Before Linkin Park, Chester Bennington was in a band called Grey Daze. Before Chester’s passing, he had begun working with his former bandmates with plans to re-record old material for a release. Grey Daze, with the blessing of Linkin Park and Chester’s widow Talinda, will release a Amends, featuring newly recorded music with remastered vocals from the band’s out-of-print catalog. Amends will hit retailers on April 10th but you can pre-order your copy HERE. To announce the release, Grey Daze dropped a brand new video for the song “Sickness,” which you can watch below.
Grey Daze founder and drummer Sean Dowdell said of the inspiration for the video:
“This is loosely based on a true story from when Chester was 15 years old. He was being bullied at school and one day suffered a real beating. That was the day I assumed a role as protector and almost older brother figure to Chester that has lasted since, even after his passing.”
A few weeks ago, Loudwire released a short documentary on Chester’s journey through Grey Daze (watch below).
Earlier this week, Dowdell and Talinda spoke with Rolling Stone Magazine about the decision to continue this project after Chester’s passing. Dowdell spoke about not wanting to continue the project after Chester’s passing:
“When he passed, I was distraught as all hell. I just put the brakes on. I was like, ‘This isn’t going to happen. It’s going to stop.’ And then about seven, eight months went by, and it just kept grating on me. Finally, I woke up one night and told my wife, ‘I’m just going to finish the record, and I’m going to finance it myself, and we’ll just put it out. I don’t need it to be big rock-star crap.’ I’ll just put it out and know that I finished something that he and I started together, and I can get it out of my mind, because it was just grating on me every single day.”
Talinda said that giving her blessing to Grey Daze was easy because she knew how much the band meant to Chester:
“He wanted to do Grey Daze again because the music was awesome, he loved it back then, and he was excited to be able to create. Doing it now that he had all this experience under his belt — he had accomplished so much and come so far since then — he was excited about it. I can hear him now. He’s like, ‘F**k yeah!'”
Dowdell says that there is enough material with Chester to release possibly 2 more records but he’ll do that only if the fans receive this first release well.
“For me, this isn’t about selling millions of records. If there’s 50 people out there that can find some kind of musical or emotional connection to what we did and they find it as a positive, great. Chester was very interested in doing this after [his commitments to] Linkin Park. It was really important to me to make sure that the message was out there. And those who choose to listen to the message, great. And if you choose not to, that’s on you then, because we did a good job.”
“Amends” track listing:
1. Sickness
2. Sometimes
3. What’s In The Eye
4. The Syndrome
5. In Time
6. Just Like Heroine
7. B12
8. Soul Song
9. Morei Sky
10. She Shines
11. Shouting Out
