Amends

Amends is a remix album by Grey Daze composed of Chester Bennington's vocals from the 90's over newly recorded instrumentals. "What's In The Eye" was released as the first “fan track” from the project on January 17, 2020 and was co-produced by Chris Traynor, Kyle Hoffman and Jay Baumgardner. The first single, "Sickness" featuring Page Hamilton and produced by Pete Nappi, was released on February 6th. The release of the album was postponed from April 10th to June 26th due to the Covid-19 outbreak. According to Sean, their distribution system was affected by the crisis and they thought it was unfair with fans who purchased physical copies to simply release the album digitally on the original date.

The band has no intention to tour without Chester or replace him with another vocalist and turned down every offer to play shows they got. They are, however, open to the idea to do a tribute show with other singers if the right opportunity presents itself and it is done in a way that honors Chester.

Background

Tentatively titled New Sun Tomorrow, the project was started in February 2017 when Chester and Sean picked about four songs to recut and sent new guitarist Cristin Davis into the studio to work on them. The album was announced in June by bassist Mace Bayers as a remaster of ...No Sun Today they would be working on with Sylvia Massy. The band had previously tried to release a remastered version of the album through Artemis Records in 2003 but conflicts with lawyers within Linkin Park's label Warner Bros. Records prohibited the release. The original versions of Wake Me and ...No Sun Today were also available on iTunes up to 2005 before they were removed. Sean said this was due to the label seeing Grey Daze as a "competing product." Linkin Park's discography arrived to the digital store in 2006.

The news about the album came with the announcement of a Grey Daze reunion show at the Marquee Theatre in Tempe, AZ. According to Sean, it was Chester's idea to put the band together for a Club Tattoo 20th anniversary party and they had started getting offers to play at festivals all over the world. Jason Barnes, who played guitar on Wake Me, was announced as part of the band's line-up for the show and was seen recording in the studio. He was responsible for finding the original masters of the band's debut album. They had just started to strip the masters down and re-track guitars and planned on sending the producer on tour with Linkin Park so Chester could record vocals. The show was canceled and the project was put on hold following his death on July 20th.

Members of Grey Daze and Dead By Sunrise/Julien-K teamed up for a special acoustic performance on September 2nd at the Saxe Theater in Las Vegas in honor of Chester. "The Down Syndrome" and two Dead By Sunrise songs were performed with Ryan Shuck on vocals.

Writing and Recording

Grey Daze at the NRG Recording Studios.

Grey Daze was given permission by Chester's widow, Talinda, to continue working on the project granted that they didn't change Chester's voice. In late December, Sylvia confirmed the sessions would be resumed. According to her, the music would be modernized for the current market using master tapes recorded in the late nineties. However, the band did not move foward with her and Jason Barnes was absent from the project after 2017 due to being busy with his work at Gretsch.

Originally planning to fund the project by himself and release it on iTunes, Sean was encouraged by Rene Mata to make it something special for Chester's fans with a wide release and helped connect him with producer Jay Baumgardner. The band then reached out to former Warner Bros. Records executive Tom Whalley to release the album through his Loma Vista Recordings. Once they started working on it again, they decided we to start over, strip all the songs down and start from scratch. Sean said, "We reverse engineered a lot of the music. We took all the music away, we kept the vocal track and the lyrics that was there - that was all Chester. We kept the integrity and the intention of all of the vocals, intact from its original inception. We actually rewrote all of the music to every single song from the ground up." They worked on Chester's vocals for 2 months before working on the music. Writing the instrumentals took about a year and half and recording took almost another year and a half. Besides Chester's original vocals from Wake Me and ...No Sun Today, previously unreleased alternate takes were also used on the songs.

