Photo Credit: Melinda Oswandel (via Facebook)
Longtime fans of Three Days Grace have made connections with their lyrics off of their songs from each of their recordings, and their latest album Human is no different. Having a new vocalist (Matt Walst) added into the fold did not change the inner dynamics of the band, and according to guitarist Barry Stock, the band works as a team and has made the unit stronger.
“Having a different person in Matt involved with us now, but we’ve never approached anything any different. We’re still doing everything the same exact way we’ve always written. As a band, it’s never been about one person. We always collectively write, as I said. It’s about the band.”
He spoke about how writing songs for the band has been therapeutic for everyone, and has transcended to their longtime fans, as they have found them interacting with the band about a variety of songs being relatable within everyday life.
“We also use music as a therapy. We always have and for us, nothing changed. We went through a lot of things the last few years of our lives, and we dug down deep into things that bother us and things we deal with. For us, we express the things that go on in our lives. I think that’s why a lot of people relate to our lyrics because we sing about every day things we go through. Things may change time to time, but our process is still the same. Like I said, we still get together and we sing about the things that are bugging us. We dig down and pull things out of us.”
“For us, we feel it’s the same. Obviously it’s a whole new record and a whole new time in our lives but nothing’s changed in the process of how we write the songs,” said Stock.
One of their newer songs with a deeper story is “Fallen Angel,” which talks about one of the member’s family member and their background they never shared publicly until now.
“That song really was about Neil’s [Sanderson] mother. We pulled this out of him. He had this thing about his father passed when he was young and he lost a brother as well. His mother was dealing with all of this and was strong for the kids, like you listen to the lyrics and how he’s talking about ‘I can hear you crying at night’ and stuff like that – that’s really where that came from. Neil remembers this as a child as he goes to bed at night and his mom is cool and tough for the kids all day long, but he’d go to bed at night and he would hear his mother crying. He had this helpless feeling all the time. He had that inside all of these years.“
“Again we use music as therapy and now it’s one of those things we were able to bring out. Neil was able to express and we wrote a song about it. That’s what ‘Fallen Angel’ is about – seeing somebody going through horrible things and feeling helpless.”