Linkin Park Have an Unreleased Song With Chester Bennington
Linkin Park's future remains uncertain, but Mike Shinoda has just revealed the name of one unreleased song that was recorded with Chester Bennington during the One More Light sessions. Still, it will likely be a long time before we ever get to hear "Friendly Fire."
Shinoda has been active on his Twitch channel lately as fans can engage with him while he does things ranging from playing the Animal Crossing video game to recording new music. It's an ideal time for fans to spring questions on the Linkin Park co-vocalist and, last week, Shinoda discussed unreleased Linkin Park material.
"There was a song — a One More Light song that... we mixed more [songs] than [are present on] the finished album and we mixed a couple other songs just to see if one of them would make the cut or whatever — if we could use it for a B-side and it was 'Friendly Fire,'" Shinoda disclosed in a video shared by a Linkin Park fan page, as seen below.
Shinoda mentioned the track was co-written with Jon Green, who collaborated with the group on 2017's One More Light album, which proved to be the final record with singer Chester Bennington before his tragic death by suicide in July later that year. Guitarist Brad Delson was also in on the writing process for that track.
"I still love that song," beamed Shinoda, who then wondered out loud if Linkin Park had released that song already, asking, "Is that out somewhere? Did we put 'Friendly Fire' out at some point? We didn't, did we?"
One viewer requested that the band just release the song right now, to which Shinoda brushed off, understanding what a monumental moment the debut of an unheard Linkin Park song would be.
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that "Friendly Fire" will be shared any time soon. "You literally are going to have to wait years to hear that song, fyi," said Shinoda at the tail of the video clip.
Fortunately, however, Linkin Park fans have already received at least one posthumous song featuring Bennington. Prior to his death, the singer contributed to "Cross Off," one of the tracks which appeared on Anesthetic, the debut solo album from Lamb of God guitarist Mark Morton. Listen here.
Plus, Bennington's vocals can be heard on the Grey Daze album, Amends, due this Friday (June 26). You can pre-order the album from Bennington's pre-Linkin Park band, which has already yielded the tracks "What's in the Eye," "Sickness," "Sometimes," "Soul Song" and "B12," at this location.
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