Orgy frontman Jay Gordon has issued a statement after sparking rumours that Linkin Park might be preparing to return with a new, female singer.
Gordon first caught the attention of Linkin Park fans when he mentioned during a radio interview that he had “heard” that they have got a “girl singer now”.
During an appearance on the Wired in the Empire show on KCAL 96.7 on Saturday (March 30), Gordon spoke about his relationship with the band.
“Very, very cool guys and obviously a great band. They’ve been around a long time and they’re still going for it,” he said. “It’s going to be tough without Chester [Bennington], but we’ll see. I hear they got a girl singer now. That’s what I heard.”
When pressed, Gordon continued by saying: “Don’t quote me on that. I’m not sure who the singer is going to be, but I heard it was gonna be female. They might just try to move on like that. That ought to be interesting.”
See the original interview here:
Yesterday (April 2), Gordon issued a new statement on his Facebook page, attempting to clarify his comments.
With regards to this linkin park singer thing. I know nothing about any of that. People sure do love to take my words…
Posted by Jay Gordon on Tuesday, April 2, 2024
“With regards to this linkin park singer thing,” he wrote. “I know nothing about any of that. People sure do love to take my words out of context. I love those guys and wish them the best.”
“Wow I was like what in the actual f**k ? I said nothing about knowing any of that and never brought it up. I love Chester and there will never be another him ever. Strange that that dude said something to me about it not the other way around. get real dude. Not cool!”
Despite appearing to say that interviewer Mike Z was the one to bring up the suggestion of the new female singer, it was in fact Gordon that brought up the subject unprompted.
In a response to the Facebook post, Gordon continued by saying: “I would never speak on another band’s behalf. They communicate just fine on their own. If something like that happens I would hope THEY would be the ones to drop the news. I sure as hell wouldn’t do that to them or anyone.”
NME has contacted Linkin Park’s representatives, who declined to comment on the rumours.
Linkin Park are preparing to release a career-spanning greatest hits album, titled ‘Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000-2023)’. It will be released on April 12 via Warner and includes classics such as ‘In The End’, ‘Burn It Down’ and ‘Numb’.
The record will also feature a previously unreleased track starring Bennington, ‘Friendly Fire’. The never-before-heard song was recorded during the sessions for the group’s final studio album, 2017’s ‘One More Light’ – Bennington died later that year.
The newly-shared track also comes with a music video that was directed and edited by long-time collaborator Mark Fiore and features never-before-seen studio and live footage. Check it out below.
“‘Friendly Fire’ was always one of our favourite songs from the ‘One More Light’ sessions. 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,” explained Brad Delson.
Linkin Park spoke to NME last year about ‘Lost’, a previously-unheard track from the ‘Meteora’ period that the band included on the 20th anniversary re-release of the album.
Delson suggested at that time that there may be more unreleased music on the way, saying: “Our band only got more outlandish with writing songs as we progressed throughout our career. Sometimes we’d make 120 tracks for you to hear one. There’s a lot of stuff that never saw the light of day and there’s a lot of stuff that fell on its sword to make way for the thing that you hear.”
“It’s very rare that that’ll be as special as the best stuff though. I don’t know if there’s another ‘Lost’, but maybe there is. We definitely made a lot of music along the way.”
