Linkin Park Tease Unreleased Song ‘Friendly Fire’ With Chester Bennington’s Vocals

Update Feb. 20, 2024: Linkin Park have confirmed that "Friendly Fire" will be out on Friday, Feb. 23. See the post toward the bottom of the page.

Linkin Park posted a new audio teaser on Monday (Feb. 19). It's a 30-second clip of a previously unheard song from the band's One More Light era called "Friendly Fire."

The teaser, located on the final slide of a 10-image Instagram carousel post, says it's a "new, unreleased from the One More Light 2017 sessions." At the end of the snippet, it displays the number "04." They also posted just the teaser itself on X (formerly Twitter), identifying it as "20 'Friendly Fire'" and including the hashtag #FriendlyFireLP.

"Friendly Fire" contains the vocals of late Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington. Back in 2020, it was said "Friendly Fire" was finished and mixed, though it wasn't originally included on One More Light.

Either way, listeners paying attention to the latest Linkin Park moves on the internet got an inkling something was up over the past few days when the band began posting images of their previous releases and song lyric sheets outlined in a vibrant shade of green on Instagram.

READ MORE: All Linkin Park Singles Ranked

The post on Monday goes with that same aesthetic, tossing in the teaser at the very end. However, it's currently unclear what else the teaser and graphics may be pointing to. Is a new release in the works?

Images on the act's Spotify now contain the same green shade. And some of their music videos on YouTube currently display a green dot on the thumbnails, as fans on Reddit have pointed out. The band's profile pictures across the web are also framed in green.

What's Up With Linkin Park

Despite the surviving members of Linkin Park not performing together publicly onstage since Bennington's tribute concert in October 2017 after his death that July, the band hasn't exactly been dormant. They spent 2023 celebrating their second album, 2003's Meteora, with an anniversary reissue and previously unheard songs such as "Lost."

In 2020, the band released a 20th-anniversary edition of their watershed 2000 debut, Hybrid Theory. The bonus content includes previously released B-sides and live songs plus unheard demos and other material that arrived for the first time on the reissue.

New Linkin Park Music?

However, Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda said in 2022 that the band — even though the surviving members stay in touch — weren't working on any new music, albums or tours.

"The only Linkin Park news that I have for you is that … yeah, we talk every few weeks," he said. “There's no tours, there's no music, there's no albums in the pipeline. Let me just tell you that. Just keep in your minds that that is not happening. I'm just gonna say that much for now."

Shinoda added, "Any time the band says anything or does anything, everyone tries to start up the hype train. And we're like 'No, no, no, no. Don't start the hype train. You're going to disappoint yourself.'"

In 2020, speaking about "Friendly Fire," Shinoda said, "There was a song, a One More Light song, that we mixed. We mixed more than the finished album and we mixed a couple other songs just to see if one of them would make the cut or if we would use it for a b-side. And it was "Friendly Fire.'"

Are you ready for Linkin Park's "Friendly Fire"?

Linkin Park "Friendly Fire" Teaser (Swipe to the Last Image)