Three Days Grace – Outsider


When anyone thinks about Three Days Grace, instantly one thinks of 2003’s ‘I Hate Everything About You’. The song came out in emo’s prime and it fit so well. Ever since releasing their debut self-titled album, the Canadian quartet has stayed true to their three-year interval on releases. Continue reading


On The Road… with Three Days Grace and Finger Eleven


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Now is a great time to be a fan of American Rock Music, which we haven’t really seen in a few years. After a real drought of new music or exciting bands the last few years, leave it to a pair of seasoned veterans acts to show the kids how it’s done. Three Days Grace is stronger than ever behind the power of their new album Human (RCA) and new singer Matt Walst. The band is killing it live and playing a career spanning set list of new tracks and fan favorites. They are tight as hell live, and bring a lot of energy live, especially Walst and guitarist Barry Stock. Having seen the band a few times recently, they are as on point as they have ever been, for the naysayers who have been lined up to diss since Walst joined the fold. Their friends and nearby neighbors (both bands are from Ontario, CAN) Finger Eleven also have a recent album out, the excellent Five Crooked Lines (The Bicycle Music Group). No strangers to consistent performances after years of touring, the band is remarkable in how they switch up their set from year to year and that’s a testament to their deep albums. Singer Scott Anderson works the crowd like a boxer; pacing himself and the band as the crowd gets increasingly amped up as the night goes on. Captured here at The Palladium in Worcester MA by Evil Robb Photography, you see two bands perfectly matched on a bill, and hungry to impress. See this tour if it comes to your town, or live to regret it.

 

Three Days Grace, by Evil Robb Photography

Three Days Grace, by Evil Robb Photography

Three Days Grace, by Evil Robb Photography

Three Days Grace, by Evil Robb Photography

Three Days Grace, by Evil Robb Photography

Three Days Grace, by Evil Robb Photography

 

Three Days Grace, by Evil Robb Photography 2015 (1)

Three Days Grace, by Evil Robb Photography

 

Three Days Grace, by Evil Robb Photography 2015 (1)

Three Days Grace, by Evil Robb Photography

Finger Eleven, by Evil Robb Photography

Finger Eleven, by Evil Robb Photography

Finger Eleven, by Evil Robb Photography

Finger Eleven, by Evil Robb Photography

Finger Eleven, by Evil Robb Photography

Finger Eleven, by Evil Robb Photography

Finger Eleven, by Evil Robb Photography

Finger Eleven, by Evil Robb Photography

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Music As Therapy – Three Days Grace


Photo Credit: Melinda Oswandel (via Facebook)

Photo Credit: Melinda Oswandel (via Facebook)

Longtime fans of Three Days Grace have made connections with their lyrics off of their songs from each of their recordings, and their latest album Human is no different. Having a new vocalist (Matt Walst) added into the fold did not change the inner dynamics of the band, and according to guitarist Barry Stock, the band works as a team and has made the unit stronger.

Having a different person in Matt involved with us now, but we’ve never approached anything any different. We’re still doing everything the same exact way we’ve always written. As a band, it’s never been about one person. We always collectively write, as I said. It’s about the band.

He spoke about how writing songs for the band has been therapeutic for everyone, and has transcended to their longtime fans, as they have found them interacting with the band about a variety of songs being relatable within everyday life.

We also use music as a therapy. We always have and for us, nothing changed. We went through a lot of things the last few years of our lives, and we dug down deep into things that bother us and things we deal with. For us, we express the things that go on in our lives. I think that’s why a lot of people relate to our lyrics because we sing about every day things we go through. Things may change time to time, but our process is still the same. Like I said, we still get together and we sing about the things that are bugging us. We dig down and pull things out of us.

For us, we feel it’s the same. Obviously it’s a whole new record and a whole new time in our lives but nothing’s changed in the process of how we write the songs,” said Stock.

One of their newer songs with a deeper story is “Fallen Angel,” which talks about one of the member’s family member and their background they never shared publicly until now.

That song really was about Neil’s [Sanderson] mother. We pulled this out of him. He had this thing about his father passed when he was young and he lost a brother as well. His mother was dealing with all of this and was strong for the kids, like you listen to the lyrics and how he’s talking about ‘I can hear you crying at night’ and stuff like that – that’s really where that came from. Neil remembers this as a child as he goes to bed at night and his mom is cool and tough for the kids all day long, but he’d go to bed at night and he would hear his mother crying. He had this helpless feeling all the time. He had that inside all of these years.

