Love 'em or hate 'em, 3 Doors Down have been around since the mid-'90s, with five albums in their canon. They're currently touring on last year's mega-selling Time of My Life, but you can still hear songs on the radio from their debut album. Led by vocalist (and the band's original drummer) Brad Arnold, there's no end in sight for the band.
As the band prepares to hit WinStar World Casino on Friday night, guitarist Chris Henderson was nice enough to share his first show experiences with us.
Interestingly, Henderson remembers seeing 3 Doors Down when they were just starting out, before he joined the band. He also remembers getting arrested at a hair metal show when he was in high school.
What was the first show you remember seeing? Were you with your parents?
Let's see, the first show I remember seeing... I know for a fact that it
was my brother's band. My brother Edward played bass in a number of
bands growing up, so my first experience was watching him play. That
would have been with my mom at least.
What was the first show you remember paying to see?
It was Hank Williams Jr. I was not with my parents. I was with the neighbors.
Can you remember how much the tickets were back then?
God, no. Couldn't have been more than $15.
Anything stick out as a bad concert experience, whether you watched from the side of the stage or paid to get in?
I got arrested at a Poison and Tesla show. I was in the 11th grade. They did
let me go, but then they picked me back up and put me back in jail.
What do you remember about the first 3 Doors Down show?
Very first as far as a national act or a bar band?
Bar band.
The very first one that I remember was at a party. I wasn't in the
band at that point. I was in the band that went on before them. I
remember 3 Doors Down had only four songs and so they just played them over
and over again. It was kinda neat. The band was still young. I think
Brad was probably 15 and Matt was 15. Just kids. The band I was in at
the time was the band on the block, so to speak. It was kinda cool to
see that unfold and then to join the band several months later.
Were these four songs originals or covers?
This band started writing music right off the bat. You could tell
there was some potential there. It was why I wanted to join the band to
begin with.
What can you remember about the first time you played Dallas?
We played at a place called Trees with Nickelback. It was the first
time we played with inner-ear monitors in. Just from Point A to Point B,
it was one of the craziest days of my life. First time I ever met any
sports stars, too, because some of the Dallas Stars came out. For the first
time, we partied like rock stars with rock stars, people of Dallas. Then we met a
couple of chicks and they came back and hung out at the hotel. It was,
like, party down, all night long.
Prior to playing Trees, had you or any of the others heard
about how that was the place Nirvana played and Kurt Cobain got into a
fight?
No.
There have been many legendary shows in the DFW area -- like the fact that
the Sex Pistols played here on their short-lived tour in the late-'70s,
but that Nirvana show still comes up to this day.
We didn't know anything about that at the time, but I have seen the YouTube video of that.
What do you remember about the last time you played the DFW area?
The last time we played was at Texas Motor Speedway. The last time we
played Dallas proper, it was a radio show and My Chemical Romance was
one of the bands. I remember it being really cold. Playing with a band
like My Chemical Romance, our two genres don't really mix as well as
people might think that they would. So it was kind of a weird set-up,
but it went well. We had a good time.
