Three Days Grace Deal With Loss on ‘Life Starts Now’

Three Days Grace's 2003 self-titled debut dealt with the behind-closed-doors quirks of their small-town life in Norwood, Ontario; their second, 2006's 'One-X,' the temptations and stress of being in an internationally successful rock band, namely frontman Adam Gontier's addiction to painkillers and subsequent recovery. So what was going on in the lives of Gontier, bassist Brad Walst, guitarist Barry Stock and drummer Neil Sanderson during the writing phase of the new album, 'Life Starts Now'?

"We spent probably eight, nine, maybe 10, months writing the record, and there was a lot going on," says Gontier. "All of us in the band have had a lot of things to deal with in our personal lives. We've got family members that have fallen very ill over the last while. All of us have been through that sort of thing, where there is a lot of sickness in our family and people passing on. So lyrically that's where the inspiration for this record came from.

"It's not just about that stuff," he adds, "but that was the basis of what we wanted to write about for this record."

'World So Cold' is one of the most personal songs on the album for Gontier. "Like I was saying, we've dealt with a lot of different things in the last little while, losing people. I wanted to write a song that was about how your world changes so quickly, when somebody that you love, or somebody that's been in your life for so long, disappears and that song is about that."

As he says, there are also songs on 'Life Starts Now' that don't have anything to do with death or disease. 'Bitter Taste,' he says, is about being stabbed in the back by someone you trusted. "That's is a pretty personal one, too," he says with a laugh. 'Break' is about getting away from everyday routine, "the box you feel you're in sometimes," he explains.

Gontier says that writing about these subjects definitely helps him deal with such difficult times. "It's tough because for each one of us. In our personal lives, we're pretty strong people and we try to keep things together on a personal level with our loved ones, our family. And I think when we get together as a band and write, for every one of us, it's a way to get a lot of feelings out that we wouldn't normally be able to."