Directory:LiveDaily.com/Interview: Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace

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Interview: Adam Gontier of Three Days Grace

January 11, 2007 01:45 PM by Christina Fuoco LiveDaily Contributor

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After struggling for years with addiction, Three Days Grace frontman Adam Gontier is thankful for the help he received from Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health Queen Street facility. He's so grateful that, during his North American tour, he is bypassing the usual afternoon acoustic radio performances to play for rehab and mental-health facilities, as well as homes for troubled children.

"The tours are normally set up where you go to radio stations during the day; you do the typical kind of acoustic thing," Gontier told LiveDaily last month, shortly after his group won a Billboard award for the single "Animal I Have Become." "This was a way for me to sort of give back to that community that turned my life around."

"It was just something that I thought I'd like to do, so I set it up. The biggest thing about it is I want to let kids know and people know that they can talk about it.'"

Gontier--who is joined in the band by drummer/vocalist Neil Sanderson, bassist Brad Walst and guitarist Barry Stock--talked to LiveDaily about his sobriety, the songwriting process for Three Days Grace's latest album, "One-X," and hanging out on MySpace.

LiveDaily: Depression, addiction, those are both "taboo" subjects to talk about. I think that's honorable that you're publicly discussing your problems.

Adam Gontier: That's the biggest thing. People don't want to talk about it, and you have to--especially if you're going through it. You really have to get it out, you know.

How long ago were you hospitalized?

A year and eight months ago.

How are you doing?

I'm doing well. I've been clean since then. I haven't touched anything. I've been doing really well.

I would say that your addiction and subsequent recovery is definitely reflected in the album.

Oh yeah, the lyrics were all sort of written while I was going through that period. It's a really personal record. It's got a lot of my, sort of, journal entries from the last couple years.

The songs "Get Out Alive" and "Time of Dying" are intensely personal..

Yep. Yep for sure. There's a lot of them. "Never Too Late" is another one that hits home as well. It's cool to be able to get up on stage every night and play the songs. It's a way to get things off my chest. It's cool because people relate to it sort of on their own level.

Have you had a lot of fans share their stories with you?

Yeah, quite a few. I spend a lot of time on the Internet, on MySpace, talking to fans and trying to stay connected to them. It's pretty amazing.

Describe the songwriting process for Three Days Grace.

It's kind of all over the place. There's not one specific style that we use. We tend to sit together with guitars and a hand drum and whoever has an idea throws an idea out there, whether it's musically or melody or something like that. Generally, the lyrics are written separate from the music. After music's been written or before it doesn't really matter. We sit together and come up with the music and lyrics. I write lyrics sometimes during the day, on the bus whenever. It's all over the place.

What was it like to work with producer Howard Benson?

He's a really great producer He's got great ears. He's done a few really good records and he really focuses on the vocals and the melodies and the harmonies. It was really great to work with a producer that was really vocal-centric.

What was the most important thing you think you learned from him?

I think the biggest thing I learned from working with him is there's so much you can do with your voice and there's so many different weird harmonies. There's things out there that a lot of singers and bands don't use. He introduced me to different melodies and harmonies and different ways of doing things.

You're touring with Nickelback and Breaking Benjamin soon. What will you do when the tour ends?

Probably still be on tour. I don't know exactly where we're going to be. Australia, maybe overseas. It all depends really. I'm sure we'll be on the road somewhere.

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