On the phone, Brad Walst sounds as sweet and mannerly as Beaver Cleaver. Only the slight edge of Toronto in his voice hints he’s more leather jacket than button-down.

From a stop on tour with his Canadian-based band Three Days Grace, guitarist Walst discussed the group’s sound. Though some Web sites label the group’s sound as alternative metal, post grunge or hard rock, Walst said it’s not that complicated.

“I think we’re just a rock band — just straight-ahead, hard rock,” he said.

Walst and bandmates — lead singer and guitarist Adam Gontier, drummer Neil Sanderson and guitarist Barry Stock — will make a stop at Huntsville’s Big Spring Jam on Saturday night on their tour with Breaking Benjamin and Seether. The three groups perform back-to-back on the WZYP stage, with Seether beginning at 7 p.m., Breaking Benjamin at 8:30 p.m. and Three Days Grace at 10:15 p.m.

Big Spring Jam, which features more than more than 70 artists including LeAnn Rimes, Sawyer Brown, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts and Foreigner, begins at 6 p.m. Friday night and ends Sunday night in Big Spring International Park. For ticket information, visit www.bigspringjam.org or the Von Braun Center box office at www.vonbrauncenter.com.

Musical festivals such as the Jam are fun for the band, Walst said.

“It’s probably my favorite thing to do,” he said. “We get to meet all the other bands and kind of hang out.”

He also enjoys playing venues in the South. The group played in Huntsville a few years ago while touring with Staind.

“It’s really great rock fans down there,” he said. “Probably the best rock fans.”



A sense of urgency

Three members of Three Days Grace —Walst, Gontier and Sanderson — were part of a group called Groundswell formed in 1995.

When an original fourth member left, Walst came up with the name for the remaining trio.

“I heard it when I was in school probably 10 years ago,” he said. “It stands for a sense of urgency — somebody having to pay back their debt in three days. There’s a sense of urgency to the name Three Days Grace and it fit with the music. And there were three of us at the time.”

After the completion in 2003 of the group’s first album, titled Three Days Grace, Barry Stock joined the group for the upcoming tour.

After a breakout hit with the single “I Hate (Everything About You)” and eventual platinum sales of the album, the group’s popularity and bankability continued to rise. The group ended up touring 2 1/2 years.

Time on the road took its toll.

“The road really changed us,” Walst said. “We had to take a lot of time to get back to where we were before.”

He echoed the sentiments of Grontier published on the band’s Web site at www.threedaysgrace.com: “At one point when we were on the road, I felt like I had a target on my back. I felt like there were a lot of things getting thrown at me that I had to deal with and I felt alone. I was the only one who could really understand myself.”

Walst said touring was like being “alone in a crowd of people.”

“Being on tour can be strange sometimes,” he writes on the Web site. “All these people around you seem to know you, but they really don’t and you don’t know them either, but you carry on as if you do…In fact the only ones we could really relate to were the true fans. They know what’s going on inside your head because they are the ones that are hearing it in your music.”

After the tour, band members spent time apart before gathering to write new songs. Walst said all members of the group write.

“We sit around with acoustic guitars and come up with ideas and jam,” he said. “I think our music has definitely evolved and our writing of lyrics is a little bit more personal.”

The resulting album, One-X, was released in 2006 and certified platinum in August with the help of hit singles “Pain,” “Animal I Have Become” and “Never Too Late.”

“It’s pretty exciting,” Walst said. “It’s hard to believe. That’s a great achievement for us.”

Taking time between albums to come to terms with success and fame helped band members prepare for this year’s tour.

“We’re pretty down-to-earth people,” he said. “People think you’re famous. We don’t consider ourselves as being famous. We treat people with same respect we would like to be treated.”

The group plans to tour until February when they will prepare to record a third album, which may be ready for release by fall of 2008.

“We started writing it now, on the road,” Walst said. “We’ll probably come out of it with at least half the record written.”