Brad Delson

Linkin Park has released a new song nearly seven years after disbanding in the aftermath of singer Chester Bennington's sudden death. Friendly Fire, the previously unveiled track, was written during One More Light (2017) sessions, but it was later scrapped, but not released. It's now the lead single for their forthcoming greatest hits album, Papercuts - Singles Collection 2000-2023, and it's likely to be released on April 12. The band also released a music video for Friendly Fire that included never-before-seen studios and a live video. According to People, lead guitarist Brad Delson said that the song had always been one of our favorite songs from the One More Light sessions, but they couldn't get it exactly right by the time of recording for the album.

Mike Shinoda has never been to Meteora, the site of stunning rock formations in central Greece dating back 60 million years. However, he discovered those otherworldly terrestrial forms on tour with his band Linkin Park in the early 2000s. “We saw the photograph of the area, and it seemed to be from another planet,” he told MTV News recently. It was so bizarre and new." He may have felt the same at the time. Hybrid Theory, Linkin Park's debut in 2000, became the best-selling album of the year, bringing the California six-piece rap-rock band to international prominence. It eventually became a platinum award-winning vehicle. "If it was today, imagine one minute you're making protests in your parents' house, and the next minute, you've produced an album that's bigger than [Justin] Bieber, Drake, Halsey, and Post Malone," he said. Shinoda was determined to make a good sequel, but the pressure was on to produce a good sequel.