Again we use music as therapy and now it’s one of those things we were able to bring out. Neil was able to express and we wrote a song about it. That’s what ‘Fallen Angel’ is about – seeing somebody going through horrible things and feeling helpless.

By Rei Nishimoto


Three Days Grace Talks Band History, Reaching New Fans


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Canadian rockers Three Days Grace have released their fifth and latest album Human earlier in the year. This marks their first album without longtime vocalist Adam Gontier (replaced by Matt Walst), and their first lineup change in the band’s 12 year history.

The first record came out in 2003. The other guys met when they were kids in Grade 9. I think they were all playing together. It’s probably around 1994 when they originally hooked up with each other. In 1997, they became a band,” explained guitarist Barry Stock, about the band’s history. Stock joined the band in 2003 as the band’s lead guitarist during the release of their debut self titled album.

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While the band has scored multiple platinum status albums over the years, they have never let their past success affect how they approach their present status.

We don’t take anything for granted,” he said, about what they went through over the past couple of years. “We’re all kind of workaholics and work really hard at what we do. We love what we do. I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I don’t know what else we would do.

We’re always thrilled that we’re still relevant and people still love what we do. We hear from people all the time [about] how we’ve changed their lives and made things better through our lyrics. That’s really important to us. Just like I said, we don’t over think it but we keep working really hard at songwriting and we do the best we could do. We’re going to carry on as long as the fans gonna accept it.

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At the time of the interview, the band had just completed a run of dates in South America. Stock talked about the experience and reaching new fans.

We’re in New York City tonight, but we just got back from South America the other night. It was our first little tour on this record. We hadn’t been to Argentina. We went there and it was amazing. Originally we were like the record’s not out…should we play the new ones or play the singles? Once we got there, we thought let’s just play half a dozen new songs. So we did that. So far in South America, we played six new songs in the set. It’s been greatly received. People are digging it, even though they haven’t had a chance to hear some of the other ones. It was really cool to be able to play some of them live, even if people haven’t heard them yet. For a band, you play the same music over and over, it’s always fun when you do a new record. We were looking forward to that. The coolest part is to get out-of-town and to play a bunch of new stuff for people.

Since their earlier releases, Three Days Grace had not toured extensively internationally. While they have had high-profile records across North America, their focus has now switched over towards the overseas route and Stock and the band are excited to perform for new fans.

This time around, on this record we’ve thought ‘you know, we pounded it out so hard in North America for years and years, and we’ll continue to do so. We didn’t hit a lot of places. We have so many fans all over the world who have been hounding us for years and years to play. We just didn’t make it happen. So that’s definitely our goal on this new record is to reach out to places we’ve never been, or we haven’t been to in a long time. We were in Russia in the fall. That was our first time there. It was overwhelmingly amazing. We were super accepted. It was a cool one for us. Now we just got back from Argentina and Brazil, where we haven’t been back to since 2004. The fans are just going crazy.

Like I said, that’s our goal. We’re constantly, between us and management, trying to find new places and reaching out to these places. That’s what we’re going to do for the next two years, and obviously continue what we’re doing here. We’re going to Europe in June. We have a bunch of the festivals we’re doing over there, and a whole bunch of countries again we’ve never been to. We’re excited about trying to reach out to as many of these fans that have never been able to see us live. Live is our most favorite thing to do. We love to do it and we love to share that with people. To us there’s nothing greater than having your fans sing and having a great time with you. We need to reach out to all of those people. That’s our goal this time.

By Rei Nishimoto


Only Human: Barry Stock of Three Days Grace


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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)

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.

three days grace human

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.

By Rei Nishimoto


Three Days Grace Launch Human Pre Order


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Three Days Grace has launched the pre-order of their new album Human via iTunes and Amazon, and will receive “I Am Machine” and “Painkiller” with their pre-order. The album is out on March 31, 2015 via RCA Records. Watch the album trailer for Human here.

A limited edition 2 CD deluxe edition of Human will be available on the band’s website, which includes a second disc including live versions of “Painkiller,” “Let Me Down,” “Every Other Weekend” and an alternate recording of the album track “Human Race.” In addition to the music, the deluxe package includes a custom woven beanie, 12″ x 12” window cling sticker featuring album art, and a 5 card set featuring picture and note from each band member.

Human was produced by Gavin Brown, who previously worked on their 2003 self titled debut album. Music heavyweights Nick Raskulinecz and Chris Lorde Alge signed on to mix the album. The band has spent much of the year vigorously touring, writing and recording their new album.

