3 Doors Down: Sun Of Us.

Away From The Sun is in stores now.

It’s tough to land a massive single from your first album. Not so much because it brings you recognition and success, but more so because the pressure is on to repeat it with your next release. 3 Doors Down hit big with the massively successful single Kryptonite from their first major label release The Better Life. The album itself followed suit, clocking in world wide sales in excess of six million. Not a bad effort for a bunch of guys from the back roads of Mississippi.

Two years after Kryptonite, 3 Doors Down have released their second album Away From The Sun. Guitarist Chris Henderson is jokingly “just hanging around the record company office trying to look important” as he relates the band’s experiences over the past couple of years, and more recently of the time they spend in Memphis recording their new album.

“I loved working in Memphis, the place was awesome,” he enthuses. “You can’t be in Memphis and not feel the culture and the music. Gracelands, Sun Studios, all the great music that’s been recorded. We were there for six weeks. The food in Memphis is world class. Even things like just hamburger joints. I must have gained like 15 pounds while I was there.”

“It’s kind of cool, ‘cause it keeps you grounded. Being in this industry doing what I’m doing you can get higher than life really fast. It takes a place like Memphis to bring you back down some times. It lets you know you’re human and you enjoy the same things everyone else enjoys. It’s easy to get distracted. You’re trying to record and you’re thinking about that food… wooo.”

Despite the band’s massive sales figures, as Chris mentioned, the band have their feet still planted firmly on the ground.

“The most difficult thing is to not become this jaded rock guy. That was the hardest thing, because you’re a product of your environment, and when people start telling you how great you are over and over pretty soon you can start to believe it. If you let that get to you then sham on you, actually. Knowing that, and going in with my eyes open this time, I can take a step back from it. I don’t think I became this big rock star, but I did change in some ways, and I’m just trying to be real. We weren’t sitting there writing thinking this is going to be a smash, it was just by the grace of God.”

Surprisingly, music was not Henderson’s originally calling, rather he found himself in the band after spending time in the military after high school.

“The town we’re from (Escatawpa, Mississippi) is real small, there’s like 3000 people there. It’s really in the middle of nowhere, there’s no music scene. My brother is a musician. He’s got a PhD in music, so he’s really studied. I was just surrounded by instruments, so it was a natural thing for me to pick it up. I was a football player when I was growing up, so I never studied music.”

Hutchings was not the only band member with sporting aspirations.

“Todd, our bass player was All American for football. He had a couple of college scholarships offered to him. I had a couple as well. I could have gone and played at the next level, but I didn’t feel comfortable with it at the time. I was kind of tired of getting beat up, if you know what I mean. I was just getting tired of getting beat up. I wanted to see the world, but I didn’t want to do it from behind a football helmet, so I joined the military, went out and saw the world. Now I’m in a rock band and I get to see it again.”

So do you think it’s safer on stage, or on the football field?

“It’s much safer on stage with 50 people keeping the moshers from getting up there with you” he laughs.

Strangely enough, 3 Doors Down’s musical commitments found them playing gigs on overseas US Navy bases.

“We were in Europe for an installation tour. We played on the USS George Washington, which is an aircraft carrier. Actually I saw four people on there that I was stationed with ten years ago. I was in the military for eleven years, and ten years ago I was stationed with these guys in Maryland. It was really cool to see them again. They kind of look at you a little different at first, because they’re not sure what happened to you. The last time they saw me I was twisting wrenches with them, and now I’m in this band playing on their ship. They kind of walk over a look at you funny, and say ‘hey man, do you remember me?’ and I’m like ‘Yeah, I haven’t seen you in ten years’, and then it’s OK. They kind of think at first that I’m going to be a big butt hole. I got to know them again and I spent a lot of time with them. It was cool.”