Linkin Park drops unreleased song Friendly Fire featuring vocals from late frontman Chester Bennington… ahead of upcoming greatest hits album

Nearly seven years after disbanding following the sudden death of singer Chester Bennington, Linkin Park has dropped a new song.

Actually, the previously unreleased song, Friendly Fire, was written during the One More Light (2017) sessions, which was their seventh and final studio album, but it was left off the record.

It now serves as the lead single for their new greatest hits album, titled Papercuts – Singles Collection 2000-2023, out April 12.

As part of the promotion, the band also released a music video for Friendly Fire featuring never-before-seen studio and live footage.

Lead guitarist Brad Delson revealed that the song was “always one of our favorite songs from the One More Light sessions,” but they just couldn’t get it right at the end of recording for the album, according to People.

“Something wasn’t quite right, so as soon as we reached the finish line we chose to put it aside for later,” Delson, 46, added.

The guys in the band hadn’t thought about the song in years, but it resurfaced when they started choosing the songs for the greatest hits compilation.

“When we started looking for an unreleased song to include in our greatest hits collection, I was blown away by the power of the song, the power of the storytelling, the power of the vocals, the sonic landscape and I actually thought it was. closer than we might have realized at the time,” the guitarist explained.

The band’s rapper, guitarist and co-founder Mike Shinoda confessed that the time the boys spent together putting together the tracklist for Papercuts was a “joy.”

“Each song in this collection is both a unique moment in our timeline and an evolving story that is both ours and yours,” said the 47-year-old musician and producer.

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

Formed in 1996, Linkin Park rose to international fame with the massive success of their debut studio album, Hybrid Theory (2000), which sold more than 32 million copies worldwide over the years.

The debut featured the power of the four hit singles One Step Closer, In The End, Crawling and Papercut.

Bennington was 41 when he committed suicide in July 2017; he saw him two weeks before his death

The previously unreleased song Friendly Fire is the lead single from the band’s upcoming greatest hits album, Papercuts – Singles Collection 2000-2023, out April 12.

Featuring the vocal interplay of Bennington (vocals) and Shinoda (rapper) collaborating on some songs, the band also includes Brad Delson (guitar), Rob Bourdon (drums), Joe Hahn (DJ and visual artist) and Dave Farrell (bass ).

Linkin Park would also achieve more mainstream success with the release of their follow-up album Meteora (2003), which sold over 16 million copies.

They maintained their staying power over the years despite taking breaks to work on side projects, releasing all five of their remaining albums, including One More Light (2017), which was released two months before Bennington’s death by suicide came onto the market. July 20, 2017.

In total, Linkin Park has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide.

Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Bennington was 41 years old when he died.

He is survived by his wife of about 11 years, Talinda Bentley Bennington, and six children.

Linkin Park enjoyed huge success with their debut studio album Hybrid Theory (2000)

Part of Linkin Park’s success was due to the vocal interplay between Bennington’s singing and Shinoda’s rapping for the band; the duo is seen at the O2 Arena on July 3, 2017 in London, England, just 17 days before Bennington was found dead by suicide

The band has been largely on hiatus since the Linkin Park and Friends: Celebrate Life tribute concert in honor of Chester Bennington in October 2017.

The band released another previously unreleased song Lost, featuring Bennington, in February 2023 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Meteora album.

The upcoming Papercuts album contains 20 songs: Crawling, Faint, Numb/Encore, Papercut, Breaking The Habit, In The End, Bleed It Out, Somewhere I Belong, Waiting For The End, Castle Of Glass, One More Light, Burn It Down , What I’ve done, QWERTY, One step closer, New gap, Leaving the rest out, Lost, Numb and Friendly fire.

Fans can pre-order or save the album Papercuts – Singles Collection 2000-2023 ahead of its April 12 release.