Linkin Park Shares Never Before Heard Song ‘Friendly Fire’ Featuring Late Chester Bennington

Though it’s been nearly seven years since the world lost Chester Bennington, fans of Linkin Park got a chance to hear his voice again.

On Friday, February 23, the band announced Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000-2023), their first-ever career-spanning greatest hits album. Arriving on April 12 via Warner Records, the album will include “Friendly Fire,” a song the band recorded while making its seventh and final album, One More Light.

Bennington struggled with depression throughout his life and died by suicide in July 2017, two months after One More Light’s release. He was 41.

“Tell me the words I've forgotten / What we were fighting for,” sings Bennington in the newly released song. “Staring right into the darkness / Through an empty open door.”

The accompanying video features never before seen footage of Bennington in the studio while the rest of the band – Mike Shinoda, Brad Delson, Rob Bourdon, Joe Hahn and Dave Farrell – works on the album.

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“‘Friendly Fire’ was always one of our favorite songs from the One More Light sessions,” said lead guitarist Delson, 46, in a statement accompanying the release of the new song. “Something about it wasn’t quite right so as close as it got to the finish line, we chose to set it aside for later.”

“When we started looking for an unreleased track to include on our greatest hits collection,” he continued, “I was blown away by the power of the song, the power of the storytelling, the power of the vocal, the sonic landscape and I actually thought that it was closer than maybe we had realized at the time.”

Linkin Park got together and worked on coming up with the missing pieces on the song. “Friendly Fire” didn’t come together during the One More Light recording sessions, but for Papercuts the missing elements revealed themselves.

“I can’t wait for people to hear it,” said Delson. “It’s such a beautiful, compelling, heartbreaking, hopeful story and it really resonates with me today.”

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“In the making of each Linkin Park album, I want to love and believe in each individual song completely,” added Shinoda, 47. “I hope that if any one track is heard on its own in the world, it is something I can feel proud of, and something that takes root inside the listener and becomes part of the energy that connects us.”

Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000-2023) arrives on all streaming platforms on April 12. The album will be on physical media, including CD, cassette and double-vinyl.

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