Probably one of the most popular young bands out there today, Art Of Dying has become the darlings of rock & roll. Last year they traveled the country as part of the Uproar Festival and rode a big kahuna wave right up the charts with their first two singles “Die Trying” and “Get Thru This”. And with their fan base growing larger every day, they are certainly feeling pretty good.
“We like to hear that the songs are touching people and that they’re making an impact on people,” AOD’s guitar player Greg Bradley explained. As one long-time fan told me recently, “They always give 100% in their shows and put their heart and soul into each and every performance … They truly are a fan’s band and this will keep me coming back for more”.
With the recent release of their third single, “Sorry” from their album Vices & Virtues, AOD are heading back out to be with their fans. This week they begin a trek across the country as part of the Avalanche tour with Shinedown, then will be hitting festivals like Rocklahoma in May.
A few months ago, Bradley called Glide from Florida to talk about his band’s success, growing up in the land where Bret Hart is still considered a hero, and how he met his hero Jimmy Page while walking down the street.
Since we don’t know a lot about you, why don’t you start by telling us where you’re from, where you grew up and what kind of kid you were.
Well, I’m originally from Calgary, Alberta, in Canada, and that’s where I grew up. I live in Vancouver now, which is about twelve hours west of Calgary. And what kind of kid was I? (laughs) I was never the kid that was good at sports so I gravitated to music. And ever since I picked up the guitar, other than trying to be a good student and get through school, it was always music that I was doing as I was growing up and hanging out with my buddies, who were all musicians as well. We would always get together and jam all the time and push each other to be better players and that’s what I was like when I was a kid. Not much different than that now (laughs)
But Calgary is beautiful. The skiing is world-renown, it’s fantastic. Like when you go into the Banff National Park it’s just breath-taking, it’s gorgeous going through the Rockies and there are a couple really great mountains. When I was a kid I used to go skiing like every other weekend with my buddies and it was such a privilege and I didn’t even realize how great it was. But Calgary is a really cool city. It’s a prairie city but it’s only an hour away from Banff so you can see the mountains in the background, you know, they are just right there. It’s cold in the wintertime and hot in the summertime but it was a good city to grow up in, with good people, really nice people.
The wrestler Bret Hart is from Calgary. Did you hear a lot about him when you were growing up?
Oh yeah, the whole Hart family, and Hart Foundation as they called it, have a big old house up in the north, left of Calgary, and that’s where they trained. All the brothers trained to become pro wrestlers, and their father Stu Hart was the founder of Stampede Wrestling, which was really big locally. Then obviously Bret Hart and Owen Hart all went on to the WWE and WWF. So yeah, it was pretty exciting for those guys.
Did you ever go see them when they wrestled there?
Yeah, I did a couple times when I was a kid. I went to see Stampede Wrestling a couple times. It was like a small little wrestling match. I never went to see the big WWE kind of things; saw it on TV but I never saw any of the live ones.
What made you want to pick up the guitar in the first place?
You know, when I was growing up, my dad, who is not really a musician or guitar player, he had a guitar hanging around. He just kind of hung it on the wall and it was more like something to look at rather than something he actually got into (laughs). He put it there hoping one day he’d actually pick it up to learn how to play it but he never really did. And I just always saw that guitar and when I was like eight years old, I think, I asked my parents if I could take lessons and learn how to play guitar. I started but I was so small that my fingers couldn’t stretch across the frets at the time (laughs) so I got a little frustrated and put it down for a bit. But when I got a little bit older and more interested in it with my buddies, that’s when I picked it up again and for real started. Me and my friend back home in school, we decided who was going to play what. He said he was going to play drums so I’ll play guitar and that’s how it went. So now I’m a guitar player and he’s a drummer (laughs).
Do you remember your first guitar?
Oh man, yeah, you know what it was? There was this old Les Paul replica by Mann and that was my first electric guitar. I liked it cause it looked like Jimmy Page’s guitar but it definitely wasn’t a Gibson like he played. But it looked like it so I thought I could pretend I was Jimmy Page for a little bit (laughs).
What happened to that guitar?
It fell down the stairs and broke it’s neck (laughs) Unfortunately
And how did it fall down the stairs?
I really don’t know. I think I was taking it downstairs and I slipped or something and it slipped out of my hands. I caught myself before falling down the stairs but the guitar wasn’t so lucky (laughs)
Were you able to go get another guitar?
