Mike Shinoda and Emily Armstrong recently spoke with Genius to discuss the lyrics of ‘The Emptiness Machine’ from their latest album ‘From Zero.’
During the interview, Shinoda shared the almost spiritual meaning behind the song and how he came up with the lyrics.
“On the second verse lyrics, sometimes I’ll write a line even in like a singing song where I’m like, ‘That’s a bar. I like that one,'” Shinoda said. “‘There’s a fire under the altar, I keep on lying to in my mind.’ The way that’s read is, ‘I’m praying at the altar and I’m lying like I’m a liar to God,’ or whatever. That’s such a nasty little idea we rarely ever do anything that’s religious related, but in the context of this song, it’s not like religion religion, it’s more like a metaphorical thing that everybody is a part of this machine that is toxic.”
‘The Emptiness Machine’ was the first single released from ‘From Zero.’ Over two months after the song’s release, the band dropped the full album.
Recently, the entire album, except for the introductory title track, occupied all ten spots on Billboard’s Hot Hard Rock Songs chart. ‘The Emptiness Machine’ took the top spot, followed by the rest of the album in order: ‘Heavy Is the Crown,’ ‘Two Faced,’ ‘Over Each Other,’ ‘Cut the Bridge,’ ‘Stained,’ ‘Good Things Go,’ ‘Overflow,’ ‘Casualty,’ and ‘IGYEIH.’
In another interview, Emily Armstrong revealed that she was interested in taking part in the Chester Bennington tribute show but initially hesitated. “I was like, ‘Who the f*ck? Why would they want me?’ But I asked, but it was a little too late. Somebody got word of it at some point, but it was just like, yeah, we already have it all,” she said.
Linkin Park is currently on tour in support of ‘From Zero.’
