honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, April 1, 2005

3 Doors still down home

Dean Karr photos

3 Doors Down made the jump from obscure Mississippi band to major-label hit makers with its single "Kryptonite" in 2000. Although critics give 3 Doors Down little respect, fans have been devouring the band's music since it's debut CD "The Better Life." 3 Doors Down's three albums have sold a combined 9.5 million copies so far.

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

From left, Todd Harrell, Chris Henderson, Matt Roberts and Brad Arnold of 3 Doors Down are scheduled to perform Tuesday and Wednesday at Pipeline Cafe. The band's latest album, "Seventeen Days," debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart when it was released in February and already has sold more than a million copies.

3 Doors Down

7 p.m. Tuesday (sold out) and Wednesday

Pipeline Cafe

$25, $50

(877) 750-4400

Welcome to Escatawpa, Miss. Population: 3,000.

Feel free to go fishing in Robertson or Beardslee lakes. Recreational fishing is probably why you've come to Escatawpa.

Just don't put your arms and legs, or any body part you think you might need, anywhere near the water — according to friendly advice from 3 Doors Down guitarist Chris Henderson.

"The water is pretty dangerous, to say the least," Henderson said matter-of-factly by telephone, his genial Southern drawl deeper than a swamp at high tide. "It's dark and there's lots of snakes and alligators and things like that, so you don't want to do too much of it.

"It's best you stay around the boat or where a lot of people are so you don't ... you know."

Not exactly, Chris. But I've got a decent enough mental picture of my pitching arm dropping beneath the surface in a gator's maw to grasp the concept.

'SEVENTEEN DAYS'

Three consecutive million-plus-selling CDs might tempt other musicians to invest in serious Hollywood Hills real estate. But with extreme fishing as a recreational sport, who could blame Henderson and his 3 Doors Down co-founders — vocalist Brad Arnold, guitarist Matt Roberts, bassist Todd Harrell — for remaining in the town they grew up in? (Only recently added drummer Greg Upchurch lives elsewhere.)

They'll be back in Escatawpa after a few days of much-needed Hawai'i vacationing and a couple of Pipeline Cafe shows — one of 'em sold out — next week.

The band touches down here after having notched another heady milestone in its decade together. Released in February, third disc "Seventeen Days" became the band's first to peak and debut at No. 1 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart. A month later, sales of "Seventeen Days" cruised past a million. Already multiplatinum are 2000's "The Better Life" (5.2 million copies) and 2002's "Away From The Sun" (3.3 million copies).

It's likely an iPod playlist near you has one or more of 3 Doors Down's hook-filled Southern-kissed rockers ("When I'm Gone," "Let Me Go"), power ballads ("Here Without You," "Away From the Sun") or bona fide rock classic ("Kryptonite").

SWEET HOME ESCATAWPA

Henderson, Arnold, Roberts and Harrell founded 3 Doors Down in time-tested Escatawpa fashion.

"We were really the only musicians in that town," said Henderson, chuckling. "So if you didn't play in this band, you didn't play in a band."

Although seven years separated Henderson and Harrell from younger Arnold and Roberts, the four were already longtime friends before hooking up in 1994. Arnold and Roberts were, in fact, still in high school when the band started filling honky-tonks in and around Escatawpa.

"We used to sneak his (butt) into bars to play," Henderson recalled, of Arnold. "After a while, we drew such big crowds that bar owners just didn't give a crap. They were, like, 'As long as that little son of a gun doesn't drink, it's OK.'

"My truck was called the tour Toyota. We'd throw everything in the back and play the round robin of the only four rock clubs on the Gulf Coast. It was a king cab so we could all fit in."

ALGEBRA ROCK

Five years of Southeast bar gigs rewarded 3 Doors Down with a loyal following. But local radio still wouldn't touch anything from the band's self-financed 1997 disc of original work — especially an early version of "Kryptonite" the guys kept pushing.

Arnold had composed the nervous, guitar-filled alt-grunge anthem at age 15 in the span of a single high school algebra class. And the band knew "Kryptonite" could hit and hit big if anyone outside a honky-tonk near Escatawpa had a chance to hear it.

3 Doors Down finally talked a program director at a Biloxi, Miss., FM station into playing the song once in 1999.

"He said, 'I'll play it on the homegrown show — a local music hour on Sunday night. There won't be anyone listening. But your friends and whoever you can get to listen to the radio at 8 p.m. on a Sunday night will,' " Henderson remembered. "That one day changed my whole life."

By Monday afternoon, "Kryptonite" was the station's top phone-in request. A week later, the band was meeting with its first major-label record executive ever to come a-courtin.' Next up were flights to Los Angeles and New York for major-label-style wining and dining.

THE BETTER LIFE

3 Doors Down eventually signed with Universal Records subsidiary Republic and re-recorded the entirety of its already released disc as "The Better Life." Three guesses as to what the first single was.

"Kryptonite" shot up to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and No. 1 on the magazine's mainstream and modern rock charts. Grammy-nominated in 2000 for Best Rock Song, "Kryptonite" also claimed BMI Songwriter of the Year honors for Arnold.

Two years of nonstop touring and three more singles from "The Better Life" followed before 3 Doors Down returned to the studio to record again. With no time to decompress from the road and nothing but tour memories as inspiration, the band's second disc, 2002's "Away From the Sun," was rich with confessionals about being detached from things once familiar.

"When I'm Gone" — with lyrics like "Hold me when I'm here/ Right me when I'm wrong/Hold me when I'm scared/And love me when I'm gone" — became an unofficial anthem for military families with loved ones in Afghanistan and Iraq. The song peaked at No. 3 on Billboard's Hot 100 and was radio's most-played song of 2003, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

KEEPING IT REAL

3 Doors Down knocked out two more big radio hits from the disc — "Here Without You" and "Away From the Sun" — before putting together "Seventeen Days" last summer. Five weeks that the guys originally set aside to write songs for the CD went by the wayside after Hurricane Ivan tore through the band's studio, and Henderson's father died. The title refers to the 17 days of writing that the band was left with to keep a February 2005 release date.

"We had to start working 24-hour shifts in the studio. And believe me, it's hard to get rock musicians to be anywhere at 7 a.m.," said Henderson, laughing. "But we got it done."

Music critics have rarely given 3 Doors Down or its brand of confessional, meat-and-potatoes rock much love. (Naming its new CD "Seventeen Days" certainly didn't help matters.) But Henderson said he doesn't care what "the 150 to 200 people who sit around reviewing CDs every day" think.

"We get to the point and we write about what we feel," he said. "We try to only write about experiences we have because that keeps it real. And that's what we're all about. What you see is what you get with us."

The Billboard No. 1 bow of "Seventeen Days" didn't exactly silence critics. But it put their barbs into perspective for 3 Doors Down.

"When I was a kid, music changed my life a hundred different times," Henderson said. "And to be a part of something like that — that has the ability to do that to people, is the most gratifying thing to me. For me to write a guitar riff that some guy or girl in Tasmania hears and goes, 'Holy (expletive)!' ... that right there is cool."

He chuckled. "I get paid for this, but I'd do it for free. I'd still be in bars if I wasn't on the phone with you right now. I'd be playing in some honky-tonk somewhere in Mississippi tonight."

Away from the water, of course.

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8005.