They worked at Salt Mine Studios and NRG Recording Studios with several musician friends of Chester or artists that he loved, starting with Brian “Head” Welch and James "Munky" Shaffer (Korn) and followed by Chris Traynor (Bush). Mace explained, "once this kind of came out a little bit that it was happening in the musical community, people were asking to come on it." Others included Ryan Shuck (Julien-K), Marcos Curiel (P.O.D.), Jaime Bennington (Chester’s son), LP (Laura Pergolizzi), Carston Dowdell and Brennen Brochard (Sean's sons), Heidi Gadd, Carah Faye (Shiny Toy Guns), Jasen Rauch (Breaking Benjamin) and Pete Nappi (Ocean Park Standoff). In the production team, they also had Esjay Jones, Lucas D'Angelo (Betraying The Martyrs), Alex Aldi and Lu Rubin. On June 9, 2019, Grey Daze confirmed they had wrapped up the project and by August they had mixed the album. Draven Bennington was also asked to sing on the album but declined because it was difficult for him to listen to his father's voice at the time.

The album title was taken from the lyrics of "Morei Sky". Sean said, "After Chester passed, being a close friend, you carry this amount of guilt, like, ‘What did I miss? What did I not see? How could I have let this happen to my friend? How could I have prevented this?’ You go through these emotional roller coasters. And then you read those lyrics and go, ‘How the fuck did I not see he was in such a dark place?’ It’s one of those things where it sheds a little bit more light onto who he was deep down and the thoughts that went through his mind." According to him, they have enough material for one or two additional Grey Daze albums which might be released if Amends gets a good response. Some proceeds from the sales will benefit Talinda's 320 Changes Direction and other portions of the proceeds have been allocated for Chester's kids.

Composition

Official Grey Daze line-up on the album.

In an interview to KROQ, Sean said the band wrote around 150 songs all together in the "6 and a half years" they were together and recorded 3 full-length albums but only two were actually released, so they had 3 albums worth of material. In total, the band registered 24 songs but only 17 were picked for the Amends sessions and 11 made the album.

About the sound of the album, he said "There are two tracks that are pretty similar to the way they used to sound, but the other nine songs sound completely different than the original version, other than the vocal." As for the difference from the originals, "Almost every song on the album sounds like a song that would have been written and recorded this year, that is the biggest difference. We took the old grunge feel and kind of twisted that into keeping the angst and aggression that we had without disrupting or distorting the rock sensibility that we were known for and had developed with Chester."

Mace explained that "the original music from the 90’s it wasn’t produced. It was basically a demo on records with high energy vocals and high energy." He talked about how the big number of producers involved in the album made it possible for the band to create the new music over Chester's old vocals. "The challenge wasn’t curating his vocals as much as it was for us as the writers and the players to change the music and bring it up to his level. Once the producers cleaned those vocals up and brought it up to a level, then it became extremely challenging for us to get that level of intensity, authenticity after all and everything to match Chester because these vocals are amazing. And so that was a challenge and we could not have done it without, I said this a couple of times, it took a village."

The tracklist is composed of new versions of songs from Grey Daze's two studio albums. "She Shines", "Soul Song", "Morei Sky", "Sometimes", "What's In The Eye" and "Shouting Out" were originally from Wake Me; and "In Time", "The Syndrome", "Sickness", "Just Like Heroin" and "B12" were originally from ...No Sun Today. Two of the songs had their titles changed for the album, "The Syndrome" was originally called "The Down Syndrome" and "Just Like Heroin" was originally called "Just Like Heroin (A Little Down)".

"Hole" was rumored to be in the tracklist as well since it was previewed (along with "In Time") by Sean Dowdell in July 2018 while filming a documentary about the band but it didn't make the album. When questioned about it, Sean answered "it didn’t make the cut for the record" and Cristin said "Hole will be on the next record." "Spin" was also heard during a video Grey Daze posted in December 2018 from the The Saltmine Studio Oasis.

