Song: Never Too Late
Artist: Three Days Grace
Album: One-X (2006)
I absolutely love Three Days Grace and don't care what anyone thinks about that.
A good portion of that love comes from frontman Adam Gontier's openness about his struggles with addiction prior to recording and releasing this album. While so many musicians and actors and "celebrities" flippantly dismiss their problems and have repeated trips to rehab, by all accounts Gontier has remained sober following his stint for addiction of OxyContin. What made me like him and the band even more was their tour of rehab facilities following his recovery and the release of this album.
Musically, this song has a lot of the things I look for in a great rock track. I'm a sucker for an alternating soft verse / hard chorus setup, the acoustic guitar elements throughout never hurt and lyrically it's a winner too.
Sure, it's about suicidal thoughts and feelings of hopelessness, but at one point or another, those thoughts have run through all our heads. We've all felt like things couldn't possibly get worse and it's okay to admit that.
What I like is that this song acknowledges that life often fails to turn out the way we expect - shit happens, things suck, "this world will never be what I expected" - but there is always time to change things and make it better. I'm not ashamed to admit I understand that feeling and sentiment completely, as well as being at a point know where things are better.
Music is a connectivity thing to me - you like what you relate to and what you connect with - and I connect with this song and this band... and not just because they're Canadian either.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Soundtrack of My Life
Monday, July 21, 2008
Dishonour Roll: Steven Page
"Hey, I know I great idea - hows about I get busted with some blow right as we release Snacktime, our first kids album, and are scheduled to appear at a huge Disney-backed Kids Music show?"
While I'm sure Steven Page never really uttered those words, that's pretty much how things have gone over the last week for the co-lead singer of Barenaked Ladies.
Last week, New York State police arrested Page for possession of a controlled substance. As always, Page, the label, his bandmates and everyone involved immediately said his innocence would be proven. Except it won't.
According to the Canadian Press, Page flat out admitted to the Staties that he was snorting coke. Kind of hard to prove your innocence when the cops can simply read the statements you made as they were clamping the shiny, silver bracelets on you.
Now I'm no boy scout and no where near naive - rock stars and drugs... Who would have thought? - especially when it comes to the a guy who wrote a song with a chorus containing the words "Another postcard from chimpanzees," but the timing couldn't be worse.
Making this situation suck further is that these guys are one of the biggest Canadian bands around and one of the few I'm proud to acknowledge as actually being from Canada - "Celine Dion? No, she's from France I think. Nickelback too." - and this dickfor has to go out and get busted with some nose candy.
I find it somewhat ironic that the guy from the goofy, funny band gets busted for blow while Adam Gontier, the guy from the hard rocking "look like they'd use drugs" band Three Days Grace, went out, got clean and toured detox centers for their last album. Maybe it's just me...
At the end of the day, I guess we all know what Steven Page's craving when Snacktime rolls around.
Welcome to the Dishonour Roll douchebag!
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