You know, my dad helped me fix it. We just glued it back together. Like it broke the neck but it was a solid break, so we just got some heavy duty glue and put some clamps on it and let it set for a couple of days. It was ok but still it wouldn’t hold its tuning after that so I think I eventually moved on to another guitar and that one was called a Parga. I’ve never seen one since but it was an interesting guitar, pretty cool, but I’m not really sure what happened to that one. I must have traded it in for something else. That’s probably what I did cause eventually you want to try and get better gear so that’s probably what I did with that one.
What was the first band that totally blew you away?
Led Zeppelin still blows me away. They’re just such great musicians and the songs are just so well put together and the recordings are just unbelievable. Like last night I was listening to them, just in my bunk, and I couldn’t fall asleep so I just put my headphones on and put Led Zeppelin on.
Which album were you listening to?
It was a compilation called Latter Days. It just reminded me how great of a band they are and they were my first inspiration as a kid and they still are a big inspiration to me now. Just listening to the records and me having some experience in the studio and songwriting and stuff, listening back to their records I’m going, wow, they still are just on top, so good.
Have you ever had a chance to meet Jimmy Page?
Yeah, I have actually. I met him once. It was incredible and I wasn’t expecting to meet him. I was backpacking through Europe with a friend, the friend that became the drummer when we decided which instruments we were going to play, and when I went on a trip to Europe, backpacking through, we were both big Zeppelin fans and big Jimmy Page fans. And we were walking through the streets of Amsterdam one night and he just walked right by us and we just instantly knew it was him. Both of us were like, “Holy shit, that’s Jimmy Page”. We just instinctively turned around and followed him and tapped him on the shoulder and had a quick little five minute conversation with him. We were like so shocked that we bumped into him. Then we were talking to him and he actually just completely controlled the conversation. He asked us a whole bunch of questions. Asked us what our favorite Zeppelin songs are and he was really, really nice. Like very genuine and kind and after about five minutes he just politely excused himself and off he went.
Was he the first real rock star that you had met?
He’s the biggest one for sure. I used to work in a record store so I got to meet a lot of artists. They’d come through the record store and come and do meet & greet signings and stuff like that. I got to meet them down in the basement while they were getting ready to go upstairs. So I’ve met all kinds of different people. And I’d get tickets to concerts and be able to go back and meet people.
I don’t know the first one but I’ve been fortunate to meet a lot of my heroes. I’ve also met Robert Plant before he did a show and one of my other favorite bands is Alice In Chains and I got to meet those guys back when I was working at the record store. I also got to meet them again when we played a show with them in August in Winnipeg. And we met them a couple of years ago when we played in England for the Download Festival. I’ve got to meet Lars and James from Metallica, I’m a big fan of those guys too. I’ve got to meet a lot of really cool people.
Since you were able to meet a lot of notable musicians when you were younger has that helped you make a point of being nice to the fans who come up to meet you?
Oh yeah, that’s always. Whenever I’ve met somebody who kind of rubbed me the wrong way, I kind of remember that. I thought when I’m in that position, I don’t want to be that guy, I want to be able to leave people with a positive experience, walking away and being inspired or just having a good feeling overall rather than I was a jerk (laughs)
So how does it feel to be on the other side of the table, so to speak?
It’s a real gratifying thing to be able to follow in those footsteps and literally play a lot of the same places and stuff that they did early on. You feel like you’re on the right path. I don’t think there’s anything better than following your heart and your dreams and having them come true. I think that’s probably a really important thing for anybody to do in their life and I’m just happy to be able to do that and to do what I’m doing is fantastic.
Did you believe when you were that young man working in a record store and going to university that this would happen? That you’d be a musician in a band achieving all that Art Of Dying has achieved?
As long as you have a strong belief that you CAN do it, then you just have that will to just keep going and persevere through all the tough, hard times, and keep moving on up the ladder. Eventually you find yourself with a record deal and on tour all over America and that’s pretty amazing. So I don’t know if I knew it or just felt it inside like that is what I should be doing. I just followed it, you know.
What was the first band you were in?
