Three Days Grace

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With the arrival of internet in the nineties and the coming of MySpace, YouTube and Facebook, it has become so much easier for musicians and artists to expose their work to the world; but it has also become a great source of competition.  Not only can small town boys become rock stars overnight, but they constantly have to fight against all the other upcoming rookies out there who are trying to do just the same by any means possible.  Straight out of the four thousand people township of Norwood, Ontario, Canadian rock band, Three Days Grace, couldn’t be a better example of success.  After selling  six million albums worldwide and their second release ‘One-X’ being certified Platinum both in the United States and Canada, the 3DG boys are back with a third record : ‘Life Starts Now’.

The twelve track alternative-rock album was made available everywhere on September 22nd after they had released their hit single “Break” earlier that same month.  ‘Life Starts Now’ debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 after selling over 79,000 copies in the U.S. in its first week.  With such outstanding numbers, one would think that I was on my way to meet the most conceited 2009 band there is.  But as I walked into the MusiquePlus studios’ cafeteria and was introduced to lead singer Adam Gonthier and bassist Brad Walst, I knew I was in for something very different.  The band had just finished recording a special show for the Montreal music channel and carried on that day with a little press to promote the new album.

Brad sat in front of me and after Adam got ripped off by a vending machine trying to get a drink, he joined him, disappointed, but still smiling.  I first asked what they were most proud of after all those years of hard work, struggles, rough times and touring.

“I think at the moment, because we put a lot of time, blood, sweat and tears into this record.” Adam answered, very humbly. “I think putting out ‘Life Starts Now’ is what we’re most proud of is putting out this record.  I mean it’s our third record and we’re all super excited about it.”

As Brad nodded his head in approval, I went on asking them how they kept grounded after selling so many albums around the world and obtaining all this recognition from the music industry.

“We don’t really think about it, I think, we’re all small town guys and pretty down to earth people so, if anybody gets out of reality and they need a reality check, we just make sure we’re there for that.  But we really don’t think about it, I think we always try to keep looking forward and never look behind us.” Brad said, simply.

From the song “Animal I Have Become”, Three Days Grace’s first single on their second album ‘One-X’, to “The Good Life”, featured on ‘Life Starts Now’, a considerable amount of positivity and a great deal of growth can be felt in the evolution of the lyrics.

“On this record we tried a few different things and, yes there are some of the songs, they have a different vibe that we’ve never experimented with before.” Adam pointed out when I asked how they felt about this new release vs. the previous one, before her added:  “I don’t think it’s a lot different, I mean we put a lot of time into our last couple records and it’s always kind of exciting to put something new out and see how people respond to it and stuff, but I don’t think a heck of a lot has changed.  I think the way that we see ourselves and the way that we look at life now is just a little bit different, which I think explains some of the tracks on the record anyway.”  I then implied that it naturally came to them to go towards that direction and Adam continued explaining:  “Well, there are positive songs, but it’s come from a dark place.  We’ve all been through a lot of struggles in our personal lives and then we’ve had health issues with our family and we’ve lost people along the way so, I think just over the last little while we’ve sort of become more aware of what life is.”