15 Fun Facts about THREE DAYS GRACE’s frontman Adam Gontier

January 3, 2026

Some bands split. Some reunite. Old members leave. New members step in. But it’s a one-in-a-million case in rock history when we witness a band’s reunion with the old vocalist, while the existing vocalist remains in the lineup. We are talking about Adam Gontier, the frontman of one of the biggest rock acts of 2025, Three Days Grace. Check out the 15 fun facts about him you absolutely MUST know!

Adam Gontier, the founding member of Canadian rock band Three Days Grace, was born on May 25, 1978 in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.
He grew up in Ontario, influenced by his musician mother, who raised him alone. “I was young and she was out doing gigs, and she’d play different clubs and lounges and she was a single mother then raising me,” Adam remembers. “She couldn’t afford a babysitter so she would basically bring me to her shows and hide me under the piano while she did her show”. The boy started playing the guitar at 12 and wrote his first songs at the age of 14. Among his music idols are Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and Finger Eleven.
In Norwood High School, located in a small town with about 1,500 people, he met Neil Sanderson and Brad Walst, with whom he formed the band Groundswell that later regrouped as Three Days Grace.
Adam went into rehabilitation at the Toronto rehab center CAMH in 2005, where he wrote most tracks for One‑X album, including their most known track ‘Animal I Have Become’. The addiction reportedly started after he was prescribed opioid pain medication – a painkiller for his shoulder injury.
In 2007, the singer released a short documentary video about his addiction and the recovery process, titled Behind the Pain.
Adam’s decision to leave Three Days Grace in 2013 was quite sudden and shocked the band. “I think emotionally and physically and spiritually, I was in a really dark place,” he says. “I probably could’ve handled it differently – the way that i left. It wasn’t like a sit-down-and-talk-about-it kind of thing. It was like “I’m gone!” and I just left.”
Adam formed the band Saint Asonia in Toronto with Mike Mushok of Staind, in 2015. Since then, they’ve released two studio albums — Saint Asonia (2015) and Flawed Design (2019).
The singer’s first wife, Naomi Brewer, appears in Three Days Grace’s music video for ‘Never Too Late’. The couple divorced in 2013. Adam then married Jeanie Marie Larsen in 2015. They now have two children.
In 2017, Adam had a relapse, a result of alcohol addiction and got into another rehab. “After a long and very difficult relapse with alcohol and substance abuse […] I found myself at a treatment center in Nashville. Not only that, but I found myself in an emergency room, hanging onto life by a thread,” he remembers. Since then, Adam has been leading a sober life.
His second rehab stay coincided with the birth of his son, Asher Wade Gontier, on the other side of the continent. The song ‘This August Day’, according to Adam, is “about all of that. It’s about that one day in August that completely changed me — forever.”
Adam first reunited on stage with Three Days Grace, then fronted by Matt Walst, in Huntsville, Alabama, on April 19, 2023, where they performed ‘Never Too Late’ and ‘Riot’ from One-X together. The reaction of the audience said it all. Watch the live footage below:

The singer officially rejoined the band in 2025, followed by his co-writing of ‘Mayday’, ‘Kill Me Fast,’ ‘In Waves,’ ‘Alienation,’ and other tracks for the TDG’s new album Alienation.
Adam’s cousin, Cale Gontier, is the bass player for Adam-fronted Saint Asonia, as well as for the band Art of Dying. Cale joined Three Days Grace on their 2025 European tour dates. See them play ‘Don’t Wanna Go Home Tonight’ live together in Budapest Arena below:

Adam Gontier: “There is never any kind of competition,” – watch Three Days Grace interview with AlteRock

When asked what musician, whether dead or alive, he would like to collaborate with, Adam answers: “Jeff Buckley”. Buckley was an American singer-songwriter in alternative-rock/folk-rock genre, who died at the age of 30. He released only one studio album, Grace.

Throughout his career, Adam has collaborated with Apocalyptica, Big Dirty Band, Daughtry, Before the Curtain, Art of Dying, Breaking Benjamin, Seether’s Shaun Morgan, Ben Burnley, and Evanescence’s Amy Lee.