GREY DAZE TO PLAY UK SHOWS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MEMORY OF LATE SINGER CHESTER BENNINGTON
“Chester will always be part of what we’ve done, and what we’re doing”
In September 2017, 90s American rockers Grey Daze were set to take to the stage in a joint celebration as a reunion show for the band, and an anniversary show for Club Tattoo. This is a business owned by singer-songwriter Chester Bennington, and co-founder Sean Dowdell. Unfortunately, this event never took place. On July 20th 2017, just two months before this momentous show was set to happen, Chester Bennington passed away at just 41 years old.
Chester’s family, friends and colleagues worked on two posthumous releases, creating further momentum to his already immortalised legacy. This came in the form of Amends (2020) and The Phoenix (2022).
On May 12th this year, Grey Daze will take to the stage in Bristol as the first date of their debut UK tour. This will be the first time they tour the UK as a band and this will see them travel across England, venturing to Glasgow’s Cathouse venue too. Grey Daze was one of the many bands and projects that the late singer-songwriter was part of.
Known perhaps mainly for his work in Linkin Park, Bennington was also the original vocalist, and co-founder of Grey Daze and this set of shows in May act as a commemoration to him, and his musical legacy. Not only will this tour memorialise the life and legacy of Chester, the celebratory shows also mark 30 years since the release of their first album Wake Me in 1994.
Ahead of this UK tour, I had the privilege to speak to Grey Daze co-founder and drummer Sean Dowdell and the band’s new frontman Cris Hodges. We discussed everything from crazy fans, to dream duets.
Q: Your upcoming tour to the UK is a commemoration for Chester [Bennington], how are you feeling about it?
Hodges: “We’re very excited. This is gonna be the first time that we come over to the UK. This is, you know, I know that prior to me being part of the band, ‘Amends’ went to Number 1 in the UK. ‘’Phoenix’ went to Number 2 in the UK and so this is an exciting moment for Grey Daze and for myself because of the energy and excitement behind this.”
Q: Is there anywhere in particular that you’re excited to visit? Have you visited anywhere on the tour before?
Hodges: “Let’s see, Glasgow is gonna be exciting because I hear Glasgow fans are insane, is that true?”
Yeah they are!
Hodges: “That’s what I’m very excited about because I always think that the more insane the fans are, the better the show. And also Nottingham, I’m just very excited to visit Nottingham.”
Dowdell: “All of them. But I love the city of Manchester, it’s always been very kind. London’s great. Honestly, every city I’ve ever visited in the UK has been a blast and the people are so nice, I can’t wait!”
Q: How important do you feel it is to keep Chester’s name and legacy alive?
Dowdell: “Well, I think he’s left such a meaningful, lasting legacy that he’ll be alive, you know, metaphorically, for the next hundred years whether we do something or not. So Chester cemented a very meaningful and long lasting legacy even without Grey Daze. We’re approaching this, with the music we made with him, as a part of his legacy and it’s important to us to keep the integrity of that in place. So, we’ve included him in our live shows, we have little parts where we keep his little vocal parts that are in line with us while we’re playing live. But also so that we’re not just playing the tracks, we want Cris’ [Hodges] voice to be the front of the band so that people are coming to see a live show, see us playing live. But, Chester will always be part of what we’ve done, and what we’re doing. I don’t think there’s a way we could not include him. I can’t speak for Cris but he’s a part of us no matter what.”
Hodges: “Yeah he was a big influence on me growing up and so his legacy lives on forever in all the various projects he’s done including Linkin Park to Grey Daze to Stone Temple Pilots whenever he joined Stone Temple Pilots for a while. And so, he left a very lasting legacy that’s not going to be going soon. I think that we’re just really happy that we get to be a part of it, and we get to perform this music live that they recorded and honour that legacy but at the same time, make sure that we’re stepping into possibly a new era of Grey Daze where fans in the UK will get to hear some new music that we’ve been working on as well.”
Q: With the previous two albums [“Amends” and “The Phoenix”], Chester’s family and friends contributed to them both. I was intrigued as to how this came about, was it just universally agreed? Who suggested it?
Dowdell: “It came to use during one of the original recording sessions over at NRG and we just reached out to all of the family members and said ‘hey if any of the children would like to come and take part in this, whether that means singing or talking or playing an instrument, we’d love to have them involved’. Chester always was able to have his kids around the recording studio but he was never able to actually record a song with them. So, I thought that this was, I shouldn’t say I, the band, and this was a way we could give something back to Chester and his family, in a way, and a meaningful contribution. It’s something that Lily and Lila [Bennington] will be able to look, when they’re 25 years old, they’ll be able to say ‘I sang a song with my dad’ and that is meaningful for all of us. Chester meant so much to so many people but he was one of my best friends in the world and to be able to do that with him and his children, I think, it’s pretty obvious as to how meaningful that is.”
