Q&A with Three Days Grace’s Neil Sanderson ahead of Okanagan show

Canadian rock band Three Days Grace is touring behind the release of their latest album, Explosion.

They'll be playing the Southern Okanagan Events Centre on Nov. 10.

The Norwood, Ontario, quartet originally formed in 1992 under the name, Groundswell, before disbanding and regrouping under the new name in 1997.

They've released seven studio albums, and has 17 No. 1 songs on the Billboard Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and 3 No. 1 hits on Alternative Songs.

Ahead of the performance, Ryan, from 104.7 The Lizard, caught up with drummer and keyboardist, Neil Sanderson, who has been with the band since the Groundswell days when he was 14 years old.

Ryan: You’re the drummer and keyboard player – how does that work?

Neil: I started as a piano player and then decided I’d pick up more girls in high school if I switched to drums, so then I did both. I have a full keyboard setup and I have all kinds of programs. I also have a pad that has exponentially programmable things I can sample and then I have foot pedals I can use to loop.

Ryan: The new album came out earlier this year and you guys just wrapped up a European tour. Are you excited for the Canadian leg?

Neil: It’s nice to be in our home country, have a little time off, and finish the year with a proper Canadian tour. We’re small town Canadian guys, so this is the perfect scenario to wrap up the year. People are frothing at the mouth to go to concerts and re-express themselves in a musical space. I think people were just deprived of that for a while.

Ryan: Do you remember the first time you heard a Three Days Grace song on the radio?

Neil: I can go back even further. Before we were Three Days Grace in 1997, we were a band called Groundswell. We begged a local station in Peterborough to play our song. They had a two-hour alternative program at night and they finally agreed they’d play it. We were a bunch of teenagers and had about 25 cars parked with the radios cranked because we knew the song was coming on. When that Groundswell song came on the radio across all those cars in the parking lot, I felt as a teenager, that I was on top of the world and it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Tickets for the performance are available online.