ADAM GONTIER On His Return To THREE DAYS GRACE: 'It Was Pretty Seamless'

In a new interview with Hubert Modławski of Poland's Pełna Kulturka, Adam Gontier spoke about his 2024 return to Canadian rockers THREE DAYS GRACE after an 11-year absence. The 48-year-old musician, who left THREE DAYS GRACE in 2013, is sharing lead vocals in the band's new lineup with singer Matt Walst, who had fronted THREE DAYS GRACE for more than a decade. Adam said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET):  "It really wasn't that challenging. We had been a band for so many years before, so first and foremost, we were really good friends before we had the band. So yeah, it was like I took about 10 years off and then came back and it was pretty seamless. It wasn't very hard. It's kind of like riding a bike — you just get back into it again, even if you haven't done it in a while."

Elaborating on the friendship that exists between him and his THREE DAYS GRACE bandmates, Adam said: "Well, I think there's a lot of bands out there that aren't friends, really, that just do it, and it's just all about business and money and stuff. But for us, yeah, it's about the friendship and the camaraderie and all that stuff. I think if we didn't have that, this new sort of era of the band would probably be a little bit tougher to make happen. But we're all from the same small town in Canada, we all grew up together as friends and stuff, so it's pretty easy to get back up there on stage and perform together."

Asked if he had to work on rebuilding his friendship with the other members of THREE DAYS GRACE of if he had kept in contact with them during his time away from the band, Adam said: "You know what? I stayed in touch with Brad [Walst, THREE DAYS GRACE bassist] on and off throughout the years. But it didn't really take that much. I think over the past 10 years, at least for myself, I had grown up quite a bit. I had a lot of life to live and things to learn and stuff like that. And I think that sort of goes for everybody in the band. We're a bit older now and things are a little bit different. We all have kids and we're just grown up, so the things that were important many years ago, the things that we thought were important really weren't. So, yeah, it's been pretty easy to just jump back in the fold, and we hang out every day. So it's been good. It's been good."

On the topic of how the THREE DAYS GRACE songwriting process worked for the band's latest album, 2025's "Alienation", Adam said: "The way that we write songs hasn't really changed. It's kind of the same. We all sit in a room together with the ideas, and we try to write the best song we can. So I guess songwriting-wise, it's kind of the same thing still. We got together at Barry's [Stock, THREE DAYS GRACE guitarist] place in Indiana to start the whole writing process, and we just sat down with acoustic guitars and just started writing the new album, and most of the songs came fairly quick… I don't know, man. We've been very lucky and fortunate that we're all sort of on the same page and we all want the same thing, which is just to play music, tour, and have fun doing it."

"Alienation" arrived in August 2025 via RCA Records.

THREE DAYS GRACE played its first full show with Gontier in 12 years on February 25, 2025 as the support act for DISTURBED on the U.S. leg of "The Sickness 25th Anniversary Tour" at Ford Idaho Center Arena in Nampa, Idaho.

In April 2023, Gontier reunited with THREE DAYS GRACE onstage during the band's concert in Huntsville, Alabama. Gontier rejoined his then-former bandmates when they opened for SHINEDOWN at the Probst Arena At The Von Braun Center to perform two classic songs from THREE DAYS GRACE's 2006 album "One-X": "Never Too Late" and "Riot".

In 1992, Gontier, Brad Walst, Phil Crowe, Neil Sanderson and Joe Grant formed GROUNDSWELL while most of the members were still in high school. That band broke up in 1995, but two years later Gontier, Sanderson and Walst reformed as THREE DAYS GRACE. Gontier left the band in 2013 and was replaced by Matt, the vocalist from another Norwood band, MY DARKEST DAYS.

Gontier initially went into rehab in 2005 in Toronto after admitting an addiction to Oxycontin. The rehab stint influenced some material which would appear on THREE DAYS GRACE's "One-X" album, including the songs "Pain" and "Over And Over".

Gontier left THREE DAYS GRACE in the spring of 2013. At the time, the Canadian rockers cited unspecified "health issues" when his departure was announced. Adam later released a statement explaining he exited THREE DAYS GRACE to pursue new projects, and not to deal with addiction.