Living with Grace - Adam Gontier's Last Show with Three Days Grace
Dean Unger (From the Gonzo Magazine archives, November, 2013)
“In Life, as in Dance, Grace glides on blistered feet.” -Alice Abrams-
As the bus plows ahead into the late night, you can feel the tires streaming over the endless road coursing past beneath. The show is over. The torrent of music and the roaring crowd still rings in your ears, drowning out the pensive silence. You lay in your bed. You're glad it went without a hitch. Things have died down, and everyone is asleep.
The city lights are somewhere far behind, replaced now with trees and mountains. You watch the moon as it passes behind the forest... The next city is, as yet, some far-away surreal destination. The nervous tugging in your gut never leaves, but not for having to play on stage, in front of tens of thousands, but to think of the ones you love - your wife and children - sleeping in their beds on the other side of the world... Waiting.
Home never seemed so far away.
In those moments, the call of the road reveals the cost of success.
The heavy, vault-like tour bus door swings open and I see a distinct “KR” emblazoned on the inside of the door. A quick inventory of band member names leaves me confused, initially, as to their significance. Three Days Grace front-man, Adam Gontier, is sitting on one of two leather sofas lining either side of the bus. He smiles and introduces himself. He motions to the empty couch and sits back down. On the couch beside him is an ash tray and a full bottle of water. Beside it lay two tangled video game paddles. A flat-screen television flashes mid-game scores of an interrupted video game.
It's T-minus three hours until they hit the stage, and the pre-show intensity shows through a little. The stoic and determined focus of men with command presence does not entirely hide that they're tired, road-weary, and with the pangs of home tugging at their hearts.
“None of that matters when we get on stage,” says Gontier. “To walk on that stage, when the lights go on, and the guitars shine, you light into a song and the fans are singing with you - singing your songs. Suddenly you realize there's a little bit of home every place you play.”
Despite his words, I could see he didn't fully buy into what he was saying. It's been a long tour, and this is their last show before returning home.
A generator hums at the back of the bus, such that you could well imagine the thick silence that would descend after its mindless drone is killed, thus concluding a long day of driving.
“We’ve been at it for a long time,” Gontier confides. “We met in ’94, and moved to Toronto, to try and connect with the music scene. It was a tough go. After a while we were not practicing together anymore. Everyone had day jobs. There was this feeling like we might not survive as a band. Myself, I was going to do music of some kind, regardless. It was my sole focus. But collectively, we felt like it was almost done. Then, one night we had some luck. We met a (talent) manager at one of the clubs we played, and he said he could help us out.”
Pre-show sound check. This was the final show with guitarist and front-man, Adam Gontier.
Via this manager the band was introduced to Producer, Gavin Brown, who recorded their first, self-titled album. “It was really about being in the right place at the right time. You try to do all the right things, day-in and day-out, and be dedicated to the craft, but when it’s all said and done the final element is luck: Luck and relationships.”
“We’ve sacrificed a lot over the years to make this whole thing work. Family relationships have taken a beating. We don’t see our families often, and when we do, it’s for short periods of time, then we’re gone again. I also sacrificed my health and my happiness there for a while,” Gontier says.
From Western Canada, Grace is off to the mid-west (U.S.) where they’ll hook up with Breaking Benjamin for a co-headline tour, along with Flyleaf. After that it's on to Erie, PA.; Albany, New York; and Wilkes-Barre, PA., again, arm-in-arm with Flyleaf, where they'll both join Chevelle, a band that Gontier says shares some fundamental similarity in their style of music and craft. We’ve played shows with these guys before, so we know a little bit about what we’re getting ourselves into.”
“Our influences are pretty clear. When we first started, we were really all about Grunge, and the Seattle music scene in the mid 90s. Our songs, our writing, is about real emotions; real life (pathos). We want our songs to feel real to people.
For many artists, writing is a solitary exercise or, at best, a collaboration between two band mates who are lyrically inclined. “When we’re writing songs, we start with ideas. We mix it up. Everyone contributes. Sometimes one of us will bring inspiration. Then there are times when everyone is throwing ideas into the mix, and we have to reel it in a little. It can get a little out of hand. For instance, a while ago, we were working on a politically charged song about the U.S.. It was called America. When it came time to make our decision about what we would bring to the studio, this one never made it. We took a good hard look at it and decided it was just too much, so we left it behind. We loved it at the time, we even demo’d it thinking it would make the cut.
“When it comes time to record, no matter how much we like, or don’t like a song, we really don’t know what’s going to make the album and what’s not. You end up in the studio with the producer and sometimes feel like he's taking you somewhere you don’t especially want to go. The paradox is that’s what we pay them to do, to come in and challenge the way we’re thinking about the music.”
For Grace, paradox has a name: Howard Benson. Benson worked with them on One-X, and was again asked to play chef for Life Starts Now.
“My best studio experience... When we did our first record we spent some time outside of Boston at Long View Farms Studios, where the Stones had come in to rehearse and record the Tattoo You album, in 1981. It was a big deal for us. This old cat behind the board at the time was in charge of all the gear (while Tattoo You was being recorded). Now though, turns out the guy was a little deaf, and the mix wasn’t really working for us.” After some conjecture, the band packed up and went to upstate New York, where they successfully completed Three Days Grace, at Bearsville Studios, near Woodstock.
“One of my favourite records of all-time – Jeff Buckley’s Grace, was recorded at Bearsville. For me, it was one of the coolest things in my musical experience, to be in a position to step into the studio where Buckley recorded Grace.”
Despite living in a time when celebrity presence in the music world can be fleeting, Gontier says he hopes history will be kind to Three Days Grace.
“I don’t like to over-think it though. We want to make good records, and have people listen to those records. The way we now listen to modern classic records – Sabbath, Zeppelin, Beatles - is different than the way we listen to music today. I don’t think it’ll ever be like that again. Now, everything is so incredibly shiny and false. There was something more real, more tangible back then. It seems to be all about writing the single, not the album as it once was.”
“To me there’s a lot more backbone in rock than the shiny stuff. It’s the toughest thing to have longevity in this business. We come from a very real place, but when the entire industry is sort of masked by stuff that’s superficial, its hard to convince people you’re real. It means just getting out on the road and proving you’re a band, day after day,” Gontier says, looking around the bus.
“It used to be Kid Rock’s,” he says, speaking of the bus. Before that, I think it belonged to a few other touring musicians. I asked them to change the sheets when I got it!” (laughs).
I picked it up so the family could come along once in a while, take the pressure off not seeing each other for so long; to make that situation a little better.
This was Gontier's last show with the band. He was going home, he said, to take care of his family.