ADAM GONTIER of Three Days Grace
Once upon a time, in a life before babies and flagging 401(k) plans, I was a working musician. I played a Yamaha acoustic and twelve-string Ovation and sang in crowded smoky bars around Pittsburgh. I gravitate to the stage and the energy of live performance. It’s the only place to be if you like your music raw. If you’re into interactivity. To this end, I wade deep into the mosh pit, that Mecca for the uninhibited, and surface somewhere front and center for a full-on hit.
I recently caught Three Days Grace at The Bloomsburg Fair in Central Pennsylvania. Like Rush and The Guess Who before them, Three Days Grace, who have opened for the Stones, are from Canada. They began playing in small clubs and cafes and have built the band up to playing venues holding upwards of 15,000. The alternative rock/post-grunge band was formed in 1997 and have been on the road for the past couple years in support of One-X, the 2006 follow-up to their self-titled debut album. One-X plumbs the roller coaster psyche of lead singer and rhythm guitarist Adam Gontier. Written during his stint in rehab for an addiction to the pain killer Oxycodone, the record addresses not only the isolation of Gontier’s drug addiction but, too, the isolation felt by the band as a whole while touring as madly as they do. One-X stands for the feeling of being singled out in a crowd, of not quite being one with what’s going on around you.
Three Days Grace lean toward the darker (though hopeful) end of the lyrical spectrum with songs like “I Hate Everything About You”, “Pain”, and “Time of Dying”, and their fans relate in a show of pumping fists and nodding heads. Backed by the pummeling rhythms of Neil Sanderson on drums and Brad Walst on bass, and the heavy, melodic riffs of lead guitarist Barry Stock, Gontier stomps around the stage, his scathing chords and plaintive vocals inspiring a massive sing-along. In “Animal I Have Become”, a cry for help, he is, ironically, unapologetic for his depravity--So what if you can see, the darkest side of me, no one will ever change this animal I have become--, while the first urgent notes of “Riot”, that rousing call to arms, threaten to wreak havoc in the pit. Although the band occasionally crosses over lyrically to emo (emotional) rock, their lyrics are therapeutic, blunt, and not overly poetic.
Gontier, born in 1978, credits his mother, a musician, for exposing him to different types of music as a child. He began singing in bars and writing lyrics when he was a mere 12 years old and formed the band Groundswell in 1992 at age 14 with three original members of Three Days Grace (Barry Stock came on board later to free up Gontier as frontman.) Inspired by the Seattle music scene, Gontier counts as his influences Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden, as well as the Beatles and Joni Mitchell. His gear includes a Schecter, Paul Reed Smith, Gibson, Guild, and a Taylor acoustic.
At one point in the night, Gontier slows things down when he pulls up a stool, grabs his acoustic guitar and launches into an impassioned version of “Rooster” by Alice in Chains. (The title of the song comes from Alice in Chains guitarist/songwriter Jerry Cantrell's father whose nickname was Rooster in Vietnam.) Drenched in cool blue light, Gontier’s voice is soaring, world-weary. The simplicity with which he delivers the song is a much welcome breather in a night full of pogoing (jumping up and down), of pulsing columns of colored light and pyrotechnics right out of the chambers of the almighty and powerful Oz, of being hit square in the chest by a wall of electrical sound.
Three Days Grace have just recently returned from the European leg of their tour. When they eventually get around to working on some new material, they will head to a secluded spot in Ontario’s cottage country where they’ll compose on acoustic guitars while sitting around a fire, without distractions and outside influences. No doubt they’ll draw from the energy of the crowds of such nights as this one in Bloomsburg.
Three Days Grace is a hard-touring band who regularly crisscross the globe, so be sure to check them out in a venue near you. And hey, see you in the pit.
