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Emily Armstrong is serious about her new role in Linkin Park—so much so that she altered a tattoo to incorporate a song title. The singer took to Instagram story to show off a photo of a tattoo on her bicep that originally said "The End" and has been updated to "In The End," which is the title of Linkin Park's 2000 hit off Hybrid Theory.
Armstrong was unveiled as Linkin Park's new singer in September and has since toured and released a new album with the band. They're plotting a massive world tour for 2025.
Linkin Park co-founder Mike Shinoda recently explained why they chose Armstrong as their new singer instead of someone who sounds more like their late vocalist Chester Bennington.
“We just want Emily to be Emily,” he said. “The songs are the songs. Emily is Emily… There was a time early on, like 2020-ish, 2019, whatever — like, I remembered I was watching videos… I think a video of a cover band, a Linkin Park cover band, showed up in my feed. Fans were loving it. They were all like, ‘Oh my God, this person’s so good. They sound so much like Chester.’”
Shinoda then compared his reaction to the phenomenon “uncanny valley.” “Your brain likes it better and better and better the more it gets more real and close to the real thing," he explained, "and then the moment before it becomes exactly as real, your brain goes completely the opposite direction … right back down to ‘I hate it,’ because your brain can tell that it’s trying to be tricked. And nobody’s brain likes that.”
That's exactly what happened to him when he watched these bands. “So, when I was watching this YouTube video, or Instagram video, of this cover band, I was like, ‘That’s really cool, but it’s also creepy that it sounds so much like Chester.’ I don’t like it, it weirds me out," Shinoda admitted. "It made me immediately know that it wasn’t the move for us. I don’t like it. I like it for [the cover bands], I just don’t like it for us… These bands do a great job, but I wouldn’t put that in our band.”
See a photo of Armstrong's updated ink below.