Three Days Grace: Canada’s top band back on the road with original singer

It may be hard to imagine for those who grew up listening to the likes of Rush or The Guess Who, but when it comes to hit songs in the U.S., Ontario’s Three Days Grace has dominated Billboard’s mainstream rock charts for almost two decades.

The band has 17 number-one hits in roughly 20 years, leaving bands like Abbotsford’s Nickelback way behind.

This may explain why the band is visiting the Montreal area for the second time this year and packed Place Bell in Laval on Monday night on a double-headline bill shared with Denmark’s Volbeat.

“It seems like early 2000s bands and late ’90s bands are coming back around and like getting bigger. Even as big as they were back in their heyday. So it’s pretty cool to see, like, Creed coming out and just packing places. Korn, Limp Bizkit, all that nu-metal stuff is blowing up again,” said singer Matt Walst, hours before he and the rest of the quintet were about to hit the stage.

Montreal fans had good reason to be anxiously awaiting the band’s return.

In 2013, original singer Adam Gontier left the group to pursue other interests and was replaced by Walst, the younger brother of bass player Brad Walst.

The band continued to release records and pile up the hits.

Then, last year, Gontier expressed the desire to return to the fold.

Unlike other bands that decided to reform with their original singer (Van Halen and Iron Maiden come to mind) Three Days Grace did something unusual.

They decided to continue with both Gontier and Walst

“I think first and foremost, we’re like we’re friends, right? And we have been for a long time,” said Gontier. “So, yeah, Brad came to me, asked me about the idea, and I was all for it. Over the last bunch of years, we went through a lot of growing up and that sort of thing. “It was kind of a no-brainer.”

The Two-Headed Monster

Both frontmen have a strong stage presence and distinct personalities, but quickly found a way to work together.

First, by recording new songs in the studio for the band’s eighth studio album “Alienation,” set for release this August.

“The whole record, we’re both on it singing back and forth and different parts, harmonies and everything,” said Gontier.

He said the chemistry behind the songwriting hasn’t changed much, even as the band now functions as a quintet.

“I don’t think the formula is much different,” said Gontier. “Everybody in the band writes together, so when I came back and we started writing again for this new record, it was the same.”

The band has so far released two songs from Alienation, including the current single Apologies: a dark, haunting song where Walst and Gontier share verses and a pre-chorus with the line, “Caffeine, nicotine, amphetamines/ Runnin’ through my bloodstream/ Trauma, drama, another vodka/ Turn into a monster.”

Yet Gontier won’t call it autobiographical, following his well-documented struggle with addiction in the late aughts.

“I feel like everybody goes through the things that that song talks about,” he said. “Some nights, it’s tough, and in some days, you’ve got to get through it and just look to the good and get through the tough times.”

The new album is set for release on Aug. 22.

Reflecting on his years of addiction, Gontier said the anxiety of being an artist bent on creating music was compounded by a difficult private life at the time.

“On top of the music thing there was back then, my home life was in rough shape too, so that didn’t help,” he said. “There was a lot going on. So just getting thrown into the music world and touring and just blowing up and that sort of thing. It was a lot for sure.”

Gontier adds that time away from the music business, getting married, and fathering two children changed his outlook on life, without compromising the band’s music.

“We use it as an outlet to get stuff out, and no matter what your life looks like from the outside, there’s always stuff to write about,” he said. “Whether it’s personal stuff or stuff that’s going on in the world or whatever.”

The band recorded their new album in tandem with a team of well-established producers, including Howard Benson, Dan Lancaster and Zakk Cervini, who all worked with post-grunge bands, most associated with the Three Days Grace sound.

But the band, Walst said, doesn’t relinquish its songs to the producers and keeps control of how they should sound.

“We always like to put them together in a demo and usually I think this time around the producers were there when we’re actually writing a few of these songs and like shaping them, and then we go into the studio and then record them, like, live and make them real,” he said.

The band’s long list of hit songs, including fan favourites like “I Hate Everything About You,” “Animal I Have Become,” or “I Am Machine,” makes it hard for the band to do a full balance of hit songs, new material and deep cuts for their current setlist.

For Walst, the key is not to disappoint fans.

“All the songs are hits pretty much, and you must play the songs that people want to hear. Like, if we don’t play “Never Too Late,” people would be like, ‘My God, they didn’t play that,’ so you got to do certain songs every night,” he said.

Their show at Place Bell showed the band found the perfect balance, as the crowd of nearly 8,000 sang along to every song, whether they were from the Walts’ years as the singer or Gontier’s, as the two strutted the stage in a high energy performance along with bandmates Neil Sanderson (drums) Brad Walst (bass) and Barry Stock.

The current tour began on June 7 in Vancouver and continued in Quebec City before heading to Toronto on June 19.

Further dates in London, Ottawa, and Fort McMurray follow before heading to the U.S. for this summer’s outdoor festivals.