Three Days Grace is Matt Walst (lead vocals), Neil Sanderson (drums, piano, backing vocals), Brad Walst (bass guitar), and Barry Stock (lead guitar).

Human Album Track Listing
1. Human Race
2. Painkiller
3. Fallen Angel
4. Landmine
5. Tell Me Why
6. I Am Machine
7. So What
8. Car Crash
9. Nothing’s Fair In Love And War
10. One Too Many
11. The End Is Not The Answer
12. The Real You
DELUXE EDITION DISC 2:
1. Every Other Weekend
2. Painkiller (Live)
3. Let Me Down (Live)
4. Human Race (Atmosphere Version)

Mar 21: Lollapolooza Argentina – Buenos Aires, ARG
Mar 22: Lollapolooza Argentina – Buenos Aires, ARG
Mar 28: Lollapolooza Brazil – Sao Paulo, BRA
Mar 29: Lollapolooza Brazil – Sao Paulo, BRA
Apr 09: X103.9 Spring Break Luau – Riverside, CA
Apr 10: House of Blues – San Diego, CA
Apr 11: UFest @ Quail Run Sports Complex – Mesa, AZ
Apr 13: Knitting Factory – Reno, NV
Apr 14: The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA
Apr 16: Blazefest – Fresno, CA
Apr 17: The Joint At Hard Rock & Casino – Las Vegas, NV
Apr 18: KFMA Day – Tucson, AZ
Apr 19: 34th Annual FMX Birthday Bash – Lubbock, TX
Apr 21: Rock 108 Birthday Bash – Abilene, TX
Apr 22: Caliente At The Siesta Lot – San Antonio, TX
Apr 23: Bomb Factory – Dallas, TX
May 09: Northern Invasion – Somerset, WI
May 10: WJJO Mayday Maylay – Madison, WI
Jun 04: Rock In Vienna – Vienna, AUS
Jun 05: Rock For People – Hradel Kralove, CZ
Jun 06: Rock Am Ring 2015 – Mendig, DE
Jun 07: Rock Im Park 2015 – Nuremburg, DE
Jun 12: Orange Warsaw Festival – Warsaw, PL
Jun 20: Burlington Steamboat Days – Burlington, IA

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Three Days Grace Releasing Human on March 31st


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Three Days Grace will be releasing their new album Human on March 31, 2015 via RCA. The album is their first with new singer Matt Walst. Stream “Painkiller” here and their current single “I Am Machine” here, produced by Gavin Brown and mixed by Chris Lord-Alge.

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Watch lyrics videos for “I Am Machine” here and “Painkiller” here.

three days grace i am machine es3hqrThe band is rounded out by Neil Sanderson (drums, piano, backing vocals), Brad Walst (bass) and Barry Stock (lead guitar).

The band has upcoming show dates posted below.

Mar 21: Lollapolooza Argentina – Buenos Aires, ARG
Mar 22: Lollapolooza Argentina – Buenos Aires, ARG
Mar 28: Lollapolooza Brazil – Sao Paulo, BRA
Mar 29: Lollapolooza Brazil – Sao Paulo, BRA
Apr 09: X103.9 Spring Break Luau – Riverside, CA
Apr 10: House of Blues – San Diego, CA
Apr 11: UFest @ Quail Run Sports Complex – Mesa, AZ
Apr 13: Knitting Factory – Reno, NV
Apr 14: The Fillmore – San Francisco, CA
Apr 16: Blazefest – Fresno, CA
Apr 17: The Joint At Hard Rock & Casino – Las Vegas, NV
Apr 18: KFMA Day – Tucson, AZ
Apr 19: 34th Annual FMX Birthday Bash – Lubbock, TX
Apr 21: Rock 108 Birthday Bash – Abilene, TX
Apr 22: Caliente At The Siesta Lot – San Antonio, TX
Apr 23: Bomb Factory – Dallas, TX
May 09: Northern Invasion – Somerset, WI
May 10: WJJO Mayday Maylay – Madison, WI
Jun 04: Rock In Vienna – Vienna, AUS
Jun 05: Rock For People – Hradel Kralove, CZ
Jun 06: Rock Am Ring 2015 – Mendig, DE
Jun 07: Rock Im Park 2015 – Nuremburg, DE
Jun 12: Orange Warsaw Festival – Warsaw, PL
Jun 20: Burlington Steamboat Days – Burlington, IA