The last time 3 Doors Down front man Brad Arnold played in Tempe, he sang the national anthem at an Arizona Cardinals playoff game in January.
“I was pretty nervous singing the national anthem — I was afraid I was going to pull a Willie Nelson and screw it up,” Arnold, 30, said in his thick Southern accent. “It’s easier with your band mates — with the anthem, it’s nothing but you out there, and the color guard’s behind you in front of thousands of people, and it’s like, uh-oh.”
His experience belting the national anthem is not the only patriotic thing about Arnold, whose band will headline the Circle K Tempe Music Festival on April 4.
“I think everybody should be patriots,” Arnold said. “You don’t have to love the government to be a patriot. … What it takes is for everybody to believe in the country. It’s all based on faith — the stock market is based on faith. You don’t have to agree with every single thing, but you have to believe in your country.”
In addition to playing for American troops in Bahrain several times, 3 Doors Down recorded a song, “Citizen/Soldier,” for a National Guard advertisement campaign that played in movie theaters this fall.
“I just wanted to take the opportunity to pat a soldier on the back and say, ‘Hey, thank you man,’” Arnold said.
The band also wrote and recorded a song for the 2008 Summer Olympics titled, “Champion In Me,” which Arnold said is “an energetic song that will jack you up.”
In addition to those two singles, 3 Doors Down released its fourth, self-titled studio album in May last year.
Arnold said that although a self-titled album so far into a band or artist’s career is unusual, it just felt right.
“We decided to do it,” he said. “We thought it was a better representation of the band as a whole, instead of just bits and pieces of it, like in previous albums.”
The band took a whole year off before recording the album, which Arnold said is just about life.
“You don’t want it to be too specific — I want [fans] to be able to apply it to their own life,” he said. “In talking to people, you really learn that everyone walks down a different street, but everyone has problems and battles.
“If I can say something to help a person get through that battle, that’s awesome. You have to leave it open-ended enough that they can make it on their own.”
Arnold said his favorite song of the album is “Let Me Be Myself,” which he said he identifies with in a lot of ways.
“It’s easy to get lost being what someone else wants you to be,” Arnold said. “And this song is about getting back to what you want to be.”
During the year off from recording and touring, Arnold spent time on some of his other hobbies and interests — “pretty much anything on the water and anything in the woods.”
“I went fishing a lot,” Arnold said. “I did nothing pertaining to music. I wanted to go away and get hungry for music again.”
In addition to getting hungry for music, Arnold and the band got hungry for travel and touring, which is one of their favorite things about their job.
“We make an album so we can go on tour, and I think with a lot of bands it’s the other way around,” he said. “And I love touring — traveling the world with my buddies and my fiancée and my pit bull.”
Name a country, and 3 Doors Down has probably been there. Outside the U.S., Arnold said his favorite place is Australia.
“Australia is foreign but familiar, and they’re very accepting,” he said. “No ‘stupid American’ stuff over there — you get that sometimes in Europe, but I love Europe. It’s just a good, beautiful place.
“Shortly behind Australia, though, would be Guam. I wish we could go back there. It’s just a little bitty island — 32 miles long and 7 miles wide. But they’ve got the best food and the best attitude. All they said while we were there was ‘Please talk good us about us when you leave.’ Beautiful beaches there, too.”
Arnold and 3 Doors Down started their own charity, The Better Life Foundation, six years ago to benefit children’s charities in the Mississippi area.
“We’ve raised [$]3 million for local charities on the Mississippi gulf coast,” Arnold said. “We still continue to do the things we set out to do, but we broadened our spotlight to the hurricanes, ’cause they still have hurricane needs down here. We’re just glad to help out. It’s probably the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done in this band, starting the foundation.”
As for what the future holds, fans can expect a new album in late 2009 or early 2010.
After its summer tour wraps up, Arnold said the band will “take a break for a second” before heading back into the studio to record its next album, much of which he hopes will be written before and during the tour.
Tickets to the Tempe Music Festival can be found online via the festival’s Web site, www.tempemusicfestival.com.
Reach the reporter at melanie.kiser@asu.edu.
