Grey Daze is the origin story of one of the most recognisable rock voices in a generation, although little is known about them in the UK until now.
With the recent announcement of their first ever UK tour, I had the chance to sit down with Sean Dowdell and Cris Hodges of Grey Daze to talk about their recent albums and reminisce on memories with co-founder, Chester Bennington.
The band first released music thirty years, so why do they now feel ready to take on the UK, Dowdell comments:
“Well back in the 90s we were scheduled to play Reading Festival and that got cancelled for various reasons, or bass player was having some issues and that’s when Mace joined the band but our reason for our first UK tour being now is that we have a singer who is dying to play out live and tour and see the world with the band we have a cohesive unit who can play out live together. Without Chester we really couldn’t see a way forward until we started having conversations with Cris and we were able to pull it off live in a meaningful way that we curated to still be respectful of Chester’s legacy and Cris has proven that he’s a great frontman, so that’s why now.”
Frontman Cris Hodges adds, “I know that Sean and the guys had been getting hit up quite frequently for live shows and the fans wanted to see live shows so we were able to provide that. Now U-Fest being our first show in from of ten to fifteen-thousand people with the shoes that I had to fill already was probably one of the biggest hurdles I had to overcome, not to mention the fun technology issues we had on stage, when all of our ears went out and we heard absolutely nothing but silence in our ears. After that show we heard the response and the response was overwhelmingly positive and that was where we came up with this process of letting the fans dictate what happens here and that’s how we ended up booking this UK tour because we wanted to know if the UK wanted to hear this music live. The answer was yes and that’s why we’re coming.”
Dowdell continues, “We’ve had a great response from the fans over there, me and Cris were on call the other day and we found out that The Phoenix went to number 2 in the UK which we didn’t realise or maybe we had been told and I just didn’t absorb it. But to have Amends as a number one album in the UK and The Phoenix as a number two, I mean, that’s pretty special in itself because it gives us the opportunity to play the music live in front of the people who appreciate it.”
Since the tragic passing of Chester Bennington, Grey Daze have gone on to release two posthumous albums, speaking on the creation of their most recent album, The Phoenix, Dowdell says, “The Phoenix was our second run at it, you know with amends we kind of had to invent the process. When we got to The Phoenix it seemed a little bit more streamlined of how we wanted to approach it.” Following this, Dowdell comments on where the inspiration for the albums title came from, “Chester had a couple of nicknames in the band on was Hephaestus the god of fire, we would always say that he had this ball of fire in his stomach whenever he got up on stage, so he could just become this immortal. It was a way for us to pay homage to him without just calling him out by name, it was a way for us to give him a metaphorical attribute which was meaningful without just saying Chester. We didn’t want it to be so blunt and generic. To me, The Phoenix says so much without having to say too much. It leaves the end user to apply it how they’d like. But the context we meant it for, the intention was as a homage to Chester, for who he was to us.”
“We’re going to be doing meet and greets for every single show in the UK,” announces Dowdell. “If any of the fans want to bring memorabilia for us to sign, we’ll be happy to spend some time with you guys and shake some hands and immerse ourselves in the UK community. We’re really looking forward to it.”
Grey Daze perform in the UK for the very first time in May 2024. Tickets are available at https://www.greydazemusic.com/
UK TOUR 2024
Sun 12th May BRISTOL Thekla
Tue 14th May NOTTINGHAM Rescue Rooms
Wed 15th May GLASGOW Cathouse
Thu 16th May MANCHESTER Rebellion
Fri 17th May WOLVERHAMPTON KK’s Steel Mill
Sat 18th May LONDON The Garage
Listen to the full chat here:
