Linkin Park feature voice of tragic singer Chester Bennington on new song

Linkin Park feature voice of tragic singer Chester Bennington on new song

Linkin Park has featured the voice of their tragic singer Chester Bennington on a new song.

The band was left reeling by the death by suicide of Chester at the age of 41 on 20 July, 2017, and has now put out the previously unreleased song ‘Friendly Fire’ that includes his vocals on their upcoming album ‘Papercuts’.

It was released on Friday (23.02.24) along with a music video and comes before the group’s career-spanning greatest hits album, which is due out 12 April.

‘Friendly Fire’ is a previously unreleased track from the band’s 2017 album, ‘One More Light’, and was initially recorded the song for their seventh album.

Linkin Park’s lead guitarist Brad Delson, 46, said in a statement the track was “always one of our favourite songs from the ‘One More Light’ sessions.”

He added: “Something about it wasn’t quite right so as close as it got to the finish line, we chose to set it aside for later.

“When we started looking for an unreleased track to include on our greatest hits collection, I was blown away by the power of the song, the power of the storytelling, the power of the vocal, the sonic landscape and I actually thought that it was closer than maybe we had realised at the time.”

Linkin Park’s co-founder, 47-year-old singer and producer Mike Shinoda added it was a “joy” to put together the tracklist for ‘Papercuts’, saying: “Each song in this collection is both a singular moment on our timeline and an evolving story that is as much ours as it is yours.

“From our first release, ‘One Step Closer’ to the brand-new ‘Friendly Fire,’ this tracklist spans all our chapters so far.”

The upcoming album has a total of 20 tracks, from ‘Crawling’ and ‘Faint’ to ‘Numb’ and ‘Friendly Fire’.

Linkin Park has mainly been on a break since October 2017’s ‘Linkin Park and Friends: Celebrate Life in Honor of Chester Bennington’ tribute concert.

They did put out previously unreleased song ‘Lost’ – which also included Chad’s vocals – in February 2023 for the 20th anniversary of the band’s 2003 album ‘Meteora’.