Tour footage showing a fever pitch pit of fans screaming the songs back up to their ride or die band. All faces – on stage and in the pit – clearly showing this isn’t a game. This band’s music is life. For those up there playing it and those down there loving it. Devolution’s Jo Wright was nervous to interview vocalist Matt Walst– because his band is one of the biggest in the world. Three Days Grace have almost 18 million monthly Spotify listeners. ‘I Hate Everything About You’ has been streamed more than a billion – an actual billion – times. This band writes songs that win awards and reach triple platinum status. But, more importantly, they write songs that connect with – and sometimes save – those who listen.
‘When I was a teenager there were tough times and depression, and the music I was listening to is kind of what saved me,’ says Matt. ‘When we hear from our fans that we saved them in their dark times, that’s huge.’
Released via RCA Records, ‘Alienation’ is a textured record of crushing riffs, cutting lyrics, pace and power, reflection, rock – and truth. It isn’t gonna give Three Days Grace a place in rock and roll history – they earned that a long time ago. It is, however, their most full-blooded, all encompassing banger of a release because of its refusal to level up and stubborn resolve to go bigger and better. And because Adam’s back.
Yep, original Three Days Grace microphone masher Adam Gontier
‘It’s been amazing to see the crowds going crazy. It’s everything we imagined it would be. It’s been a lot of fun,’ smiles Matt, who’s super stoked to have him back. Does he feel he has to kinda outshine Adam on vox? Not really. They pull together and make the whole performance stronger.
‘There’s a little bit of less pressure, but it’s giving me the opportunity to put more into what I’m singing and what I’m doing up there on stage. After so many shows in a row your voice starts to fade a little bit and it gets tough, and you gotta struggle through, so it’s definitely helped out a lot,’ Matt says.
He adds, ‘It feels more like a team effort. We’re big sports fans, so we get the team vibe. It’s always been like that.’
The line-up, the album, the live shows – they’ve been going down a storm. ‘The reception we’ve had – the fans are loving it, we’re putting out music and people are excited about it – it’s been a lot of fun,’ says Matt. Just a quick peek at live footage from Three Days Grace’ recent gigs shows fans screaming the words back to their world famous faves.
‘Sometimes they’re louder than we are. It’s crazy!’ Matt laughs. ‘A lot of people even get band tattoos. We see a lot of ‘One-X’ (the band’s 2006 album) tattoos. I’ve seen a lot of ‘Outsider’ arrows (the cover art of their 2018 release shows four arrows). A lot of people do it and it means a lot to us.’
The whole of their new album is an absolute monster, but opener ‘Dominate’ is a complete beast of a way to kick the whole thing off. ‘That track, when we were making it, we were like, ‘this should be the first song on the album!’’ says Matt. ‘It’s so in your face, the riff right off the top and the intro to it, it’s pretty heavy.’ Yep, that’s one way of putting it, when the album fires up and the first line you hear is ‘here we fucking go!’ ‘Yeah, that’s a good start,’ smiles Matt. ‘The background to that is actually we played in Scotland a few years back and between every song the whole crowd was chanting, ‘here we, here we, here we fucking go!’ and that stuck in my head. I was like, ‘that’s such a great chant’, and for a while I wanted to put it in a song, and we wanted to write an anthem that was kind of like a sports anthem or a workout anthem, and I was like, ‘Hey we should put this in! This is the chance!’.
Tell us about some of the other tracks on the album Matt. ‘We felt like ‘Mayday’ was super in your face and heavy, and about kind of what was going on in the world at the time and not knowing who’s really at the wheel or flying the place,’ he says.
‘Don’t Wanna Go Home Tonight’ is Matt’s fave song on ‘Alienation’. He says, ‘It reminds me of where I grew up and of my friends growing up, and how we just didn’t care about what was going on. We were just living in the moment and not thinking about the future. It was awesome.’
Matt adds, ‘There’s a song called ‘Alienation’ on the record and I feel like a thread throughout Three Days Grace’s music is feeling alone or in a dark place that you need to get out of, so I feel it [the name] is a good representation of the record.’
Every single line on the album is clever and super meaningful. It gives you a lot to think about. Matt tells us its lyrics were a joint effort. ‘[On Mayday] I think I came up with the initial line ‘welcome to the world just take a number’ meaning at birth, but we changed it to ‘welcome to the end just take a number’ and kind of got the ball rolling on the verses. It’s kind of like social commentary on what goes on every day.’
It comes with a killer video too. ‘It’s kind of like a comedy and we’re not taking ourselves too seriously, so it was a lot of fun to make’ says Matt.
‘Alienation’ is the total Three Days Grace package influenced by their past, present and future. ‘It’s definitely very diverse and I think we touch ground on all things that have been past Three Days Grace too,’ Matt tells us.
‘I know so much more now than I did when I first started. You definitely evolve, but it’s a never ending learning process that you should never feel comfortable or think ‘this is where I’m at and I know the most I ever will’ – it will never be like that.’
That’s a great attitude to have isn’t it? You just can’t fault Matt. He’s such a sweet guy who focuses on both himself and his band becoming the best they can both be – and continually getting better. Me and Matt agree that you never stop learning, which is cool. But as you age, you do stop caring about the trivial stuff… ‘You definitely start to give a lot less fucks as you get older!’ laughs Matt.
But does touring take its toll when you’re not as young as you used to be? ‘When you’re up there it’s the best feeling in the world, so that’s why you keep doing it,’ he smiles.
And Matt and his band are gonna be about for a long time yet. Because no matter how good their new record is they won’t rest until they’ve bettered it. Again and again and again.
‘Alienation’ by Three Days Grace is out now via RCA Records
Interview by Jo Wright
Photo by Matt Barnes