Mace explained how the songs were selected, "the producers picked them and the mixes started working, they’re the ones that came up and ended up being on the first release because as the mixes are done and they sound great. We would give different producers the same song to do, to see who just found the magic." Sean added, "We first chose seventeen songs from Chester's favorites, and then we reduced the number to eleven. We wanted to keep some good titles for the second volume, which will be released later. We also realized while working on these eleven songs that they all had something in common, an often dark and emotional atmosphere." According to Mace, "The material’s all done for numerous records. So if everything works out well and it’s well received and so forth, there’s a second record coming out. We have all the material, we have the recorded vocals, we have it."

The album is presented with guests featured in each song; "She Shines" features Brian "Head" Welch, "Soul Song" features Jaime Bennington, "Sickness" features Page Hamilton, "In Time" features Ryan Shuck, "B12" features Munky and Head from Korn, "The Syndrome" features Carah Faye, "What's In The Eye" features Marcos Curiel, "Shouting Out" features LP, and Chris Traynor is featured in five songs including "Soul Song", "Just Like Heroin" and "What's In The Eye". According to Sean, it was actually Chester who introduced him to LP, with her song "Lost On You", and they wanted a female singer for "Shouting Out" so he decided to call her. Session keyboardist Jamie Muhoberac contributed to "Sometimes"; classical pianist Jean Yves D’Angelo and electric violinist Heidi Gadd contributed to "Soul Song" and "Morei Sky". Brennen and Carston played drums on a song each. Esjay Jones has uncredited vocals on "Just Like Heroin". Sean said, "there is Chester screaming and a girl named Esjay screaming with him. 4 vocal tracks there." Jean Yves D’Angelo plays piano in the acoustic bonus tracks.

In the Amends track-by-track with Apple Music, Sean said, "Basically, we approached every single song with the intention of making sure that Chester would be proud of it. You're going to get an insight into who Chester was before Linkin Park and a showcase of how great a singer he really was."

Release

Complete Amends Bundle

Pre-orders for Amends started on February 06, 2020. The album was released on June 26, 2020 in digital, CD and vinyl formats through Loma Vista Records in the United States, Concord Records in the European Union and Virgin Records in Japan.

The first pressing of CDs were packaged in 16-page case-bound books including lyrics and band photos. Saturn's and Target's exclusive edition of the CD features acoustic versions of "What's In The Eye" and "Sometimes" as bonus tracks. The Wal-Mart edition includes an acoustic version of "Soul Song" as bonus track. A deluxe SHM-CD+DVD first press limited edition was released in Japan and was announced to include acoustic versions of "What's In The Eye" and "Sickness" as bonus tracks, but it features "Sometimes" instead of "Sickness". An Amazon exclusive edition of the SHM-CD+DVD was packaged with a Deca Jacket.

Two different limited edition color vinyls were available at Grey Daze's official website: a red vinyl and a deluxe edition bone-white + apple red splattered color vinyl limited to 3.5K numbered copies worldwide which was exclusive to the Grey Daze store. This deluxe vinyl includes a 60-page book with never before seen band photos and ephemera. The Splatter Vinyl box set was available on EMP and The Sound Of Vinyl featuring a Ultra Clear, Bone and Black vinyl instead. The EMP version includes a CD. A limited sea blue vinyl was available exclusively at JB Hi-Fi, Saturn and The Sound Of Vinyl. Three different picture discs were also available in the official Grey Daze store, one of them being "Spotify Fans First" and limited to 1000 copies. This last edition features a previously unreleased photo of Chester Bennington from the Ve'cel photo session from 2007 by Robert Kuen. A regular black vinyl with inner sleeve as lyric sheet was available exclusively in the European store. A black ice vinyl was available on Impericon. A translucent milky clear vinyl was an exclusive for FYE and limited to 500 copies.

Mace explained why the band decided on so many different limited editions of the album, "I look at our website, the band’s website, and when you go to the shop say, there was a lot of the collectible stuff. I mean numerous picture discs and numerous different things and it’s because of that reason, the limited editions, that there’s a lot of options. Because once you’re done, you’re done. It’s it. And we’re really trying to give his hardcore fans as much as we can with what we have. You know what I mean? Really, as much as we can with what we have so they can have as much, by gift of gesture of what we can give."

