New beginnings can be a blessing for many, and in the case of Canadian rockers Three Days Grace, they have spent the past couple of years regrouping following the departure of their longtime frontman Adam Gontier, who left in 2013 (and now in Saint Asonia). The remaining members began working on new material with their new frontman (and brother of bassist Brad Walst), Matt Walst, on their new album titled Human.
Guitarist Barry Stock explained how their first lineup change since the band’s formation in 1997 became a reflection on themselves and a time to refocus.
“Obviously with what’s going on and with our singer, it’s been an exciting time. We went through all emotions in the last two years, many ups and downs for obvious reasons, but for us this record’s been super exciting for us. It’s been a long process for us.”
“Generally when we write a record, we don’t write too much on the road. We get off the road and we all get together and put the record together. This time when we did this record, when we started touring with Matt [Walst], we started writing right away. It was almost two years ago.”
“ ‘Painkiller’ was one of our very first ideas. Matt had this idea and we’re like ‘oh cool – let’s write that!’ Then we wrote a few others, as opposed to waiting like we normally do, we thought this is really exciting. Let’s get into the studio and see how this goes. We went into the studio and then knocked out ‘Painkiller’ and a couple others. When ‘Painkiller’ was done, we thought wow. What a bad ass song. We still have to get this out and that’s why we didn’t wait for a record release to release the single. We thought people need to hear this. We were really excited and moving forward, how it was going, somebody wanted to get that out right away and that’s why it came out so early.”
Barry Stock of Three Days Grace. Photo Credit: Melinda Oswandel (via Facebook)
The band looked within their immediately band family for their new frontman. They looked to a familiar personality to sing when their previous one was on the outs with them.
“It kind of worked out perfect at the time. When we got the news when it all went down, Matt happened to have some free time. He wasn’t touring or anything himself. He happened to be Brad’s [Walst, bass] brother and happened to be with him when we got the news. I think they were having sushi together. Brad got off the phone and just said to Matt, ‘what are you doing for the next six months, or two years?’ Matt was like ‘let’s do this.’ He was really cool about it too.”
“We didn’t seem to audition anyone. Matt seemed to be a great choice. He’s a great guy and great singer. Matt’s been there since Day One and being Brad’s brother. Matt co-wrote on the first record (2003’s Three Days Grace) and on the last record (2012’s Transit of Venus). He’s been there all along. He also knows, being a family member, when we sing all the songs we sing, he knows exactly where they come from in our lives and what they were written about. He has a great understanding of the songs themselves, so it seemed perfect. So he shares the same passion that we do. He lives the same stories that we live. He’s lived it too. It seemed to be perfect. It seemed to fall into place.”
With the new frontman in place, they still worked as a group on the songwriting. Despite the new band member, Stock claims their writing approach have not changed much.
“With Three Days Grace, we do everything the same we’ve always done it. Three Days Grace has never been about one person. It’s always been a group of us – we’re all songwriters and musicians. Everyone can play multi-instruments and we all write lyrics and music. That’s how we’ve always since day one with Three Days Grace. We all collectively write when we write songs. There’s no one person comes in with a whole song.”
“We all come up with ideas and we all collectively get together to throw ideas out there. We’ll pick and choose what ideas we want to go with. But like I said, we always sit down and wrote together, generally with acoustic guitars and we’ll hash out a song. We’ve always kept that approach. Matt being around since day one and as Brad’s brother, he understood how we worked as well. When Matt came into play, he became like one of us. This is how we do it. It’s not about one person. We all leave our egos at the door when we come in the room and it’s always about what’s best for Three Days Grace. Still to this day, we approach that same thing and Matt blended in perfect. He’s got great ideas and he’s a great contributor as well. So nothing’s really changed when it comes to the songwriting.”
Stock was vague on the subject of his former singer and his parting from Three Days Grace. Despite leaving for personal reasons, he wished him well and felt both parties were in better positions now.
“We kind of went our separate ways,” he said. “Just the way it went down wasn’t great. Looking back it seemed terrible back then, but we’re all over that too. It seems like everybody’s in a happier place. We have mutual friends and Adam does too, so we hear what’s going on. It seems like he’s in a happier place. What seemed so disastrous back then, being able to look back now everybody overall is in a better place and happier. That’s what’s most important. Life is very short and we don’t have time to be dwelling on past things.”
“There’s been some contact, like I said between mutual friends. You’re going to bump into each other. It’s going to be ok on both sides.”