Three Days Grace bassist Brad Walst and singer-guitarist Adam Gontier hailed from the small Canadian burg of Norwood. Drummer Neil Sanderson grew up twenty-five miles away in a town called Peterborough.
Re-locating to Toronto Three Days Grace teamed with producer Gavin Brown got Three Days Grace. On the strength of “I Hate Everything About You” the group earned a publishing deal with EMI and began circulating demos which led to signing with Jive Records – as the only Rock act on a roster.
Their self-titled debut was recorded on a farm outside of Boston and Woodstock, New York (keeping them in the small-town environment). With the album in the can, the group added guitarist Barry Stock.
Three Days Grace barely got out of the gate before trouble hit. A depressed Gontier became addicted to drugs and alcohol. A stint in rehab followed the tour. Once out, he rejoined to the band for their next effort, “One-X.”
“The lyrics really speak out to you, especially if you’re going through a tough time in your life,” Gontier said in an interview.
The ’06 album marked Stock’s recording debut with the band and rose to #2 on the Canadian chart with “Animal I Have Become” being the most played song of the year. The song referenced Gontier’s regrets about his addictions. “A few of us got really carried away, especially myself. I became somebody I didn’t want to be.”
South of the boarder (that would be in the U.S.), the album peaked at #5 on the Billboard 200 going platinum.
Three Days Grace recorded ’09 album “Life Starts Now” in Vancouver and L.A. The group’s third studio effort featured the single “Break” which topped the Billboard Rock Songs chart for consecutive weeks.
“Life Starts Now” faced mixed reviews but debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200, their highest chart position to date. The set sold 79,000 copies in its first week.
“Transit Of Venus,” named after Venus’ visible transit across the sun (a rare occurrence), dropped in ’12 and contained the lead single “Chalk Outline.”
As Three Days Grace was gearing up for their ’13 co-headlining North American tour with Shinedown, Gontier left the band due to an undisclosed health issue – even providing a letter from his doctor – and that Matt Walst (Brad’s kid brother and singer for My Darkest Days) had signed on to replace him for the tour.
In ’15, Three Days Grace issued their fifth album, “Human.” The set was their first with Matt Walst.
The lead single was “I Am Machine.” “Lyrically, the song is about how sometimes you feel like you’re in an endless routine and can’t escape,” said drummer Neil Sanderson.
But it was “Painkiller” that ruled the Mainstream Rock Charts and was the band’s eleventh chart-topping single.
Three Days Grace began work on their sixth album in a converted garage behind bassist Brad Walst’s house outside of Toronto.
The band then headed to Ontario to work with producers Gavin Brown and Howard Benson. Chris Lord-Alge handled the mixing. “That production team hasn’t happened since ‘One-X’,” stated Sanderson. “We were lucky to get this group together.”
“Outsider” dropped in ’18 featuring the lead single, “The Mountain.” But the big news came when “Infra-Red” went to #1 Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Songs chart. That gave Three Days Grace 14 chart toppers, the most in the survey’s history (for the time being).
Three Days Grace’s seventh album, “Explosions,” the third studio effort with Matt Walst handling vocals, contained “So Called Life” which became the band’s seventeenth #1 (“Right Left Wrong” from “Outsider was their 16th).
Their first #1 on the chart was in ’04 with “Just Like You.”
