked a D natural minor scale. āIām not sure whether itās the action or the setup, but this guitar feels amazing to me,ā he said. āItās super versatile for lead and for rhythm, and it has this messy wildness to it that feels right for this record.ā
Delson lowered the Stratocasterās sixth string down to D and played an aggressive palm-muted power-chord progression. āIt would be most intuitive to play a heavy passage like that on a guitar with double humbuckers, but I like to be contrary. On the Strat it becomes a different thing. It almost sounds like Helmet.ā
The Hunting Party: An Engineerās Take
Engineer/Producer Ethan Mates has collaborated with Linkin Park since 2006. In his own words, he details some of the recording techniques used on the bandās new album.We took a much more live, playing-centric approach to writing and tracking this record, as opposed to the more electronic style we used on the last couple of albums. We set out not to fall back on the same old guitar tones weād used for the past six years. We started by creating a small collection of core tones to be used in a sonically consistent way throughout the record.
Delson's two racks of gear.
The core sound is created through Orange, Bogner, and Engl amps, and weāre also using a Chandler amp for overdubs and higher parts. Generally we have three microphones on each cabāeither a Shure SM57 or Heill PR 30 next to a Sennheiser 421, and then either a ribbon mic like a Royer R-121 ribbon or a Neumann FET47, to capture a fullness of sound. We use pretty standard miking techniques, close-miked for the most punk rock, in-your-face sound, although sometimes for an ambient sound we use a room mic on the drums, or throw loudspeaker cabs in the live room and mic those.
In front of the guitar chain weāve kept things simple, using the Z.Vex Super Hard-On, or the Z.Vex Mastotron for really chunky rhythm parts. We discovered that the Mastotron makes a really cool sound when the battery is running out, so weāve been gathering as many dying 9-volts as we can find.
On top of all that, weāve been drawing from a much broader palette of tones. A lot of times Brad likes big stereo washes in the chorus, so we experiment by stringing together a bunch of different reverbs and delays, sometimes using two different heads with a different effect chain in each one. Also, Brad likes using the Electro-Harmonix HOG for synth-like sounds. Weāve been using all of these tools to breath new life into Linkin Parkās sound. āEthan Mates
Delson is most closely associated with the PRS Custom 24, and despite his new affinity for the Stratocaster, he hasnāt turned his back on this old companion. āI love the PRS,ā he said, eyeing the axe tenderly. āItās always served me so well for live work, and itās been really cool to combine its timbres with the Stratās for recording.ā
Next Delson directed me into a hallway, where he opened a large cupboard housing shelves and shelves of stompboxes. On the wall behind it were framed aphorisms by musical heavyweights. (āA song is anything that can walk by itself.ā āBob Dylan ā¦ āWell, if you find a note tonight that sounds good, play the same damn note every night!ā āCount Basie.)
āMost of these pedals are Ethanās,ā said Delson. āHeās always scouring eBay and has assembled this sick collection. A lot of them are strange and rare, and many are customized. There are times when an arrangement calls for something out of the ordinary, and Ethan comes back here and chooses a bunch of pedals to curate a one-of-a-kind sound. In some instances you canāt even tell itās guitar.ā He pointed out the main pedals used on the new record, including a Z.Vex Super Hard-On, an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Reverb, and a Dr. Scientist Reverberator.
Brad Delson rocks out live with Linkin Park in 2012 on one of his special-made PRS Custom 24s. Photo by Ken Settle.
Delson opened the door to a sound room to show his amps. āBe sure not to knock any of the mikes,ā cautioned Delson. In this wood-paneled room four separate stations housed brawny modern amps: an Orange TH100 head through an Orange 2x12 cabinet with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers, miked with a Heil PR 30, a Sennheiser MD 421, and a Royer R-121; a Chandler GAV19T head through an Orange 1x12 cabinet with a Vintage 30, miked with a Mojave MA-100 and a Neumann FET47; an Engl Fireball 100 through a Marshall 1960 cabinet, miked with a Shure SM57, an MD 421, and an FET47; and a Bogner Customized Twin Jet through a Bogner Ubercab, miked with a PR 30, an MD 421, and an R-121.
āItās great to have a setup where I can run combinations of heads and cabs simultaneously to get the most appropriate tone, or do something more straightforward like record just one cabinet with two mikes,ā said Delson.
Brad Delson's Studio Gear
Guitars
Fender Custom Shop 1962 Stratocaster (built by Jason Smith)
1978 Gibson SG Standard
MJT Telecaster
PRS Custom 24
PRS SE245
Amps
Bogner Twin Jet
Chandler GAV19T
Engl Fireball 100
Orange TH100
Effects
Caroline Guitar Company Kilobyte
Dr. Scientist Reverberator
Electro-Harmonix HOG
EarthQuaker Devices Disaster Transport SR
EarthQuaker Devices Hummingbird
Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail
Red Panda Particle
Strymon BigSky
Z.Vex Super Hard-On
Z.Vex Mastotron
Strings and Picks
DāAddario EXL110 strings (.010ā.046)
Dunlop Tortex Wedge .73 mm picks
He led me back to the control room and seated me in the Aeron chair, showing me how to adjust the boardās master volume control. Then the albumās editor, Josh Newell (an intense-looking gentleman with a shaved head and an obvious enthusiasm for body art), took over while Delson ducked out of the room. Newell played me seven songs from the new album, quietly announcing each title.
Listening to these raw mixes, it was evident that the winning strategy Linkin Park established on Hybrid Theoryādovetailing spoken verses with melodic chorusesāhadnāt been discarded. But on all levels there was new depth to the music in the form of lengthier interludes, greater harmonic diversity, and uncanny guitar sounds that made way for brief, fitful solos.
Delson returned and said he felt satisfied by the guitarās primacy on the new music. āOn the last few records I certainly played guitar in the studio, but Iād been focusing on other instruments. Iāve been playing guitar since I was 12, and it had become fascinating to learn keyboards, programming, and Pro Tools, which is like an instrument in itself. But these songs are all about rediscovering the guitar and having a lot of fun with it.ā
We talked about the recordās compact solos, which, despite their brevity, reveal Delsonās formidable guitar skills and penchant for spontaneity. āThereās an unpredictability to these songs that lends itself to me just picking up a guitar and playing insanity,ā he said. āNothing is preplanned. For some of the faster solos I warm up, but not in an overtly methodical way. If I want to record a solo over at a fast tempo, I just noodle on that Strat for an hour until Iām hyper-fast. I donāt want to merge onto the highway at 15 miles per hour. I want to be at full speed by the time I get thrown on to it.ā
On that note, it was time for me to hit the highway. Delson led me to the door and then he picked up the Stratocaster, eager to return to his craft.