LINKIN PARK’s Dave “Phoenix” Farrell Reflects: “Losing Chester Bennington Was the Band’s Most Tragic Moment”

In a recent interview with Evropa 2, Linkin Park bassist Dave “Phoenix” Farrell opened up about the band’s current lineup and the challenges they faced returning to music seven years after the tragic death of frontman Chester Bennington.

Farrell spoke candidly about the impact of losing Chester and the long road back to making music together:

“In the history of the band, the most tragic thing for sure was losing Chester. There’s nothing that would even come close, in the process of what we’ve been through. So to the effect that me, Brad, Mike and Joe, from that point forward, it took us years before we were even kind of comfortable getting back in a room and sitting down together and saying, like, do we wanna try to start writing again? Or do we even wanna do the band anymore? Do we wanna make music together? Is it called Linkin Park? My brain shut off to all of that and just said, ‘I’m just gonna go be with my family. We’re gonna do that.’ Kind of like, ‘I’ll check in with you guys when I see you, but for right now, a bomb has just gone off and I need to kind of recover and figure that out.’”

Farrell reflected on the healing process:

“I think it’s like the cliché of time heals all wounds. It doesn’t heal the wound, but it does give you an opportunity to try to look at things through a different lens and see what you can do or where you can kind of move forward or at least moves. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but that’s what I’ve learned in a couple different instances of dealing with tragedy is that it doesn’t leave you — it stays with you — but you do figure out a way to, what is tomorrow? You do figure out a way to step into that. What are you gonna do? How are you gonna move? What’s that gonna look like? And kind of try and take it one step at a time.”

Joining Farrell in the interview was new drummer Colin Brittain, who stepped in for original drummer Rob Bourdon, who is not part of the current lineup. Brittain shared his perspective on filling the role:

“Well, it’s always a huge challenge with the band, with so much respect that we all look up to. You wanna do the best you can to represent Rob’s creative and Chester’s creative roles in the band. But I think for me, it was more about… I was thinking about it less about like filling shoes and just sort of stepping into a place as myself. And then also, yeah, of course paying homage to exactly what he was doing and where he was going. But if you think about it too much about trying to be someone else, that’s never, I think, a good way of looking at it. It’s more of, like, okay, where are we at now and how can I contribute to this process as myself? And not trying to compare, but, obviously, yeah, I have huge respect for Rob and his playing. He was big influence on my playing early on, so it’s been kind of a dream scenario for me to pick up where he’s left off and do my best.”

After a seven-year hiatus from releasing new music, Linkin Park returned in 2024 with their critically acclaimed album From Zero, which features the No. 1 single “The Emptiness Machine.” The band became the only rock act in 2024 to surpass two billion streams and are currently touring North America, Europe, and South America in support of the album.

Farrell discussed how “The Emptiness Machine” emerged as the lead single from From Zero:

“There are a lot of earlier things and ideas or whatever that just ended up not making the album. You go through a process of working a ton of stuff up. ‘The Emptiness Machine’ was in the earlier set of things, but as we got later in the process… For us, every time we’re working on an album, there starts to be certain tracks or songs that start raising their hand and that we’re, like, ‘Oh, this is gonna be an important track. We can now start figuring out what the album’s gonna look like around it.’ It’s like a tent post, and then you start building the rest of it around what that is. And then when you’ve got like three or four songs that are kind of like that, where you’re automatically, like, ‘I know this is gonna be on the record. We’re gonna keep working on it, but it’s gonna be there.’ ‘The Emptiness Machine’ then turned out to be — Mike has described it, which I love, as this thing of, like, when you go to a party and you’re bringing a new person, you kind of say, ‘Hey, how’s it going? Good to see you,’ whatever. ‘Have you met my friend Emily?’ And that song does that. It starts on Mike’s vocal, he sings through the first verse and chorus, and then Emily gets introduced into it. And it just happened kind of that way with the writing of the song. And eventually we’re, like, what an interesting thing for the first time back when we come back, with the fans, it’s kind of like a sonic version of, like, ‘Have you met my friend Emily?’”

Alongside Farrell, vocalist Mike Shinoda, guitarist Brad Delson, and DJ Joe Hahn, Linkin Park welcomed new co-vocalist Emily Armstrong (from critically acclaimed band Dead Sara) and drummer Colin Brittain. While Delson contributed to the new album, he has not joined the band on tour, with Alex Feder handling live guitar duties.

[Via Blabbermouth]

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