Linkin Park Tease Unreleased Song Called 'Friendly Fire' Featuring Chester Bennington
Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda revealed the existence of 'Friendly Fire' in June 2020.
Linkin Park (Credit: James Minchin)
Linkin Park have shared a teaser for a new, unreleased song featuring the late vocalist Chester Bennington called Friendly Fire.
The song was recorded during the band’s One More Light sessions, their final album, which was released in 2017, just two months before Bennington’s passing. Like many songs on One More Light, Friendly Fire is driven by synth-pop influence and showcases the group’s – and Bennington’s – softer side.
In the snippet shared to social media today (20 February), Bennington sings in what’s likely to be the chorus: “We’re falling apart for no reason/ We’re pulling the trigger in a useless war/ If we go back and go into the black/ What are we fighting for?/ What are we fighting?/ It’s just friendly fire”.
You can listen to the teaser below.
Over the weekend, Linkin Park started hinting at what’s likely to be a greatest hits album release, with new posts on Instagram showing clips from beloved songs, including Crawling, Numb/Encore (featuring Jay-Z), Faint, Breaking The Habit, In The End, Bleed It Out, Somewhere I Belong, What I’ve Done, New Divide, One Step Closer, and more. The post for Friendly Fire indicates that the song will be 20th on the tracklist.
An official release of Friendly Fire or a potential greatest hits album haven’t been announced at the time of writing.
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In June 2020, Linkin Park rapper, singer and guitarist Mike Shinoda revealed the existence of Friendly Fire on a Twitch livestream.
“There was a song, a One More Light song,” Shinoda said (per Alt Press). “We mixed more [songs] than [are on] the finished album, and we mixed a couple of other songs just to see if one of them would make the cut or whatever. [Or] if we could use it for a B-side and it was Friendly Fire.”
Shinoda told fans that the song was mixed by One More Light collaborator Jon Green. He added, “I still love that song. Is that out somewhere? Did we put Friendly Fire out at some point? We didn’t, did we?”
Shinoda advised fans to adjust their expectations and said the song wouldn’t be out for a while. “You literally are going to have to wait years to hear that song, FYI,” he said.
Last year, Mike Shinoda returned to Australia as a showcase speaker at the music conference and performance event BIGSOUND. Revealing that record executives recommended Bennington “ditch the rap”, Shinoda recalled the singer’s response:
“Chester came and told us, and we're like, 'Well, what did you say?' He said, 'I told them to go fuck themselves,’” Shinoda explained as the crowd laughed uproariously.
You can read The Music’s recent interview with Shinoda here.
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