It was just my high school buddies. I don’t even know the name of it. We were just learning how to play our instruments, played talent shows at our junior high school and we were not very good at the time but we had the will and the passion (laughs) at the time to make it happen. Playing those shows and then eventually some of us stayed together and went on and played the cover band circuit around Calgary just to play, just to get live experience, make a little bit of cash. Those were formidable years and eventually led to me meeting Jonny Hetherington [AOD lead singer] and us starting our path to where we’re at now.
The two of you were in another band that eventually became Art Of Dying, correct?
Yeah, we had a band called SunLightStar that we did an independent record a few years back. Then we worked independently as far as we could and when it started to slow down is when we started writing songs for Art Of Dying. We just decided that we wanted to change the name of the band and kind of start fresh and write the songs that we’re writing now. And now Vices & Virtues is out.
Do you remember the first concert that you ever went to?
I’ve seen so many shows from when I was growing up. When I was working I used to go to tons of shows, I just loved to go all the time. I think maybe Alice In Chains back in like 1990.
So you got to see Layne Staley perform.
Yeah, they opened up for Van Halen and I went to that show and it was pretty awesome. Layne was really great.
When you first got up to play guitar in those early days, were you nervous or did it just feel natural?
Oh yeah I was nervous for sure (laughs). I was definitely nervous. When we were playing just locally when we were in high school and junior high, we would play talent shows and put on our own shows and I was definitely nervous. It was tough to get over that. Then when we started playing in the cover bands, you’d go up and play for a handful of people every night and we’d be playing three sets a night, playing two to three hours, and playing like thirty or forty songs a night. That’s where I kind of lost my nervous butterflies.
I actually am really thankful for those days allowing me to get over any kind of nerves that I have, cause even to this day I don’t really get nervous, even if we’re playing a big show. I just get up there and do it. There’ve been a couple of times where I’ve felt a little glimpse of the butterflies but other than that I get up there and do it.
What would you say is your all-time favorite album and what makes it so special still to this day?
I would say Led Zeppelin IV. I just think for some reason that one has got a magic everything to it. Every song that is on it, the flow of the record, the sound, the tones, the songs themselves, it just resonated really huge. Still does to me to this day. It just puts me in a trance when I listen to it.
What is your favorite song on there?
“Going To California” is probably one of my top favorites. I mean, it’s just hard to say cause I love the whole thing. I got to see Robert Plant playing “Going To California” and I thought that was pretty amazing. It’s like the closest thing to Zeppelin that I can get to.
You mentioned that you guys never stay in hotels, that you always sleep on the bus. Do you ever get tired having no place to stretch out and get out of the other guys’ nose hairs?
(laughs) A little bit. This was the first tour that we’ve done on a bus. Before, the tours we had we did have hotels on days off and we learned to cherish that those are very special days. You can go out, and like you said, stretch your feet and have a little bit of solitude for a little while, cause when you’re on the road it is a little piece of Heaven. So yeah, it’s kind of tough. There are a lot of guys on the bus and there’s not a lot of space but I’m not complaining. I’m on a tour bus and that’s a big treat to be able to tour around the country on a tour bus. You know, when we weren’t on a tour bus I would have to do a lot of driving and get hotels only every once in a while. So there are definitely pros and cons to all the different scenarios.
Are you the only family man in the band?
Yeah, I’m the only guy that has kids.
How does it feel being away from them for these long stretches of time? Or do they get to come out to you see more often than not?
Yeah, it depends on what the tour schedule is. I try to go home when we’re close by or have time here and there. It’s really tough. I stay in touch with them every day. I call them twice a day and I try to skype which keeps me in touch with them and at least keeps them seeing my face. But it’s pretty tough as it would be for any parent being away from their children for a long time. I’m sure that people who are in the service have the same feelings and people who are doing any job that takes you away from your family is a pretty tough thing.
But it’s something that I’ve dreamt of all my life and finally get the opportunity. It just happened when I had children in my life (laughs) But I had to make it all work and it’s tough but I do the best I can to make them feel at ease when I’m away and let them know how much I love them. I love playing shows but it’s important to take a little break and go back home and be with your family and regroup and then come back fresh again.
It helps that they are supportive of you.
Absolutely. If I didn’t have that support it would be pretty tough to be out here for so long.
Next week MY ROOTS has an in-depth interview with Jack Russell, former lead singer of Great White, who has spent the last couple of years fighting to get his health back strong. Now with a new invigorated body and spirit, he talks about the good times, the struggles he has had to endure and how love and spirituality has put him back on the road to rock & roll.
