Linkin Park reveals new singer Emily Armstrong as band reunites 7 years after Chester Bennington’s death, dividing fans

Seven years after the passing of longtime frontman Chester Bennington, the California-based rock group announced that it has regrouped for a new tour and songs, and they have invited rocker Emily Armstrong to co-vocalist with them.

 Alongside returning members Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, and Joe Hahn, Armstrong and new drummer Colin Brittain made their Linkin Park debut on Thursday during the band's live stream, premiering their new track, "The Emptiness Machine."

 Shinoda addressed the audience, which included members of the private fan club, saying, "This is a very special day for us."  This afternoon, you are all playing Chester Bennington.

 Armstrong, the lead singer of the rock group Dead Sara, was invited by Linkin Park to join the legendary group.

Before accepting the role, Armstrong claimed she discussed it with her Dead Sara comrades, who urged her to seize the chance.

 "I was asking myself, 'Is it real?' in the best possible terror.  I don't remember ever touching the earth for at least three days," Armstrong told Billboard.  When I got back down, everything was different because I knew that my life would change for the better.  I returned to a fantasy world.

 Rob Bourdon, a founding member, "decided to step away" in order to distance himself from his former bandmates, and Brittain is taking his place. 

Shinoda, Delson, Farrell, and Hahn reportedly started getting together again in private in recent years. Instead of "trying to restart the band," they would get together with "various friends and cohorts to join them in the studio; among the guests, they found a special kinship with Armstrong and Brittain," the band said in a press release.

 Armstrong claimed that she would "mosh" and "skate" to Linkin Park's 2000 album "Hybrid Theory" as a child, that the song even inspired her to pursue a career in singing.

The rap-rock group said that their latest album, "From Zero," would be available on November 15 and that fans will be able to hear more about their next limited-edition world tour, which will begin on September 11 and stop in Los Angeles, New York, Hamburg, Germany, London, Seoul, South Korea, and Bogota, Colombia.

 The founding members have a special place in their hearts for the new album title because, once Bennington joined as frontman, they changed the band's name from Xero to Linkin Park.

 The Grammy-winning group hasn't released new music since Bennington killed himself at his Los Angeles home two months after Linkin Park's previous album, "One More Light," came out.