Emily Armstrong

Emily Marcia Armstrong is an American musician and songwriter, known as the co-founder of rock band Dead Sara and the new co-vocalist of Linkin Park starting in September 2024. Her vocal style has a very powerful, gravely, 90s nature to it that brings intensity to the music she performs. She was born on May 6, 1986.

Early Life

Emily was born in Los Angeles, to parents who were prominent members of the Church of Scientology, being born into it herself. She received her first guitar as a birthday present when she was 12, and from that moment knew that all she wanted to do with her life was to sing and play in a rock band. She claims she first learned that she could scream when she got really mad at a teacher, and "a voice came out that I never heard of, never heard from myself... and I went straight to the practice room to try and recreate it... and once I discovered that, I was able to hone it."

While in school, Emily performed with a variety of folk bands while developing her performance abilities. Emily dropped out of high school to pursue a career in music.

Career

Dead Sara

Emily Armstrong met bandmate Siouxsie Medley while they were both in high school through a mutual friend in 2002 when Medley was 15 and Armstrong was 16. The pair began writing music together in 2003. In 2004, they completed their first demo, entitled 'Changes,' an acoustic folk track with a Cranberries-esque sound, with Armstrong on bass and vocals.

Inspired by the likes of Hole, Nirvana, Fleetwood Mac, and Led Zeppelin, the young pair of songwriters and guitarists would "listen to records backwards, and get into the conspiracy theories and urban legends like The Beatles’ ‘Paul is dead’ stuff. One of the theories was about the song Sara by Fleetwood Mac, that that they sing ‘Dead Sara’ in the song. We were just young teenagers, and I remember that we texted each other at almost exactly the same time saying, ‘The band name should be Dead Sara!’" Before arriving at Dead Sara, the duo was briefly known as Epiphany in 2005, playing their first show under this moniker at Los Angeles' Mint Club, Armstrong playing bass and Medley on guitar.

Dead Sara embarked on their very first tour in 2007, opening for Endless Hallway on their California dates. Their debut release came in 2008 with the six-track EP The Airplane Sessions through Viscount Records. During this time, the band was going through a number of different drummers and bass players, before ultimately recruiting former Skrillex bandmembers Sean Friday and Chris Null to the band in 2009. Armstrong and Medley launched their own record label, called Pocket Kid Records, a subsidiary of Interact-TV, Inc., in 2010.

In these early years of the band, Armstrong began making a name for herself as a vocalist in the industry. Courtney Love enlisted her to sing backing vocals on Hole's 2010 record Nobody's Daughter, for which she received great praise for her contributions. Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane noted her as one of the newer artists she was most excited to see more of in 2011 in an interview with the The Wall Street Journal.

Dead Sara began gaining momentum on a larger scale in 2011 as radio stations began to take notice of them. Mike Karolyi from Hartford, Connecticut's WCCC was one of the first to put them on the air after skipping the Staind documentary premiere at Los Angeles' Sunset Sessions convention to instead see Dead Sara perform. Isaac Heymann, an A&R agent for Leverage Entertainment, said that Karolyi had said to him, "'What the hell is that? I've never heard anyone sing like that before.' He was flying out and I said, 'Change your flight, they're playing at 8:00.' I thought I'd never see him again. He changed his flight, stayed; I gave him an advance copy of the CD. He went back, started playing 'Weatherman' on his radio station and said 100% of the feedback was positive. And it took off from there.'" Subsequently, 'Weatherman,' which had not officially been released at that point, made it to the 2nd spot on WCCC's Top 69 Songs of 2011, while their acoustic version of 'Test On My Patience' also ranked at 39. Amidst all this newfound buzz, the band embarked on a U.S. Tour supporting Bush in the fall of 2011.

Dead Sara's eponymous debut album Dead Sara was released on April 10, 2012, produced by Noah Shain. 'Weatherman' was released officially as its lead single in February of that year. The album immediately shot up to Number 16 on Billboard's Heatseekers Albums chart, and Dead Sara found themselves winning awards soon after: Best New Rock Group at the Vegas! Magazine Awards in 2012, and 98.7 FM's 2012 Close To Home Artist Of The Year. 'Weatherman' itself found a wide range of success as well, being featured in Fiat's "Fiat 500 Burning Up The Desert" advertisement and being placed as the top song on Loudwire's Top 10 songs of 2011, beating out the likes of Three Days Grace, Deftones, and more. Armstrong and Medley also received nominations for their individual performances, both being nominated for Loudwire's Top Vocalist and Top Guitarist lists for 2012, with Armstrong also being nominated for their Rock Goddess Of The Year award.

In support of the record, the band opened for Chevelle and The Used in the spring of 2012 before hitting the festival circuit that summer, where Armstrong guested during The Doors' Robby Krieger and Ray Manzarek set at the Sunset Strip Music Festival to perform 'Soul Kitchen.' In the fall, they played dates with The Offspring and Neon Trees in the United States and with Twin Atlantic in the United Kingdom before capping off their touring in 2013, opening for Muse on their The 2nd Law World Tour in the United States and Canada. The band released another single, 'Lemon Scent,' along with a music video in March 2013. The band signed to Epic Records in 2013.

