The multiple platinum record-breaking rock giants Three Days Grace have just released Alienation, their first album since original frontman Adam Gontier returned to the band and joined Matt Walst on shared vocal duties, in a lineup refresh that was as unprecedented as it was significant for the band and their fan base.
“It’s been very fortunate that we’re a lot more alike than we aren’t,” Matt said, in response to how Three Days Grace have made what could have been an impossible transition look easy. “I’ve known Adam since I was nine/ten years old. We come from the same place and we’ve been friends for years. I think that’s the big difference, because a lot of bands that have had two lead singers at different times don’t have that. They’re not from the same place. They’re two very different people.”
In October 2024, all egos were left at the door as Three Days Grace welcomed Gontier back, in a move they described as “seamless” and “so much fun”. The response from their fanbase was just as positive, with responses such as: “I feel like a teenager again”, and “Is it Christmas? As this is the best present I could ask for.”
The origins of the band’s friendship date back to Adam Gontier and Brad Walst meeting in high school, and it was Adam who got Brad to start playing bass. “And then the guitarist at the time brought home a guitar which sat in Brad’s room, which I picked up and started writing music on – it was actually my first guitar, and I ended up buying it off the guitar player,” Matt said. “If it wasn’t for Adam, I don’t think I would have picked up a guitar and pursued music, and it’s just a full circle now.
“From the get-go, I was always a Three Days Grace fan, first and foremost. So now to be a part of this and to see the crowd’s reaction and to have my own legacy in Three Days Grace, it’s just been a dream come true.”
When MetalTalk sat down to chat with Matt Walst, he was enjoying a rare few weeks of relaxation, swimming and boating, in between a jam-packed year of touring and finishing off their eighth studio album, Alienation.
Three Days Grace spent the first part of 2025 touring the US with Disturbed, followed by multiple festival appearances and their own Canada headline tour featuring Volbeat and Wage War, all of which saw fans freak out and go crazy for the new lineup. They also became the second-ever Canadian band to join the elite Spotify ‘Billions Club’ when their classic hit, I Hate Everything About You, surpassed one billion streams at the end of June.
Despite the sold-out arena shows and tours, and their veritable arsenal of number ones, many of the Three Days Grace lads are still “small town boys” at their core. “When I’m home, it’s kids and mowing the lawn,” Matt said. “And then you go out on tour and it’s like, holy crap – you remember that you’re part of this worldwide-known band.
“On stage, you can’t say if you’re feeling a little tired or introverted, you gotta come out of your shell. And you can’t be too soft spoken when you’re in a hard rock band.” Matt said that, for the most part, he considers himself an introvert, and while touring, things like playing video games, working out, and knowing he’s on tour with his brothers keep him calm. “It’s fun out there and we’re all brothers,” Matt said. “It’s good to have your brothers out on tour with you.”
In addition to having a fifth “brother” in the band, having Adam as co-frontman has added layers of vocal opportunity for the band to experiment with. “It’s been great to have another guy that has your back and can sing, take harmonies, and play guitar – and also vice versa. I back him up on older songs and play guitar.”
But it’s not just an opportunity for more onstage harmonies that having a second lead vocalist has meant for Three Days Grace. Matt said that singing less and not straining so much on tour means that he gets to keep parts of his voice that would usually fade – particularly his falsetto – after two or three weeks of full singing. “But now with both of us, I get to keep that voice and I get to use that voice a lot more.”
Matt joked that there might even be a game of rock, paper, scissors to determine who sings the acoustic number on stage. When we suggested they could try out some wrestling moves on stage to see who sings what, following their single Dominate featuring on WWE, Matt looked a little horrified and said, “I think maybe not [laughs].”
He did admit to picking kickboxing back up again recently. As a big MMA fan, it’s something he loves to do to stay in shape. “And it doesn’t hurt to be able to know how to defend yourself if you ever get in that situation,” Matt said. “I think everybody should train in some kind of martial arts at some point in their life.”
Although just a means of keeping in shape now, Matt said there was a point when he first joined where he thought he might try fighting, and he spoke with his club about setting up a fight (with someone his own age and weight), but never ended up doing it. And with the explosive fan excitement of seeing Three Days Grace 3.0 on tour, it’s probably a wise move to not add any additional risk of injury.
“I remember getting pretty emotional on stage singing these songs, and they were hitting me just as hard as they hit everybody else.”
In fact, Matt had a serious injury just two years ago when he snapped his ACL on the second-to-last show of their US tour in October 2023. He “hopped” off a platform in the second last song, Riot, and “boom. It just gave out on me and snapped,” Matt said. He had to finish the tour from a chair and get wheeled out on stage. “I was at a low point for sure because I couldn’t even walk anymore. I didn’t know what was wrong with my leg yet, but it was swollen.
“I was singing The Mountain and Never Too Late, and I was pretty emotional because I was in a lot of pain,” Matt said. He also cites this as one of the hardest sets he has had to sing, with the emotion so strongly encapsulated in all of Three Days Grace’s music becoming very real on that stage. He also had a new kid on the way, so it was just a lot to process. “I remember getting pretty emotional on stage singing these songs, and they were hitting me just as hard as they hit everybody else.”
New Album Alienation
Alienation has everything that Three Days Grace are known and loved for: intense emotional foundations mixed with heavy-hitting hard rock anthems that pummel you with walk-out adrenaline and invincible determination. Album opener, Dominate, is a wake-up call that injects the album with the mantra that with rock music in your ears, there is nothing you can’t seize.
But with the power of Three Days Grace running through your veins comes the inevitable moment when the heady combination of Matt and Adam’s vocals and the melancholic guitar hooks hit a nerve, and a cathartic release bubbles over; Don’t Wanna Go Home Tonight should come with an emotional warning. It is also one of Matt’s favourite tracks off the new album.
Matt said, “It just brings me back to when I was younger and didn’t have so much worry or responsibility, and not caring what tomorrow brought. You’re just in the moment as a kid. There’s not as much chaos, I guess, in my life now, and I definitely don’t feel like my life is boring in any way, but I just feel like when you’re younger, you don’t know the world as much and you’re a little bit freer.”
“We write about all sorts of things that we’re going through or what we see around us, and it’s all from a real place,” Matt said. “I feel like that’s why people can relate to the songs. And I feel like we’ve been doing that for a long time now, and that’s why people love Three Days Grace – they can apply themselves to a song. And it’s kind of like therapy for them.”
“It’s a crazy thing, to feel alone when you have the world at your fingertips.”
When asked about when Matt has felt most alienated in his life, he said, “We create it sometimes. We’re so connected online now, but sometimes you’re so connected with everybody, and yet you feel so alone still. And it’s a crazy thing, to feel alone when you have the world at your fingertips.”
Matt is a self-proclaimed big Instagrammer, but stresses the importance of knowing when to disconnect and escape from the vicious algorithm attacks. He said, “Some of the stuff that you watch, you don’t really want to see over and over again, like people treating each other like crap. After a while of watching that, you start to feel like humanity is shit. And you can’t do that all day long and then be a happy person.
“Just because I watched it twice doesn’t mean I want to watch it 10 more times. Sometimes you have to disconnect from that thing and just live your life and look at what’s going on around you.”
Alienation is out now via RCA Records, and Three Days Grace hit the road with Breaking Benjamin this autumn, with support in Europe from Badflower.