Various bundles with varying items were available. The "Complete Amends Bundle" included: Limited Edition LP + CD Photobook, Amends T-Shirt, Amends Tote, Limited Edition Chester Mosaic Poster, Amends Patch, Grey Daze Logo Baseball Hat and Digital Album. The digital album in the US store was exclusive to United States residents, but the UK store also offered the Complete Amends Bundle and a digital version of the album. The main photo of Chester in the mosaic poster was licensed and taken by Jim Louvau at a Linkin Park show during Projekt Revolution Tour 2007 and was previously used by Linkin Park in the LP Underground 6.0 newsletter. After fans pointed it out, all bundles with the poster were removed from the store, including the Complete Amends Bundle, and fans were refunded.

Tracklist

Standard Edition

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Producer(s)	Length
1	Sickness	Chester Bennington, Sean Dowdell	Pete Nappi	2:51
2	Sometimes	Bennington	Chris Traynor, Kyle Hoffmann	3:26
3	What's In The Eye	Bennington, Dowdell	Traynor, Hoffmann	3:26
4	The Syndrome	Bennington	Esjay Jones, Lucas D'Angelo	3:49
5	In Time	Bennington	Lucio Rubino	3:54
6	Just Like Heroin	Bennington, Dowdell	Traynor, Jones, D'Angelo	3:25
7	B12	Bennington	Alex Aldi	3:33
8	Soul Song	Bennington	Jones, D'Angelo	4:06
9	Morei Sky	Bennington, Dowdell	Jones, D'Angelo	3:52
10	She Shines	Bennington	Jones, D'Angelo	3:35
11	Shouting Out	Bennington	Cass Dillon	3:19

Wal-Mart Bonus Track

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
12	Soul Song (Acoustic)	Chester Bennington	3:58

Japan, Target and Saturn Bonus Tracks

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
12	What's In The Eye (Acoustic)	Chester Bennington, Sean Dowdell	3:28
13	Sometimes (Acoustic)	Chester Bennington	3:23

Bonus DVD

No.	Title	Director(s)	Length
1	Behind The Scenes # 1		0:49
2	Behind The Scenes # 2		1:31
3	Documentary		8:10
4	Track by Track		10:24
5	What's In The Eye	Zev Deans	3:28
6	Sickness	Nico Poalillo, Brandon Rottman	2:51

Personnel

Grey Daze

• Chester Bennington - vocals
• Sean Dowdell - drums and backing vocals
• Mace Bayers - bass
• Cristin Davis - guitar

Additional Musicians

• Jaime Bennington - vocals on "Soul Song"
• Laura "LP" Pergolizzi - vocals on "Shouting Out"
• Carah Faye - vocals on "The Syndrome"
• Carston Dowdell - drums on "The Syndrome"
• Page Hamilton - guitar on "Sickness"
• Ryan Shuck - guitar on "In Time"
• Marcos Curiel - guitar on "What's In The Eye"
• Jamie Muhoberac - keyboards on "Sometimes" and "Just Like Heroin"
• Chris Traynor - guitar on "Soul Song", "Just Like Heroin", "What's In The Eye" and "Sometimes"
• Jean Yves D’Angelo - piano on "Soul Song" and "Morei Sky"
• Heidi Gadd - strings on "Soul Song" and "Morei Sky"
• Jasen Rauch - guitar on "She Shines"
• Brian “Head” Welch - guitar on "She Shines" and "B12"
• James "Munky" Shaffer - guitar on "B12"
• Brennen Brochard - drums on "B12"

