Three Days Grace's Adam Gontier reflects on 20th anniversary of 'One-X'

Three Days Grace's sophomore album, One-X, was released on June 13, 2006 — 20 years ago Saturday. Speaking with ABC Audio, frontman Adam Gontier recalls how he and his bandmates moved from their small Canadian hometown to Los Angeles to record the album.

"We moved down to LA for that period, and I think we lived there for about two months to record it," Gontier says. "That in itself for us was an amazing experience just being in LA and having the record label pay for kinda everything."

He continues, "The whole process of, you know, as a band living in LA, in a different city that we weren't used to and creating this music, it was a really great experience just in general."

One-X followed 3DG's 2003 debut album, which put the band on the map with the singles "I Hate Everything About You" and "Just Like You." Instead of falling victim to the dreaded sophomore slump, One-X debuted at a then-career high #5 on the Billboard 200 and spawned the singles "Animal I Have Become," "Pain," "Never Too Late" and "Riot" on its way to becoming certified quintuple-Platinum by the RIAA.

"The fact that the album did well and people listened to it and really liked it, that was just the icing on top of the whole thing," Gontier says.

Three Days Grace followed One-X with 2009's Life Starts Now and 2012's Transit of Venus before Gontier left the band in 2013. They then recruited vocalist Matt Walst, brother of bassist Brad Walst, and put out three more albums: 2015's Human, 2018's Outsider and 2022's Explosions.

Gontier rejoined 3DG in 2024, forming a two-singer lineup alongside Walst. The group put out their first album with both vocalists, Alienation, in 2025.