Jean Prescott
Knight Ridder Newspapers

BILOXI, Miss. ˜ "Oh, man, yeah. We cannot wait to get back home there for that show in the Coliseum," Brad Arnold is saying from somewhere on the road. It is his appointed afternoon time for doing press, 2 p.m., and the voice of 3 Doors Down is ready to talk about what it's like to have traveled light years from the anonymity of Vancleave, Miss. The conversation turns to being misunderstood, babies, beds on the bus and being grateful for his bandmates.

He clearly has grown not only older but more self-possessed ˜ wiser, maybe ˜ in the four-going-on-five years since the Mississippi Coast broadcast of "the Superman song," aka "Kryptonite," nearly shut down the switchboard at the local rock radio station. Back then, he and bandmates/buddies from Vancleave, Chris Henderson, Todd Harrell and Matt Roberts, might have taken a punch at anyone who accused them of warmongering. When a British reporter for Kerrang did just that back in March of this year, Arnold was unflappable.

"It was totally intended to support our troops," he says calmly about the music video for "When I'm Gone," the first single off album No. 2, "Away From the Sun." "Have you seen it? There's not a shot fired, not a gun anywhere. It's all the men and their families hugging, crying, saying goodbye as the USS George Washington set sail for the Mediterranean."

The suggestion that he sounds like a grown-up makes Arnold laugh out loud.

"The road's puttin' age on us," he says. "We've all got a few new wrinkles, (but) the way I would describe it is we've grown together, as people and as songwriters. I mean, I think the songs (on this new album) are more mature, but they make their own growth. They're more current to our lives.

"The first album ('The Better Life'), we wrote those songs when we were still in high school. We wrote them for ourselves and our friends," he says, "without thinking about how many people would be hearing them. We had to realize that (fact) with the new songs, and we wanted them to be something everybody could identify with. We also wanted to be sure no one had to worry about letting their kids listen."

The band calls it good ol' rock `n' roll. Critics have called it exceptional. And when an All-American band draws what seems a genuine compliment from a British reviewer, they must be doing something right. John Aizlewood, writing for London's Q Magazine in April, declared, "Bands who play loud, have angsty lyrics and take succor from The Allman Brothers are 10 a penny Stateside; however, 3 Doors Down escape the herd. Like pre-boredom Pearl Jam, they have a fantastic singer fronting a highly competent band. ... The first album sold 6 million; this one will sell more, including in Britain."

It's enough to inflate an ego or two, but Arnold says there will be none of that.

No swollen heads in this band, he says, "And I think a large part of that is due to our families keeping us grounded. Oh, we can play the rock star out here on the road, but when I get home, you better believe I put my own dishes in the dishwasher."

Same for the rest of the guys, two of whom have started families of their own: Henderson has three kids and Harrell is about to become a papa for the first time.

"No Arnold babies yet," he says, "and Matt's still single. We ride together, just chill out on the bus. You wouldn't believe it, but we don't party much. Actually it sounds boring, but there's just enough to do to keep you busy. I mean, after a show, you can't just go right to sleep, so we get to bed about 4, and then, you know, I have to sleep eight hours for my throat, so we're up about noon ... do press about 2, sound check at 4, meet-and-greet about 6, then another show, and it all starts over again.

"I guess you just get used to it," he says, "though sometimes I think I need a generator humming under my bed at home so I can sleep at night."

Mind you, this man is not complaining. "Oh, sometimes I do miss drumming, and I will get out there during sound check. Actually I wish we still had both our drum kits on stage," but all these guys are mightily pleased with drummer Daniel Adair, whom Arnold says they "just met by accident. He's the guy who hangs out with the band, you know? That's what they call the drummer," Arnold jokes. "We were up there in Vancouver (Adair's hometown) mixing the record, and someone brought in this CD, this rock fusion thing. It was just an instrumental with Daniel drumming.

"We'd been trying out guys for the job, people whose names you'd probably know," Arnold says, "and we never 'felt it' with any of them. So we heard this CD, and then the guy who brought it in, he said the drummer on the CD, he's out there. So we leaned over the railing and said (to Adair), 'Man, you want to try out for a job?' We played with him for 10 minutes, and that was it. If he wants it, he'll be with us for a long, long time.

"It is just so fun to get out there and play with these guys every night," Arnold says. "It gets hard sometimes, like last night ˜ I had a bad, bad, bad night last night, something in my throat. I went backstage during Daniel's drum solo, and I told them I didn't think I could do the next song right if we played it the regular way. So right there, we changed it. Chris and I went out and did it acoustic. I sang the low parts, and the crowd sang the high parts, but the great thing was they all said, 'Man, you can do it.'

"I just appreciate being able to make music with my friends. I thank God for it every day, and thank the fans for giving us this life.

"Anybody who gets the chance to do what they love? Man, they're really lucky, we're really lucky."