M. Shadows (Avenged Sevenfold) Talks About Mike Shinoda, Says He ‘Can’t See Him Just Being Done’ With Linkin Park

At the end of last month, Linkin Park took the stage for the first time since the passing of Chester Bennington for a tribute concert to honor and celebrate his life. They brought a lot of guests out to that show as well, musicians they have collaborated with or are friends with (or both) and one of them was M. Shadows from Avenged Sevenfold.

In a recent interview with Eddie Trunk, M. Shadows opened up about his relationship to Linkin Park and its members, explaining that he did not know Chester very well, however he is “really good friends” with Mike Shinoda and Dave Farrell.

“He [Mike Shinoda] actually played me this whole record [‘One More Light’] before it came out, and it was pretty haunting at the time, even hearing Chester’s demos on the record. And then for this all to happen is just heartbreaking.”

Despite everything the band has gone through and is still dealing with, he has a bunch of things to say about the future of Linkin Park:

“They’re human beings and they have a long life to live. And I think if they love music this much, they have every right to move forward. Knowing Mike as well as I do, he’s always been, in my opinion, the leader of that band — the guy who gets things going, the guy who gets demos going, the guy who obsesses over every detail of that band.”

And he’s more than certain that there will be one:

“I don’t know if it’s under a different name or if they’d keep the Linkin Park name. But Mike is the driving force in that band. He […] obsesses over everything, from the label to the producer they’re using to the beats they’re doing to the type of songs they’re gonna write — and I just can’t see him letting that go. I don’t think it’s possible, and I think it would be a shame if he did.”

Nevertheless, the Avenged Sevenfold frontman urges fans of the band to give the guys in Linkin Park time in order to come to terms with everything and make decisions like that. According to him, “they’re gonna know what feels right and what feels wrong. […] It would just be a shame if they stopped making music altogether.”

You can check out the entire interview here.