Q: Which songs, with or without Chester’s direct contributions, do you think will get the best or biggest reactions from the crowd?
Dowdell: “I’ll let Cris speak to this, we’ve played songs live already and I think he can tell you what songs get the big reactions.”
Hodges: “It’s actually interesting because when you record an album, you don’t know how that song is going to be translated live. And, so, doing what Grey Daze did with, you know like you said, after Chester’s passing, these songs had never been performed in this format ever. We had no idea, and our first show that we performed, we performed in front of 10,000 people, so we got to find out, in front of 10,000 people, what songs work live, and what songs do not. I think that people are going to really be stoked on ‘B12’, on ‘Saturation’, an incredible song performed live. ‘Sickness’ is really fun, groovy. That’s what we found out, in front of 10,000 people.”
Q: How was it playing to those 10,000 people? Were you nervous to play these tracks?
Dowdell: “So all of us are pros and we can play in front of 50,000 people and we’d be fine. However, when we went on stage, all of our in-ear monitors went out. Not one of us could hear anything and as a drummer, from my perspective, when we were playing, it was damn near impossible to try and play along with music you can’t hear. So, I was incredibly frustrated while we were playing but when we got off stage, we all looked at each other, and didn’t realise that none of us could hear what was going on. We went back and we snapped back into reality because the fans’ reaction was great and we thought, ‘you know what, regardless of the problems that we had out there, we put on a good show, the fans loved what we were doing’ and that’s what we tried to focus on. But was it nerve wracking, to answer your question, yes, it was extremely nerve wracking because of that fact, not because of the crowd or what we were doing. It’s because we couldn’t hear.”
Glasgow is gonna be exciting because I hear Glasgow fans are insane
Cris Hodges – Grey Daze
Q: Are there any moments or memories with Chester from touring, or otherwise, that you’re particularly fond of?
Dowdell: “I’ve got hundreds of stories from touring with him and playing. One of the most memorable was the first time we got to headline the ‘Whisky a Go Go’ in Hollywood, that was a lot of fun, and that will always stick with me. One of my favourite moments with Chester, out on the road however, was a show that we were not playing together. It was when he decided to do Dead by Sunrise and we went out on the road with Alice in Chains, he was opening up for Alice in Chains. Every night, he and I would go down in the crowd and sing to the top of our lungs every single Alice in Chains song as fans. That’s one of my favourite moments on the road. And then, we had some great times in some little side projects. We played in Bucket of Weenies, first of, and we did these big parties and just had a blast. He and I were the closest of friends and just really enjoyed the time together. So I have a million stories I could share.”
Hodges: “I actually never got the pleasure of meeting Chester. I was always a big fan of Chester growing up and every person that I’ve met that was involved with Chester’s life, or his crew, or part of the label that he was part of, they speak so highly of him. This group of people is so amazing, it’s really cool to, kind of, get to know Chester through his community of people that he kept around him. But I never got the pleasure of meeting him.”
Q: From any of his projects, then, are there any songs that you would really want to sing live with him?
Hodges: “That is probably the best question I’ve had all day, very good job. I would have to tell you that the first time I heard ‘Morei Sky’ on the Amends record, that one brought tears to my face. And if I could sing with him, in real life, face to face, I would want to sing that song with him.”
Dowdell: “What a great question!”
Hodges: “That was a really good question, very nice!”
Q: Thank you! Well what’s next for Grey Daze? Where do you want to take your music next?
Dowdell: “Well we’ve written some new music. So we are going in the studio with producer Brian Vurtue who did the 30 Seconds to Mars albums, and he’s just an amazing producer. He engineered the entire Phoenix album for us, and we’re going to record a couple of new tracks in the middle of March. Then we’re going to release them sometime this year. That’s what next for Grey Daze is we’re going to do some festivals and some smaller tours and release new music and see what the fan reaction is then. Personally, I think the fans are going to love it. Cris [Hodges] really gets to shine as himself in this new music and writing with him has been a pleasure so the Grey Daze fans are really going to love it.”
Hodges: “Well it’s something that we wanted to tread lightly with and I always say that we won’t do anything that the fans don’t want. The fans are basically going to dictate this whole path, this whole journey. And so, that’s why we’re playing live shows. It’s because the fans wanted it, we did a few shows and they went well so that’s why we’re coming to the UK. But at the same time, fans were asking for some new music and we threw it out there, we said if the fans want it, we’ll throw something down and see if it sticks. I guess we’re going to find out!”
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