Last week, something happened in Huntsville, Ala., that fans of Three Days Grace thought might never happen: Adam Gontier reunited with the band.
On Thursday April 19, near the end of Three Days Grace’s set at Propst Arena, Gontier—the original singer of Three Days Grace who left the band in 2013—joined his former bandmates for two powerful performances of “Never Too Late” and “Riot.”
“It felt great, man,” Gontier told Chuck Armstrong in an exclusive interview on Friday night’s edition of Loudwire Nights (April 28). “It had been so long. The last year or so, we’ve been talking a lot about getting together, doing that sort of thing. It felt pretty amazing to sing a couple of songs onstage with those guys. It was a pretty awesome moment for sure.
Though Gontier and the band had been talking for a while about this possibility, they never made any concrete plans. Instead, they were simply waiting for the right time that made sense for everyone.
“They came through Huntsville and I live in Nashville and they just asked if I wanted to come and get up onstage and do something,” Gontier said. “Of course I agreed. It was a lot of fun. We haven’t really been in the same room together in about 10 years—it was quite the experience for sure.”
Whether it was with Three Days Grace or his current band, Saint Asonia, Gontier is no stranger to performing in front of thousands of fans. But this particular show brought back a bit of nervousness when he realized it was actually going to happen.
“There were some nerves beforehand, for sure,” he admitted, “just for that reason that we hadn’t all been in the same space for quite a while. There were some nerves on the way there and before getting up onstage, but once I got up and started to sing, it became pretty comfortable. It’s like riding a bike, man, you never forget how to do it and I’ve been doing it over the years so it felt pretty natural to get back up there.”
He told Chuck that the nervousness he felt wasn’t about singing the songs but simply about the significance of the reunion.
“It’s a pretty big moment to share,” he said. “We were all a little bit nervous about the entire thing, you know? In the end, it was amazing. It was pretty epic—a lot of fun. [Bassist] Brad [Walst] and I, we’ve been pretty close friends for a long, long time. We were friends in high school and I knew [singer] Matt [Walst] when he was a little guy. It was pretty wild to just be in that whole scenario and how everything kind of comes full circle. It’s crazy stuff.”
As he’s been staying in touch with the members of Three Days Grace over the last couple of years, a major change occurred in his relationship with drummer Neil Sanderson, and that’s the simple fact that they were able to bury the hatchet and move forward from any tension their friendship previously had. Now with this onstage reunion under their belts and friendships rekindled in a fresh, new way, fans wonder if there is more to expect from Three Days Grace and Gontier down the road.
Gontier isn’t sure—but he is comfortable leaving the door open.
“We chatted a little bit about the possibility of doing some stuff in the future,” he explained to Chuck, “but we’re not 100-percent sure what that would look like, exactly when that would be. It’s hard to say right now. They’re pretty busy doing their thing for their newest album and I’ve got Saint Asonia going full steam right now and another side project. It’s definitely tough to say. Anything’s possible … We’ll see what happens.”
It’s Going to Be a Busy 2023 For Adam Gontier
A week after the onstage reunion with Three Days Grace, Gontier was on the road kicking off a run of dates in Canada with Saint Asonia. They’re touring in support of their two EPs they released in 2022, Introvert and Extrovert. While fans may have expected a more typical full-length album from them, Gontier is happy that they decided to release their new music in two smaller installments.
“With the pandemic happening…we knew there would be a lot of artists putting out music [at the end of it] and we didn’t want to overdo it,” he said. “We had a bunch of songs, we had probably written about 12 or 15 songs over the pandemic. We had them ready to go, we just figured it would be easier for fans and new fans to digest if we sort of put out an EP with a few songs. We always had the intention of putting out a second one, too.”
The latest song that has caught a lot of attention for Saint Asonia is the opening track on Extrovert, “Devastate.” It was a cathartic track for Gontier to write because it allowed him to express some feelings about a few individuals in his life who had caused a lot of pain.
“[There were] a couple of people in particular that I spent years with that just seemed to leave a little path of destruction behind them wherever they went,” Gontier said. “I had some people that just really tried to bring me down over the years and that was, for me, what I wrote the song about, these people in my life that were just bad people. Evil.”
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Saint Asonia have a lot of plans for more live shows throughout the year, including playing some fairs in the states with Shinedown, and he hinted at a potential tour in the fall, too. In the midst of all of that, though, he’s also working on a new side project called DIVIIDEDBY with friend and musician, Jason Parsons.
“At the very beginning of 2020 when everybody was stuck at home not being able to go out, I connected with Jason from a band called USS,” he said on the show. “We sent some music back and forth. He’s a really great DJ and a great songwriter in general. We just started sending ideas back and forth … He asked me if I wanted to start working on music to see how it goes. We started writing some songs and we got some demos done.”
Gontier seems really excited about the new music with DIVIIDEDBY because it’s going to be different than anything he’s done in the past. The way he describes it, fans should expect a more alternative sound, “a bit more like Twenty One Pilots with some pretty cool beats and guitar … It’s pretty powerful stuff.”
He’s still doing a lot of singing with the new project; as of right now, they only have one show scheduled, but they’re hoping to get an EP out and schedule more concerts this year.
“I’m proud of the music we’ve done so far. It’s going to be a lot of fun to introduce DIVIIDEDBY to people.”
Adam Gontier joined Chuck Armstrong for Loudwire Nights on Friday, April 28; the show replays online here, and you can tune in live every weeknight at 7PM ET or on the Loudwire app; you can also see if the show is available on your local radio station. Stream Saint Asonia’s EP, Extrovert, at this location and then check out their full tour schedule.
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