The band returned to the studio in early 2014 with Noah Shain to record their follow-up record, but experienced problems with Epic Records, leading them to part ways with the label and not start promoting the record until the end of the year. Through the turmoil, Dead Sara announced that their second album, Pleasure To Meet You, would be released in March of 2015. The band made pre-orders for the record available through PledgeMusic, as they were independent at the time. A short headlining tour of the United States was played following the album's release, after which bassist Chris Null departed from the band. Later that year, the band would win awards for their cover of Nirvana's 'Heart-Shaped Box' for the Infamous Second Son video game that was released in 2014, earning them the award for "Best Song, Original or Adapted" at the National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR) annual awards program.

The band signed to Atlantic Records in 2017, releasing another six-track EP in 2018 called Temporary Things Taking Up Space. The band performed a headlining tour in the fall of that year, taking the new songs for a spin around the United States and Canada. The band stayed quiet in 2019 and most of 2020, releasing lead single 'Hands Up' in November 2020 from their third album, Ain't It Tragic which released on September 17, 2021. The album was worked on during the COVID-19 pandemic, spawning another single, 'Heroes,' before its release. The band toured for the record in the fall of 2021, before embarking on a heavy year of touring in 2022. The band performed their first proper European Tour in 2022, playing festivals and opening for the Eagles Of Death Metal before opening for Demi Lovato on a string of U.S. dates toward the end of the year. In 2023, the band performed a handful of shows in California and Las Vegas before going into radio silence.

Following the reveal of Emily as the new co-vocalist of Linkin Park in September 2024, the band shared their support for Emily on Instagram, also stating, "Don’t worry we’re not going anywhere. We’ll see y’all soon..."

Linkin Park

On April 30, 2024, Billboard reported that Linkin Park (namely, Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, and Dave Farrell) were considering reuniting Linkin Park after Chester Bennington's passing in 2017, apparently searching for a female vocalist through booking agency WME. This came after weeks of online speculation following comments made by Jay Gordon of Orgy on an interview with KCAL 89.7's Mike Z. on his "Wired in the Empire" radio show on April 1, 2024, where he stated, "Very, very cool guys and obviously a great band. They've been around a long time and they're still going for it... It’s going to be tough without Chester, but we'll see. I hear they got a girl singer now. That's what I heard.”

In August, the band began a week-long campaign involving various clips from both the music video shoot and live rehearsals and performances of 'Bleed It Out.' While this short run of social media posts were only meant to promote the video upgrade, the activity reignited the online discussion about the band reunion, with fans even suggesting that the new singer would be debuted at the end of the week with a reworking of the song.

While that did not culminate, on August 24, 2024, the band started a livestream on their website and YouTube channel counting down from 100 hours, the title of the stream being simply "ø" and no further details. The countdown reached 0:00 on August 28, where the visual glitched out and began counting upwards again. The numbers glitched once again at the 9:05 mark and the 9:05:00 mark. Once the counter reached 100 hours again on September 2, a purple image (a still from the upcoming music video) was flashed and a synth swell sound was heard. An image, posted by Linkin Park and its members on social media, depicting a partial Linkin Park logo submerged in water, with the text "Be part of something. Tune in September 5 3PM PST" was then shown on stream. LPUnderground members received an email inviting anyone who could be in Los Angeles to attend an event on September 5, tickets limited only to 500 fanclub members.

The event began at 3:00PM PST, with 'The Emptiness Machine' being the first song the band performed together as a new unit. New drummer Colin Brittain and Brad Delson stand-in Alex Feder walked onstage with Mike Shinoda, Dave "Phoenix" Farrell, and Joe Hahn after a mashup intro to the show and burst into the song live, Emily Armstrong joining the rest of the band at the end of the first chorus. This was the world premiere of the song, though the band dropped multiple announcements at the same time as the stream started. 'The Emptiness Machine' went live on streaming platforms at 3:00PM PST globally, being announced as the first single from their new album, From Zero. The From Zero World Tour was also announced at the start of the stream, featuring stops across the world in September and November, including a show less than a week after the event (September 11 at the Kia Forum, slated to be the band's first full arena show since 2017). The music video for 'The Emptiness Machine' premiered right after the stream concluded, confirming that the image flashed on the countdown was a shot of Mike in the video.

Discography

Linkin Park

• From Zero (2024)

Dead Sara

• The Airport Sessions EP (2008)
• Dead Sara (2012)
• Pleasure To Meet You (2015)
• The Airport Sessions EP (Remastered) (2016)
• The Covers EP (2017)
• Temporary Things Taking Up Space EP (2018)
• Ain't It Tragic (2020)

Solo Credits

• Hole - Nobody's Daughter (2010) (backing vocals)
• Endless Hallway - 'Beachwood' (2011) (backing vocals)
• Endless Hallway - 'Brambles' (2011) (backing vocals)
• W0LCNUM - Two (2014) (photography)
• Rebel Rampage - 'I Am The Power' (feat. Emily Armstrong) (2018)
• The Sonic Hijackers - 'You Got Me This Time' (feat. Emily Armstrong) (2020)
• The Sonic Hijackers - 'Lightning' (feat. Emily Armstrong) (2020)
• AWOLNATION - 'Jump Sit Stand March' (feat. Emily Armstrong) (2024)
• Mark Daly - 'Pieces' (feat. Emily Armstrong) (2024)