Production

• Lyrics by Chester Bennington and Sean Dowdell
• Alex Aldi - producer on "B12"
• Cass Dillon - producer on "Shouting Out"
• Chris Traynor - producer on "Sometimes", "What's In The Eye" and "Just Like Heroin"
• Esjay Jones - producer on "The Syndrome", "Just Like Heroin", "Soul Song", "Morei Sky" and "She Shines"
• Kyle Hoffmann - producer on "Sometimes" and "What's In The Eye"
• Lucas D'Angelo - producer on "The Syndrome", "Just Like Heroin", "Soul Song", "Morei Sky", "She Shines"
• Lucio Rubino - producer on "In Time"
• Pete Nappi - producer on "Sickness"
• Grey Daze - co-producer
• Recorded by Kyle Hoffmann
• Diana Ciobotea - coordinator
• Andy Kipnes - engineer on "B12"
• Tenni Gharakhanian - engineer on "B12"
• Adam Shoeller - assistant engineer
• Andrea Roberts - assistant engineer
• Rene Mata - executive producer
• Jay Baumgardner - executive producer
• Daniel Pampuri - drum programming
• John Nicholson - technician
• Mark Daughney - technician
• Mastered by Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound
• Mixed by Jay Baumgardner at NRG Studios, North Hollywood, CA

Management

• Rene Mata - A&R
• Ryan Whalley - A&R
• Tom Whalley - A&R
• Jeff Worob - legal

Artwork

• Cristin Davis - Artwork
• Mace Beyers - Artwork
• Sean Dowdell - Artwork
• Mike Lythgoe - art direction & design
• Photography by Jim Louvau, Kerry Rose, Mark Silverstein, Mike Walliser, Rene Mata, SAKIphotography, Sean Hartgrove, Tom Preston

Promotion

In December 2019, Grey Daze started releasing statements from Chester's family and bandmates about the album. On the first day of the year, Grey Daze was featured on an article by Revolver titled "45 Most Anticipated Albums of 2020" which accidentally leaked the title of the album. It was edited out later. Just like Linkin Park, Grey Daze enlisted ambassadors to help promoting the album but they were told not to make it public that they were ambassadors. Universal Records held private listening parties in various countries in early January 2020. The band was featured on the cover of the January edition of Kerrang! with a special article about the album. On January 17, the band released the first track from the album, "What's In The Eye". On January 23, Loudwire released an exclusive 8-minute documentary on the making of the album featuring interviews with band members, producers, special guests and Chester's family. An lengthy article about the album was posted by Rolling Stone on February 3rd featuring interviews with Sean Dowdell and Talinda Bennington. The first single, "Sickness", was released a few days later on February 6th with an accompanying music video. On March 6th Revolver launched a three-part documentary series about the band. On April 4th, the third single, "Sometimes" was released amidst the coronavirus crisis. Talinda wrote "In these difficult times,we wanted to release a song from Grey Daze that can be a beacon of hope for some of you out there!" The track was sent out to mailing list subscribers a day earlier. After postponing the album release to June 26th, fans all around the globe held online listening parties for Amends on the original April 10th release date. Fans who hosted them received a deluxe edition of the album.

Reception

Reception of the first single, "What's In The Eye" was mixed, with many fans praising the new sounds and layers added to the song while others felt the overall production of the track wasn't good. Nevertheless, the track hit 1 million streams on Spotify in just 6 weeks. Fans praised the production on the second single, "Sickness" and the third single, "Sometimes". "Sickness" was top 10 on Billboard's Maintream Rock Songs chart.

