When Linkin Park announced their comeback it came with a big lineup change. Aside from singer Emily Armstrong stepping in for the late Chester Bennington, the band also announced founding members Rob Bourdon (drummer) and Brad Delson (guitarist) would not be participating in their upcoming tour and instead were replaced by Colin Brittain and Alex Feder, respectively.
However, unlike Bourdon who has chosen to not move forward with the band at all, Delson is still technically a part of the band. Despite the guitarist continuing to work behind the scenes writing and recording music, he decided touring is not for him.
Now, in a new interview on the Zach Sang Show, Linkin Park’s co-lead singer Mike Shinoda opened up about asking Brittain to join the band and Delson’s choice to not take part in the reunion tour.
“Colin Brittain, he was part of the process [for the new album ‘From Zero’] just as a writer and a co-producer. I just love working with Colin,” Shinoda said. “I met him in sessions and then was bringing him in to help with writing and production. And then eventually we were, like, ‘Hey, dude, it turns out we need somebody to play drums.’ I know that’s his primary instrument. So I was, like, ‘Is that something you would wanna do? It would mean stepping away from your production career.'”
He continued: “In case anybody doesn’t understand the dynamic, our guitarist Brad is our guitarist — he’s in the band — but he’s realized that in terms of his… It’s kind of a mental health thing. He doesn’t love the touring and the live show lifestyle, and so he is our guitarist, but he’s not playing live.
“So he’s chosen, he found a guy named Alex who’s spectacular, a really good guitarist and they get along great, and Brad chose Alex to play his parts live. But at the time, we hadn’t met Alex, and so we asked Colin. I was, like, ‘Brad needs somebody to play guitar, and we need a drummer. You do both equally well. What would you wanna do?’ And he was just like a kid in a candy store. I think he said, ‘I can’t believe what you’re asking me right now.’ He was so excited.”
