Three Days
Grace Biography/History
When it came time to choose
an album title for the follow-up to Three Days Grace’s 2006’s
platinum-certified One-X, the four band members thought the phrase “life
starts now” summed things up pretty well. “The new album is basically a
commentary on the last couple years of our lives,” says drummer Neil
Sanderson. “Things have been fairly traumatic for more than one of us.
We’ve all had to confront death on a few different levels, and we’ve had
family go through some health-related things, so, for us, Life Starts
Now reflects that feeling of redefining what life is and what it means
to be alive after you hit rock bottom.”
“The events of the past few years have made us more aware of what life
really can be,” says lead vocalist/guitarist Adam Gontier. “So the album
is about taking the situation that you’re in, no matter how bad it
feels, and making the best of it. Lyrically, most of the songs are based
around that idea.”
Several tracks address powerful feelings of loss whether through
betrayal, on “Bitter Taste” and “Last To Know,” or death, on “World So
Cold” and “Without You” — songs that bassist Brad Walst says “really hit
close to home.” “Bully” tackles the impact of bullying, something
Sanderson describes as “a massive problem that can actually change
someone’s life and affect who they are as a person.” The band switches
things up on the more upbeat “The Good Life,” which asks: “If you were
to live a different life, what would you want to get out of it?” Gontier
explains. Then there’s the fiery first single “Break,” which Gontier
says explores not being controlled by your surroundings or environment.
“It’s about breaking away from being told what to do and living the life
that you want to live.”
A sense of adventure permeates Life Starts Now, which the
Toronto-based band began writing after coming off the road for One-X
in April 2008. Though the album doesn’t skimp on Gontier’s trademark
anguished vocals, Barry Stock’s urgent riffs, or Sanderson and Walst’s
thunderous rhythm section, the band knew that they had evolved as
musicians, thanks to hundreds of live shows, and wanted to capture it in
their sound. “While touring behind One-X, we’d try new things at
soundchecks and experiment a bit,” recalls Walst, “but we had a bigger
vision for this record. We wanted to do something a little different.”
“We had talked about how so many contemporary rock records have that
formulaic, heavily layered, mechanical, shiny sound to them,” Sanderson
says. “They start sounding generic and fake. So we wanted to go the
opposite route and freshen things up by making a record that was really
open and raw and live. That’s how we approached it—we went for that big,
boomy sound.” To get it, Three Days Grace recorded Life Starts Now
at The Warehouse Studios in Vancouver, where everyone from
AC/DC to
Bon Jovi to
Nine Inch Nails
have recorded, and which Sanderson describes as having one “the best
open drum rooms in the world.”
They also prepped themselves in advance. “Before we went into the
studio, we’d listen to classic rock records by
Led Zeppelin
and Black Sabbath,
just to remember the sounds that we loved while we were growing up,”
Gontier says. “We wanted to make our album sound very real, raw, and
larger-than-life, like those old records do.” Adds lead guitarist Barry
Stock, “Everybody seemed to feel a little freer to expand and do
something beyond the regular cookie-cutter thing, so we all just stepped
it up. There are some great solos, some great drum parts, and great
vocal moments. We’re inspired by classic rock bands more than anything
because they have this really great organic feel, but they sound huge,
and we wanted to achieve that.”
To help them reach their goals, Three Days Grace reunited with producer
Howard Benson (My
Chemical Romance,
Motorhead, Papa Roach, P.O.D), who
produced One-X. “He really saw our vision and let us experiment
to get the sounds and parts we needed to make the best record we could,”
Walst says. “One of the great things about Howard is that he recognizes
what kind of band we are,” Sanderson adds. “He really complements what
we do and is definitely a great guy to bounce ideas off of.”
The result is an album that brims with confidence, musicality, and
accessibility, while retaining what has made Three Days Grace so beloved
by their fans: their authenticity. “I think people relate to our music
on such a deep level because we’re real,” says Gontier. “We write about
real things and I think people know that. Our fans know that we’re not
trying to be something that we’re not.” Adds Sanderson: “People can
connect what we write about to their own lives because it’s real. We’ve
been dealt hands that have been difficult, but I think these days,
people want something real more than ever, and they’re especially
sensitive to what is contrived and what isn’t.”