Mark Stoneman of AltWire gave Amends a B+ rating and wrote "Throughout the entirety of Amends, from ‘She Shines’, ‘Just Like Heroin’ to ‘The Syndrome’, Sean Dowdell, Mace Beyers and Cristin Davis offer a second chance in hearing the Grey Daze of old in a whole new light, done so with the utmost respect and love that Chester Bennington deserved." Carl O'Rourke of Metal Wani gave the album a total score of 8.0 praising the songwriting and lyrics and calling it "a record spilling over with well-written songs and an exuberant spirit" but pointing out "consistent production issues". The Prog Mind gave the album a 9/10 and wrote, "The band has done an immaculate job at shaping everything, even including little snippets of Chester talking in the studio. This is an album that I cannot finish without crying at some point, and it is exactly what mourning fans need to hear." Ali Shutler of NME gave the album 4 out of 5 stars and called it "a powerful record that offers comfort, motivation and a sense of belonging." At the review aggregator website Metacritic, Amends holds a weighted average score of 79 out of 100 for based on 4 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Controversy

While the majority of fans were thankful and excited for being able to hear new material featuring Chester Bennington, members of Grey Daze were also heavily criticized for the way the album was advertised by Loudwire and Kerrang! as Chester's "lost album" which fans considered dishonest and deceitful. The band was also criticized for partnering with Chester's maternal family and his ex-wife, Samantha Bennington, all of whom had previously directed attacks towards Linkin Park's Mike Shinoda and Chester's widow Talinda Bennington-Friedman. While working on the album, Sean Dowdell had denied Samantha's claims and attacked her online. Sean was also criticized for the way he portrayed Chester's feelings towards Linkin Park's music, the way he spoke about the band's label, Warner Bros. Records and the way the band handled negative commentaries from fans on social media. The way fans were approached for the Grey Daze Ambassador program was also seen as deceiful as fans were told they were simply signing up to a mailing list. Following the backlash, the band started removing all negative comments from their social media accounts and blocking fans who criticized them. On Twitter, they wrote, "There is nothing contradictory on our posts. We told the world that we don’t care about the family fued. It has nothing to do with the music."

Fans also complained about the band using Linkin Park photos to promote the project and the big amount of different editions of the album for sale. According to them, this suggests the album is nothing but an attempt to make money from Chester's name to which Sean answered, “There are a few people out there like, ‘Oh, you guys are just trying to grab money.’ First of all, some of these fans, they’re delusional. They think they have this relationship with Chester. They never met him. They have no clue. And if he were here, he’d tell you to shut the fuck up. So, I’m going to tell you to shut the fuck up, because I spent over $100,000 on this record to make it and I didn’t give a shit about making money. If I break even, I’m fine. It wasn’t about that.”

In an interview published by French magazine MyRock, Sean supposedly claimed Chester had plans to quit his position on Linkin Park, but via Twitter he explained this wasn't what he said and the magazine had changed his words.

Following the worldwide online listening parties, recordings of the streams started being shared online and Grey Daze accused fans who hosted the parties of betraying their trust and leaking the album.

Gallery

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  Cover

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  Target Edition

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  Walmart Edition

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  CD

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  Vinyl

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  Standard Color Vinyl

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  JB Hi-Fi Vinyl

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  Impericon Black Ice Vinyl

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  Deluxe Vinyl

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  FYE Translucent Milky Clear Vinyl

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  Deluxe Vinyl package (Grey Daze store)

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  Black + White Splatter Vinyl original concept

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  Black + White Splatter Vinyl

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  Black + White Splatter Vinyl + CD

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  Deluxe Vinyl package

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  Picture Disc 1: Grey Daze Side A

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  Picture Disc 1: Grey Daze Side B

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  Picture Disc 2: Amends Side A

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  Picture Disc 2: Amends Side B

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  Picture Disc 3: Chester (Spotify First) Side A

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  Picture Disc 3: Chester (Spotify First) Side B

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  Amends Patch

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  Chester Mosaic Poster

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  Amends T-Shirt

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  Amends Tote

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  Grey Daze Baseball Hat

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  Chester in San Bernardino 2007.07.28 by Jim Louvau

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  Chester on the LPU 6.0 newsletter. Picture sent by Garret

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  Original Chester Bennington picture from the band photo

External Links

• Grey Daze (Documentary)
• What's In The Eye (Official Audio)
• Making Of "What's In The Eye"
• Sickness (Official Music Video)