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Profiles: The Brutal Truth
Three Days Grace
As Adam Gontier and his "Hate" crew
Learned, sometimes when
You hit the road, the road hits back.
"There's not a lot to do in a town like that," Adam says in a deep gravelly drawl. It's just before midnight, and the vocalist-guitarist is sitting in a hotel room in Los Angeles recalling Norwood, Ontario, the one-stoplight town-currently home to a whopping 1,500 people-that he grew up in. "Either you're playing sports, you're playing music, you go off to a university, or you turn into a druggie. For us, it was music. Soundgarden, Dinosaur Jr, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Nirvana-all those bands had a really big influence on us. We used music as an escape."
Thusly inspired, Gontier formed Three Days Grace at age 14 and, shortly after high school, escaped Norwood's mundane environment. Moving to Toronto, Gontier and his bandmates befriended Gavin Brown, a Canadian music-industry vet who helped them get a record deal and produced their 2003 self-titled debut. The disc contained a deep supply of crunchy alt-metal anthems, foremost among them "I Hate Everything About You," a monstrous lead single that helped win the band heavy radio airplay and platinum-plus sales. Following the albums release, as Three Days Grace hit the road for nearly two years straight, it appeared that Gontier's boyhood dreams of becoming a rock star were finally becoming a reality.
Yet, as he tells Revolver in the conversation that follows, the very adult lifestyle that Gontier was indulging in while out on tour was growing increasingly dark, as he became both emotionally despondent and noticeably dependent on drugs and alcohol. "The road can be a lonely place," Gontier says, letting out a heavy sigh. "From the outside, it seems amazing, but it can be tough."
At the urging of his bandmates and friends, the frontman checked himself into a rehab center, where he cleaned up and began writing songs fro Three Days Grace's sophomore effort, One-X(Jive). Released earlier this year, the album is filled the album is filled with fist-pumping lyrics that recount both Gontier's path to near-oblivion and his road back to sobriety. It's a journey that the now-28-year-old frontman hopes will help other addicts kick their habits. To that end, he's spent the past few months performing acoustic sets in various rehab centers across the country, telling the story of his recovery and playing the songs that were born out of it.

Revolver A lot of people seem to think that Three Days Grace formed a couple of years ago and sold a million records overnight. But you have actually been at this since you were 14. Tell me a little about the band's early days.
Adam Gontier When we first started, we used to play any gig that we could get our hands on. We did a couple wedding. One time, we opened for a movie, which was really weird. We played volleyball tournaments in the small town we were from. We would play little redneck bars on weekends up in the middle of nowhere, playing cover music to make money. Then, eventually, we started writing out own music and tried to get it out there.

Most people were introduced to Three Days Grace through "I Hate Everything About You," which became a huge commercial hit for you guys. Do you remember the first time you heard that song on the radio?
Yeah. I was on a multi-lane highway that runs from Peterborough to Toronto. It freaked me out. It was really weird because I think it was squashed between Audioslave and Alice in Chains. Hearing our song between those two-that was big.

Most people assume that song is about a fight you had with your wife.
Yeah, I've heard that quite a few times. People ask me, "Is that about Naomi, your wife?" And it's not at all. It wasn't really directed at one person in particular. It was more directed toward a few different relationships that I had growing up, and I think it was the same with the other guys in the band. But it's not only [about] a relationship with a person. It could be a relationship with anything-a substance or anything that takes over your life.

Obviously, that song had a huge effect on the bands career. What was the best-and worst-part about selling a million copies of your first record?
The best part of selling a bunch of records is being able to show up in any city in the U.S. and have a lot of people come out and see your band. The worst thing is that when you're on the road, touring is pretty tough…being thrown into this touring world we weren't really used to, that took its toll onus after a while.

It's no secret that, a couple of years ago, you used drugs and alcohol to cope with life out on the road. How bad did things get for you?
It got pretty bad. I got really carried away and became a completely different person. I became a pretty selfish person on the road. I just didn't like it, and the people around me knew. They could see a change in me. So when we got off the road, I knew it was time, and I checked into rehab. Everybody sort of confronted me, and I just went in and fixed myself up.

How long were you in rehab?
It was about a month. I was in a 10-day detox, and then from there, it was a 20-day program.

How do you think that affected the writing of One-X?
I was writing lyrics while I was in there-basically, all the lyrics are from my journal-so the record is really, really personal. It's a lot more personal that the first record. So far, the reaction [to that] has been amazing. We've been touring for the past four or five months, and so many fans have come up to me and said certain songs have helped them through really tough times. It's pretty incredible to hear. A few people have said that it's actually saved their lives.

This past fall, as a way to give back to that community, you started playing a string of shows in rehab centers. How's that been working out?
It's been awesome, man. The first one that we did was in Salt Lake City, and I would say there was a couple hundred people there. [At first] it was really, really tough. I didn't really know what to except. I was going into it sort of blind because we had never done anything like it before. [And after we played,] we had a big question-and-answer period, which was crazy. I answered all these questions about my personal life and about everything I had been through. It was definitely hard, but at the same time, it was pretty therapeutic.

What was one of the most difficult questions you had to answer?
"How do you start a new life?" That's the toughest question. It's hard for me to really answer because I've been lucky enough to use music as an outlet throughout this whole thing. I always tell them it's about trying to find something that you love, and put all of your energy and effort into that-and not into other things. [Laughs]

So far, how has being clean affected you life with the band?
Since I've been clean, I fell something from every single show that we play. Before, when I was using, we were playing in front of 15,000 people, and I wasn't feeling a thing. It didn't mean anything to me. I would get on stage and I would have no feeling about it. It was terrible. Since I've been back out on the road, every show, I feel it. I'm not numb to everything that's going on around me.

At this point in your career, what artist do you look at and think, That's what I want?
You know, we played two shows with the Rolling Stones in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, and we had a chance to hang out with them for a few minutes. Watching them perform, that's when I was actually saying to myself, That's what I want to be doing, man. I want to be playing music until I can't-until I physically can't pick up my guitar anymore.
Trevor Kelly

Handsome Devil In October 2004, Chart magazine dubbed Adam Gontier Canada's "sexiest musician," placing him on the cover alongside singer Emily Haines of new-wave act Metric. The irony for Gontier, however, was that Three Days Grace had received a rather scathing write-up in the magazine a few years prior. "One of the writers completely carved out band," he recalls. "It's funny to see that the same magazine saying that I'm 'the sexiest Canadian musician.' I took it with a grain of salt." TK