It’s that genuineness, along with emotional themes underscored by their
explosive sound and that has led Three Days Grace to rock stardom. Their
2003 self-titled debut spawned three hit singles, “I Hate Everything
About You,” which reached #2 on the Mediabase Modern Rock chart and went
Top 5 on the Mediabase Mainstream Rock chart. “Just Like You” climbed to
#1 on both the Mediabase Modern Rock and Mainstream Rock charts, while
“Home” peaked at #2 on the Mediabase Mainstream Rock chart. One-X
debuted on the Billboard album chart at #5 and produced three #1
Mediabase Mainstream Rock singles: “Animal I’ve Become,” “Pain” and
“Never Too Late.” In 2007, Mediabase ranked the band as the #1 artist in
airplay across all rock formats (Modern Rock, Active Rock, Mainstream
Rock). Also that year, R&R/Billboard ranked Three Days Grace as the #1
Active Rock Artist of the Year, #1 Rock Artist of the Year, and #2
Modern Rock/Alternative Artist of the Year. Both Three Days Grace and
One-X have been certified platinum by the RIAA and the band has sold
more than six million albums worldwide. In 2008, they wrapped up more
than two years of touring in the U.S., where they shared stages with
fellow rockers
Nickelback, Staind, Seether, and
Breaking
Benjamin.
Now Three Days Grace are looking forward to following up those successes
with Life Starts Now, which was released by Jive Records on
September 22, 2009. “I’m curious to see how people respond to it and
what songs they relate to,” Gontier says. “Music is emotion for us,”
adds Walst. “We’re just trying to trust our own gut. If the four of us
feel something while we’re playing it, then we hope our fans relate and
feel the same.”
“Even though we wanted this album to be different, there’s a lot that
hasn’t changed,” says Sanderson. “We still use music as a way to release
emotion. The other thing that hasn’t changed is the best part of it all:
getting up on stage and killing it in front of 20,000 people!”
Bio courtesy of
TotalAssault.com
News:
April 13, 2007
Three Days Grace Announce U.S. Spring Tour with Breaking Benjamin, Puddle of
Mudd
December
14, 2006 Three Days Grace To Tour US |
Listen to Music
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"Burn" – 4:27
"Just Like You" – 3:06
"I Hate Everything About You" – 3:51
"Home" - 4:20 (Three Days Grace, Gavin Brown, S. Wilcox)
"Scared" - 3:13 (Three Days Grace, Matt Walst)
"Let You Down" – 3:44
"Now or Never" – 3:01
"Born Like This" – 3:32
"Drown" – 3:28
"Wake Up" - 3:24
"Take Me Under" – 4:18
"Overrated" – 3:30 |
1. "It's All Over" 4:09
2. "Pain" 3:23
3. "Animal I Have Become" 3:51
4. "Never Too Late" 3:29
5. "On My Own" 3:05
6. "Riot" 3:27
7. "Get Out Alive" 4:22
8. "Let It Die" 3:09
9. "Over and Over" 3:11
10. "Time of Dying" 3:06
11. "Gone Forever" 3:41
12. "One-X" 4:46
13. "Running Away" (Japanese and Target bonus track) 4:03
On Japanese Bonus Tracks:
14. "Animal I Have Become (Stripped Acoustic Version)" 3:45
15. "I Hate Everything About You (Acoustic Version)" 3:53 |
1. "Bitter Taste" 4:01
2. "Break" 3:13
3. "World So Cold" 4:03
4. "Lost In You" 3:53
5. "The Good Life" 2:53
6. "No More" 3:45
7. "Last to Know" 3:27
8. "Someone Who Cares" 4:52
9. "Bully" 3:39
10. "Without You" 3:34
11. "Goin' Down" 3:06
12. "Life Starts Now" 3:08
13. "World So Cold (Piano+Vocal version in
Japanese edition)" 4:32
On Japanese Bonus Track:
13. "World So Cold (Piano version)" 4:32 |
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Days Grace
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