Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. I hope you're doing well. Let's talk about one of the most controversial and odd stories to come out of the world of alternative rock and metal this past week. That would be the famed metal outfit, Linkin Park, deciding to move forward as a band, despite the loss of their legendary lead singer, Chester Bennington. They are going to be releasing new material with a new singer, one Ms. Emily Armstrong, who has been known for her work in the band Dead Sara.

However, her tenure in that band, and even the new song that Linkin Park just dropped with her, have not really been major points of discussion in this Emily Armstrong announcement, nor is even the discussion around fans just generally being upset at the idea of the band replacing Chester. I mean, just to guess here, but I think for the most part, a lot of Linkin's hardcore fans, the ones that remain at this point, would most likely be open to such a thing with the right vocalist. The issue mostly seems to be specifically with Ms. Armstrong because she has some controversies in her past that are not looking all that great.

There's an article about this that is quite detailed that you can read for yourself. A shoutout to Dana for getting that up. But a lot of Linkin Park listeners and just music fans across the board are taking issue not only with Emily Armstrong's historical ties to the religious cult known as Scientology, but the biggest whoopsy of Emily's career actually comes more in the form of her support of actor Danny Masterson in the midst of his very controversial rape trial, where he saw a conviction. Now, obviously, none of this stuff has gone away because in reaction to the announcement of Emily Armstrong joining the band, there have been a lot of articles, there have been a lot of commentators on YouTube and TikTok alike bringing up this history, bringing up this track record.

Nobody has been louder and bolder on the front of bringing this stuff up than Cedric Bixler-Zavala of At the Drive-In and The Mars Volta fame. Now, if you follow Cedric on social media, especially Instagram, you are aware of the fact that over the course of the Masterson trial, he and his partner were very loud and very vocal about his allegations. Chrissie Carnell Bixler had dated Masterson at one point and stood as one of his accusers.

Now, of course, in the wake of Emily Armstrong joining Linkin Park, Cedric is being very loud and very vocal about this history, not only about her support of Masterson, but maybe more importantly, her connections to Scientology, which in recent years has very much been exposed as not just some silly, harmless, cultish religion that just leaves and silly alien stuff, but also a very strange and shadowy organization that uses a myriad of different tactics, including abuse, to control some of its members.

So, of course, given that track record, it is very weird and very odd that such a high-profile band would put someone like Armstrong on such a huge platform. There have just been a lot of people who are upset and just throwing a lot of very well-intentioned, I would say, and valid questions at the situation. The band, at least up until now, has been completely silent on this issue. But Emily herself has put up one of those black and white apology-type text posts in response to all of this, where she says, "Hi, I'm Emily."

Really? After everything that people are questioning and wondering about, that's how you're kicking this off? 'Hey, I'm Emily. You might have heard me from all this craziness on the internet.' Honestly, not really the angle I would go with, as far as clearing the air goes.

"I wanted to clear the air about something that happened a little while back. Several years ago, I was asked to support someone I considered a friend at a court appearance and went to one early hearing as an observer. Soon after, I realized I shouldn't have. I always tried to see the good in people, and I misjudged him. I've never spoken him since. Unimaginable details emerged, and he was later found guilty. To say it as clearly as possible: I do not condone abuse or violence against women, and I empathize with the victims of these crimes."

But the thing is, at this early hearing, the details and allegations in regards to Danny were very clear, and on top of it, who asked you to support him? Who were you asked by? What's also eerily missing from this whole apology thing is any mention of Emily's connections to Scientology, which is not just some weird separate third thing that has nothing to do with any of this. The Scientology thing plays a very important role in the midst of all of this, and that is just completely omitted from the discussion by Emily.

And of course, in response to this, Cedric very clearly points that out in a post in reaction to Emily's attempt at clearing the air where, as you can see here:

I'm not going to go over the whole thing because it is quite dense, but the gist of it is, is that you are completely ignoring this cult's history of abuse. Not only are you just not mentioning it, you're not mentioning your family's ties to Scientology, and we just don't really know currently where you stand vis-a-vis your opinions on all of this, your present-day connections to all of this.

He further went on to shame Linkin Park and ask for the removal of any At The Drive-In songs from their pre-show playlist. Chrissie also did a post in response to all of this where she goes over in much more detail associates and people who Emily, in Chrissie's view, has associations with and asks her to essentially speak on these associations vis-a-vis the Danny Masterson trial.

It seems like between Cedric and Chrissie, a lot of skeletons are getting dragged out of the closet, and that Emily is slowly having more and more to answer for here. As of right now, things for Emily and Linkin Park are not looking all that great. I'm not really sure if this response from Emily is going to suffice, honestly.

Not only because there are a lot of big details that are just completely left out of her message, but also on top of it, she doesn't really take ownership of much of anything in this post. She kind of just paints her support of Masterson in the midst of this trial, at whatever point that she did, as just a big mistake, and I was asked to do it, and I just didn't really know anything about it. I was just invited to come to this court hearing. Just like, 'Hey, come on. My friend's in trouble, and he needs support. Come on, just come to the court hearing.' Which, again, is a very odd thing that I don't think happens in reality.

If somebody, even someone who I know personally came up to me and been like, 'Yeah, my friend's just in trouble, and he's in the midst of a court hearing hearing right now. It'd just be really great if you could show up to the court hearing with me and a few other people and just show some support and be vocal and just be present for the hearing where he's being accused of stuff.' If that was asked of me, the first thing I would ask is, 'What is he being accused of? Oh, he's being accused of that? I don't know. That seems a little crazy. I don't know if I would pull up for that.' I would then, afterwards, whoever those people are, I would question whether or not they should be in my friend group.

Look, I'm not trying to be pretentious here or act like people don't have run-ins with the law that they're innocent of. I get it. People go to court all the time to support loved ones and family members and so on and so forth. But a famed actor in the midst of a super high-profile rape trial, that's not a normal ask. That's not a regular every day, 'Hey, why don't you just come with me and we're going to go to this thing.'

So again, this whole like, 'Oh, look at this crazy thing I got tied up in.' That narrative falls apart instantly. And again, Emily seemingly has no real explanation for it. It is not a good look for her. It is not a good look for Linkin Park. I feel like there are just more questions to be answered in the midst of all of this. And amen to Cedric and Chrissie for really pointing this out. That is pretty much the state of all of this right now. There could potentially be an update in the future. If things develop further, look out for that.

Anthony Fantano, Linkin Park, forever.