No eloquent lede I could have written would have adequately summed up all that is Grey Daze, better than the very words out of the depths of songwriter Chester’s Bennington’s own mind. So here it is: ‘Sometimes/Things just seem to fall apart/When you least expect them to/Sometimes/You want to pack and leave behind/All of them and all their smiles/I don’t know what to think anymore/Maybe things will get better/Maybe things will look brighter/Maybe/Maybe/Maybe.’
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This is just one of the many affecting songs Chester Bennington wrote and it fairly describes the experience with his first band Grey Daze, a legacy that has often been overlooked, but was a lifelong passion project for Bennington. It hasn’t been until now that these songs, tucked away and covered up, even erased from the markets by label and industry giants, could get a chance to live again. And it was something Bennington never got the chance to fully realize. But thanks to the dedication of his dear friends and bandmate, Sean Dowdell- Grey Daze and Chester Bennington can live on through this record.
“There’s a lot of mixed emotions, we feel accomplished because this road was many long years,” Dowdell told American Songwriter. “It’s something we took on and were very passionate about, we spent a lot of energy and tears on it and did it the right way. So, we feel accomplished and it was a very cathartic experience.”
“We decided to put out the music and go full speed with it, knowing that was something Chester wanted to do and was passionate about,” Dowdell added. “After he passed, we just wanted to fulfill that dream best we could for him.”
On June 26 Grey Daze which includes Sean Dowdell, Chester Bennington, Mace Beyers and Cristin Davis, will release Amends, an 11-track, revamped masterpiece of the early days of Chester Bennington with Grey Daze. Many of the tracks from Amends, were originally written by Bennington and Dowdell in the nineties. Grey Daze gained significant regional fame and toured on many of the same songs that are now on Amends. The record was also recorded for the first time in the nineties, but due to a multitude of outside factors and major label pressure, Grey Daze never got to see their heyday until now. After Bennington’s reign in Linkin Park, he sought to reunite with his first band and organize a reunion tour that never happened. Sharing Grey Daze’s music and giving it a rightful chance that it was robbed of, was one of Bennington’s last wishes. And Dowdell made sure that happened.
“As time went one, we tried to put the band back together several times because Chester truly did love the band and loved writing with us and the songs,” Dowdell said. “As things progressed, he started to understand that some of those choices he was put into making early on were a bit manipulative and he felt like it was time to get the music back out there.”
Concerns were expressed during conversations between the two friends and label interference was addressed as it happened before when Bennington was advised to pursue Linkin Park heavily. Bennington, no longer young and so impressionable responded to Dowdell with “I’m mature enough in my career now to tell them ‘too bad I’m going to do what I want to do.”’
Even though a reunion did not come to fruition due to Bennington’s unfortunate passing, Amends did. Bennington’s original vocals were used from old demos from the nineties, and Grey Daze completely re-recorded the music around Bennington’s vocals to complete the record after his death. Dowdell even recruited Chester’s son Jamie to sing backup on “Soul Song”, a touch he knew Bennington would have appreciated.
“When he was still alive, we worked on tracks and once he passed, we stripped all the music away from his vocals and started from scratch with just vocals, worked on the arrangements, worked on making his vocals sound as good as possible,” Dowdell explained. “Then we came back in and recorded the music around his vocals. We kind of did it backwards.”
“We brought in Jamie because Chester just never got a chance to sing with his children and that was more fulfilling a connection Chester would’ve liked to have had if he were still with us,” he said. “So, we let him sing backups on ‘Soul Song’. It was more of a connection between son and father.”
“The music changed a lot and almost all of the songs sound completely different. Even when Chester was alive, we started talking about modernizing these songs to make them more current, so we stripped some stuff down and did some programming,” Dowdell said. “It sounds like he recorded it last week, and that’s what we wanted, we didn’t want them to sound like polished old demo tapes. The goal was to make it sound as great as it could behind the amazing vocal performance that we had. And I think we created a masterpiece, with the right intention. It’s something Chester would’ve been proud of along the whole ride.”
Dowdell was a driving force behind the project’s execution due to his close brotherly bond with Bennington. Dowdell was a kind of protective figure over Chester upon his first days as part of the band. The two laughed together, drank together, disagreed with each other, performed together, but most importantly they wrote together. Their relationship was collaborative in nature and they both brought lyrics to the table. Sometimes they would jam and write and other times, like with the case of “Morei Sky” they just enjoyed a sunset on a foreign beach together with a cold beer.
“We did songwriting several different ways, sometimes we’d write lyrics and then we’d practice,” Dowdell said. “Most of the time when one of us brought lyrics to rehearsal the other one would look at it and then change some stuff. But then there were times like when we wrote ‘Morei Sky’, when we were down on a beach in Mexico together and we just sat in the back of a truck and wrote the song together, while drinking our Coronas.”
Possibly one of the more important and suited songs from Amends is “Sometimes”, a track written solely by Bennington. Its power lies in the lyrics that seem tailored to the lifetime of Grey Daze as well as the perspective Bennington held for his own life. They are just as, if not more impactful as the day Bennington wrote them.
“Chester wrote the lyrics to ‘Sometimes’ and the way I interpret everything, at least from conversations we had when he was alive, is that sometimes things don’t always work out the way you think they’re going to,” Dowdell explained. “Sometimes like he says in the song, they seem to just fall apart around you. But the underlying message in that song is that there is hope and things are going to get better. There’s a brighter day ahead and if you just hold onto that hope, you’ll get there. And that’s one of the reasons it was one of his favorites and mine as well.”
Amends will get its rightful debut on June 26 via Loma Vista Recordings and then you too can immerse yourself in the best work Chester Bennington has ever done.
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