If things had gone differently on July 20, 2017, Linkin Park singer Chester Bennington would have felt badly about what he did, according to his longtime friend and one-time bandmate Sean Dowdell.
“If Chester would have woken up the day after he did what he had done, he would have called us and he would have apologized,” Dowdell said during an interview with iHeartRadio host Jason Rockman.
Bennington was 41 when he hanged himself in his California home.
“I firmly believe he did not mean to do what he did,” Dowdell said. “He just found himself at a low point, he couldn’t recover, there was nobody there around him to pull him out of the abyss that depression does to you.
“So, I really feel that the moment he did it he regretted it and I think had he lived he would have apologized.”
Dowdell and Bennington formed the band Grey Daze in 1993 and released three albums before Bennington left to join Xero, which became Linkin Park.
“A lot of people don’t know that when Grey Daze broke up Chester and I didn’t talk for almost two years,” Dowdell recalled. “We had a bad falling out.” But, he added, he was “extremely proud” of Bennington and not jealous.
“We helped develop each other and I’m stoked that he made it to where I wanted to go to,” he said.
The two reconciled and became business partners in Club Tattoo. In 2017, Bennington began re-recording with Grey Daze and, one month before his suicide, he announced the band was reuniting for a 20th anniversary tour.
Last December, Bennington’s widow Talinda tweeted her support for the release of a Grey Daze album, hoping it will “shine a light on where my husband started and hopefully give his fans a better understanding of his art and a more full picture of his journey through his incredible music.”
The album is the just-released Amends.
Dowdell told iHeartRadio that although the title is meant to be ambiguous, he admits “it’s more about Chester getting to make amends through his music.”
Amends is also, he said, “a way for fans to connect to Chester with a little bit of closure.”
Remembering Bennington as “a creative genius” who “always did his best,” Dowdell said the album was “done for nothing but love for my friend – and it did become very cathartic and healing in the process.”
Watch the full interview below:
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