While becoming a prominent star of the early 2000s with Linkin Park, Chester Bennington had to leave a few things behind, including his former band, Grey Daze. You see, with Linkin Park’s success, the record company decided to forget all about the former act and erase every trace of it. However, while recently chatting with Revolver, Bennington’s former bandmate, Sean Dowdell, recalled how the late frontman wanted to reunite with Grey Daze.
“Chester and I had a company called Club Tattoo that we’d owned for many years together,” mentioned Dowdell as he recalled the period when Chester Bennington wanted to perform with Grey Daze. “We had thrown these giant anniversary parties a few times, which would draw a couple thousand people. Chester and I would get up there and play with our friends.”
He continued, “We hadn’t done one in a couple years. I brought it up on a phone call in, I think, the fall of 2016. He kind of cut me off and said, ‘You know, I’ve been thinking that the next time we throw a Club Tattoo party, we should get Grey Daze back together,’ which was interesting because we hadn’t talked about that in a few years.”
Sean Dowdell stated that even the idea of reuniting Grey Daze sparked interest in numerous people. The drummer revealed, “For me, it kind of came out of the left field. I always had fun playing with Chester, so I didn’t care. Once we made the announcement and people started finding out about it, we had these promoters from around the world asking if we would play. They threw some ridiculous offers our way.”
The musician disclosed that the band had started to rehearse again before Bennington’s suicide. “I didn’t realize there’d be so much interest,” he admitted. “So I suggested maybe going back and re-recording some of our old stuff. The band had already started rehearsals prior to his passing, but he had been out on the road. He was supposed to join us two days after he had passed; he was coming down to Phoenix for it.”
The rocker recalled, “We had been working with a producer named Sylvia Massy and started re-recording some of the stuff. Chester had written five or six songs to put on the Grey Daze project; he would play them for me over the phone. I mean, it was in full swing. Most importantly, it sucks that he’s no longer with us, but it also sucks that the project didn’t get to see the light of day with him still here.”
Bennington wanted to revisit Grey Daze’s catalog, reunite with his old band, and possibly, record new material together. However, the frontman’s death ended all the plans the act had and left us with the question of what would have happened if Grey Daze had reunited and toured worldwide.
