In 2017, Linkin Park released the album One More Light, the very last album to feature the vocal talents of Chester Bennington. The beloved rock singer would take his own life just two months after the album’s release. Needless to say, it’s a bittersweet piece of work. On one hand, it has preserved the last bit of Bennington’s incredible talent before we lost him. On the other hand, it’s a heartbreaking reminder that he is no longer with us.
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Linkin Park more or less came to an end after the passing of Bennington, but reformed in 2024 with a new singer and a hopeful push toward a future for the band. Mike Shinoda, the band’s co-founder, recently sat down for an interview with The Guardian to discuss the future of the band, as well as their current From Zero World Tour that is slated to continue through June of 2026. And in the interview, he revealed that the title track from One More Light is “just too sad to play.”
That might be disappointing for some fans, but I get where Shinoda is coming from.
“One More Light” Has Become Associated With Two Heartbreaking Deaths and Is Just “Too Sad To Play” for Linkin Park
In the interview, Mike Shinoda and new vocalist Emily Armstrong discuss the future of the band, particularly their very long-winded tour that is set to take the reformed group across the globe for nearly two years in total. Shinoda asserted that he wanted the tour to be about “good vibes” and not a bittersweet nostalgia tour. For reference, the band hasn’t done much in terms of touring since the death of Bennington.
“I think we all wanted our show to be really good vibes,” said Shinoda. “I want you walking away feeling like, this was such a wonderful, special, fun night.”
In order to preserve those good vibes, certain songs will not be making it to the band’s future setlists. One of those songs is “One More Light”.
According to Shinoda, that song, among a few others, would “feel weird playing” on their current tour. When it comes to “One More Light”, that particular tune is strongly associated with two deaths. Shinoda said that during the album’s inception, that song was written “for a woman at the label that we worked with who passed away.”
“Then after Chester [Bennington] passed, the world decided that [‘One More Light’] was about him,” Shinoda continued. “And so that’s just too sad to play.”
Linkin Park will start the US leg of their international tour later this month.
Photo by Mairo Cinquetti/NurPhoto via Getty Images
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