There’s been no stopping Three Days Grace these past few months. Their first single “(I Hate) Everything About You,” is on every rock radio station’s hit list, the accompanying video is currently #2 on the Muchmusic countdown and they’re playing a whack of shows across the United States. They recently stopped off in Toronto for one day to shoot their new video, “Just Like You,” and were greeted with plaques and a photoshoot. Their self-titled debut album has gone gold in Canada.
“I kinda knew they were going to do this,” drummer Neil Sanderson confides.
The video set itself looks like a postmodern romp into the subconscious; a white backdrop, black instruments, even the band members, comprised of Sanderson, vocalist-guitarist Adam Gontier, bassist Brad Walst and new guitarist Barry Stock, who joined in May, are all clad in black, save for Adam’s blue bandanna wrapped around his mohawk.
“It definitely reflects the song. It’s all shot in black and white without using black and white film. It’s colour film, but it will be shown in black and white,” Gontier explains lighting a cigarette, “I think it’s gonna be kinda cool, ’cause it’ll take the contrast out of our faces. It’s gonna look like a short horror film.”
But is it a short horror film? Sanderson jumps in with a quick no, “It’s a schizophrenic theme. This girl has this doppelganger, this evil twin kinda thing, which represents schizophrenia, and we see the girl wrestling with herself. She arguing with herself in her own head.”
“We have a lot of say, it was definitely our idea,” Gontier jumps in. “We go over our ideas with people in our camp, but this idea was put forth by us.”
“And the director helped us a lot,” add Sanderson. “He came up with a lot of stuff.” The director in question is Kurt St. Thomas, whose previous highlights include a video for the band CKY and a documentary on Nirvana called Nevermind.
“He’s easy to talk to,” Walst adds. “We’re definitely on the same level when talking about the video, which is really important.”
In the middle of their American tour, the band is enjoying the unique brand of success primarily built on word-of-mouth and non-stop touring, and enhanced by major media exposure.
“Before the [first] video, we saw the song slowly catching on, but the video caught on really well,” Gontier says, lighting another Du Maurier. “Our fan base is definitely growing a lot. Now we have the chance to headline our own tour in Canada. In the middle of September, we’re coming back up here and touring across the country. We have a couple of bands in mind we’d like to tour with, but we haven’t decided anything yet.”
With their second video complete, and more to come in the future, the band expresses their desire to possibly squeeze their four butts into the director’s chair.
“I’d probably get kicked out right away,” Sanderson says with a devilish look. “Bring in da ladies!”
Expect the video for “Just Like You,” to drop mid to late September.