In the last thirty years, music has evolved enormously. We’ve had massive names like the mighty Slipknot who grew up within that period, Power Trip came, went, and returned – but in that time, there is arguably no band in metal or alternative music who hit the mainstream so well as Linkin Park. However, Linkin Park may never have even come to be without the sadly far less well-known band Grey Daze. Having been formed thirty years ago and going through all manner of problems that no band ever wants to face, including of course losing their former frontman in such tragic fashion, Grey Daze have decided to honour him the best way possible – touring his last work around the world to let fans be reminded one more time of his brilliance, and to let the world know that Grey Daze are still alive and kicking. Ahead of their Nottingham show, and their first ever UK performances, Jake Longhurst chatted to founding guitarist Sean Dowdell and new frontman Cris Hodges about what this tour means to them.
Starting off fairly predictably by asking just what this tour means to the pair, Cris came back to say instantly just how exciting touring music in general is, let alone Grey Daze. He joined the band onstage in 2023 after they were asked to play in Arizona at U-FEST, and has since been taken on as fulltime vocalist. He carried on, saying that ‘this is fan based… that excitement you guys have for hearing this music makes us very excited to come over there and honour the legacy! But also introduce you to a new era of Grey Daze, maybe some new material.’
Asking him then about the relative elephant in the room, the fact that he is coming into the band off the back of such a tragedy and having to step into some big shoes whilst putting his own spin on it. He responded eloquently, with his first thought being ‘we wanted to honour the legacy of Chester when we do this live’. Talking through how he joined the band, he mentioned how himself and Sean had known each other since 2020, and had come to see Cris play a couple of shows with his bands so they started developing a more personal connection. He received a call in October 2022 to fly out and just play through the songs, just to see what would happen – he ended up spending four ‘beautiful’ days in Arizona with Grey Daze, which felt both ‘surreal, and also very natural’ for him. Finishing up, he made sure to say that ‘[he doesn’t] take it lightly that this is something that has to be done properly, and [he thinks they’ve] worked hard to provide that.’
Sean has been involved from the very start. Since both himself and Chester were in a band called Sean Dowdell and his Friends?, all the way to the present day, he’s been a part of this journey, and so it felt a natural progression for him to talk about his perspective on bringing this music to a new audience. His first thoughts were, contrary to the excitement one might expect, filled with trepidation - but “after a couple years of getting not only offers but browbeat by the fans because they want to see it live, I had to kind of put on a different hat and say, well, who am I to say that this can never be live? This is something that they want to hear.” He carried on to talk about just how long it had taken the group to be happy with how the songs sounded as a live show, as they ending up putting almost eight months of work into the set and practicing it for live performances. Naturally, the thought of filling Chester’s shoes came round again, which Sean and Cris addressed very eloquently; one after the other they gave their perspective, with Sean saying that he wants Cris to have his own stamp on all the music instead of being a stand in, allowing the band to find their own identity without Chester, and Cris followed it up emphasising how he doesn’t want to imitate or emulate anyone, he’s taken a lot of inspiration from Chester over the years but intends to be his own singer, honouring the material rather than imitating it.
The next question asked was all about whether they expected the level of hype they did, and I mentioned that I’d personally not heard of the band before their 2020 releases, but rather than the avenue of answer expected Sean went a completely different route – lambasting Warner Bros music group for “erasing us off the world map” when Linkin Park blew up – “we had our music erased from the internet, from record stores, they f*cked us.” He was unsurprisingly incredibly passionate about the whole ordeal, stating that, upon reunion, “we had no illusions about trying to do this on a global scale. We just wanted to finish the music that was the original intention so to see the kind of response it got after we did sign with a label and put it out was mind-blowing.” Knowing the audience Chester and Linkin Park had, he was immensely grateful to see the response of so many fans, and to see their outpouring of love for what they were doing.
Rounding out the interview, we chatted briefly about Nottingham and it’s long history with heavy music – including the live recording of ‘Faint’ taken by Linkin Park at our very own Rock City in 2003. Cris wasted no time saying how excited he is to play here, saying “the hard rock, the Chester audience, is going to show up, and I’m very excited for them to hear this music live”, which rounded off the interview on a homely note.
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