System of a Down, Faith No More, Korn, etc add 2nd show + new Chester Bennington/Helmet song

Earlier this week, System of a Down, Korn, Faith No More, Helmet, and Russian Circles announced a massive show together taking place at LA’s Banc of California Stadium on May 22, and following yesterday and this morning’s presales, they’ve already added a second date for May 23 at the same venue. Tickets for both shows go on sale Friday (2/7) at 10 AM Pacific.

These are currently the only upcoming US dates for both System of a Down and Faith No More, the latter of whom are playing their first shows in five years this year.

Faith No More’s Mike Patton is also busy with the Mr. Bungle reunion, which began last night and included a partial Faith No More cover.

Meanwhile, when asked in a new AltPress interview if System of a Down were any closer to a new album, drummer John Dolmayan replied:

We’re further away. We were getting close for a little while. Shavo [Odadjian, bassist], Daron [Malakian, guitarist] and I were in the studio—this is two, maybe three years ago now. We finalized the music for 12 songs. They were very good. But due to internal problems and rifts, I don’t see that happening.

[The problem is] not artistic. It’s not logistic. And it’s not financial. It’s personalities. It’s mindsets. And it’s ego.

Dolmayan is also releasing the self-titled covers album by his These Grey Men project on February 28. It features Talking Heads and Bowie covers with vocals by Serj Tankian, plus the recently released cover of Radiohead’s “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” with Tom Morello and Avenged Sevenfold’s M. Shadows. You can hear that one and check out the full tracklist below.

These Grey Men Tracklist
01 – “Road to Nowhere” (Talking Heads cover) (feat. Serj Tankian)
02 – “Starman” (David Bowie cover) (feat. Serj Tankian)
03 – “What You Know” (Two Door Cinema Club cover) (feat. Jonathan Dorr)
04 – “Runaway” (Del Shannon cover) (feat. Franky Perez)
05 – “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” (Radiohead cover) (feat. M. Shadows & Tom Morello)
06 – “Hung Up” (Madonna cover) (feat. Sirusho)
07 – “Beautiful Thieves” (AFI cover) (feat. Jonah Perry Nimoy)
08 – “Rock Bottom” (Eminem cover)

In other Helmet news, frontman Page Hamilton lent his guitar playing to a new version of “Sickness” by the late Chester Bennington‘s pre-Linkin Park band Grey Daze, who are releasing an album with reworked material that they wrote and recorded with Chester in the ’90s. The album’s called Amends and due April 10 via Loma Vista. Watch the video for the new song below. To bring things even more full circle, Korn guitarist Brian “Head” Welch commented on hearing Grey Daze: “The range, the power, it sounds like he’s in his prime, at his peak. I get chills when I hear his voice on this project.”