When 3 Doors Down exploded onto the music scene in 2000, they brought a fresh, powerful sound that resonated with the new millennium. Hailing from Escatawpa, Mississippi, the band, initially a trio with Brad Arnold, Matt Roberts, and Todd Harrell, expanded to a quartet in 1998 with the addition of rhythm guitarist Chris Henderson. This solidified lineup delivered The Better Life, their debut album, which went six-times platinum and defined the sound of the early 2000s with its potent blend of post-grunge and classic rock. This monumental album paved the way for continued success, including chart-topping albums like Seventeen Days and 3 Doors Down.
Leading The Better Life charge was Kryptonite, the debut single with an unforgettable, driving beat and a chorus that digs deep. Kryptonite‘s lasting appeal saw it ranked at No. 43 on Billboard’s decade-end charts, an impressive feat for a song born from classroom boredom. As Brad Arnold, the band’s drummer and frontman, recounts, the genesis of Kryptonite was as unexpected as its impact.
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Released: January 18, 2000
Artist: 3 Doors Down
Label: Republic/Universal
Songwriters: Brad Arnold, Matt Roberts, Todd Harrell
Producer: Paul Ebersold
UK chart position: –
US chart position: 3
“I actually wrote the lyrics for Kryptonite song during my senior year of high school, in algebra class,” Arnold explains. “In South Mississippi, where I was going to high school, algebra was scheduled right after lunch. And just before lunch, I had creative writing class. Ironically, I wasn’t very good at the technical aspects of English class, you know, the grammar rules and all that, but I excelled at creative writing. Similarly, math wasn’t my strong suit either. However, creative writing class really got my mind going, teaching me how to craft stories. That’s how I initially got into lyric writing, through the process of writing short stories. In essence, lyrics are just condensed short stories set to music, usually with a recurring chorus.”
“After creative writing, there was a short break, and then came math. I really disliked math, so I would just sit there and write lyrics every day. I spent the whole class writing. I barely managed to pass the course. Kryptonite was one of the songs that emerged from those math class writing sessions. We were a local band at the time, and I was the drummer. Interestingly, I wrote Kryptonite, initially, on the drums. The very first musical idea, that distinctive lick, came from me simply tapping a rhythm on my desk. That’s where that kind of skippy beat originated from.”
“As I was tapping on the desk, the lyrics just started to come to me, sounding cool with the rhythm. I suppose the underlying theme of the Kryptonite song, as it developed, became more meaningful to me personally. But at its core, the song is about friendship and loyalty. It’s essentially asking, ‘Will you be there for me when I need you most?’ The lyrics flowed out in math class, almost as quickly as I could speak them. I took them to practice that same day at our bass player Todd’s place. He lived in a mobile home, but he had a small living room where we kept all of our gear set up.”
“Matt and I were already at practice when Todd got home. Matt and I were just sitting there, and I said, ‘Man, I’ve got a song I want you guys to hear.’ I replicated the beat I had been tapping on the desk on the snare drum and sang the Kryptonite song lyrics to Matt. Matt’s reaction was immediately positive, ‘Those are cool, man.’ I asked, ‘Do you think you can come up with something for that?’ He responded, ‘I think I do,’ and he played the first few notes of what would become Kryptonite. The melody really didn’t change much from that initial moment; it pretty much stayed the same. We played through it a few times, smoothed it out a bit. Todd had just arrived home from work and went to take a shower. I remember him sticking his head out the bathroom door, asking, ‘What are y’all playing?’ We excitedly told him, ‘It’s a hit! Hurry up and get out here.’ Even the very first time we played Kryptonite song together, it felt like a really strong song. We played it for some friends, and they also thought, ‘It’s a pretty good song,’ and that was that, initially.”
“People are often surprised to learn that the entire Kryptonite song – from the initial lyrics written in algebra class to the version we played at band practice – came together in about 30 minutes. It was amazing, especially because we had spent days laboring over other songs before, and this one just seemed to appear almost instantly, fully formed. And to add to that, Kryptonite was only about the fifth or sixth song I had ever written.”
“There were about five years between writing Kryptonite song and recording it for The Better Life album. We were based in South Mississippi, and we had self-released a local CD that we sold in record stores around town, and Kryptonite was the opening track on that CD. Our local radio station, WCPR, had a show to support local music. Once a month, they would invite a local band to come on and perform. We were featured on that show a couple of times, playing Kryptonite and I believe we played Loser as well on occasion. Kryptonite started generating a lot of requests from listeners.”
“We persistently asked local radio stations to play the Kryptonite song, and finally, Kenny Vest at WCPR gave us a chance. He told us, ‘You know what, I think I’m gonna play that song.’ It quickly became the most requested song the station had ever aired. Radio stations report their playlists to record companies through industry charts. These reports typically include the song title, artist, and record label. In our case, the reports would list the ‘song’, the ‘artist’, but there was no ‘record label’ listed because we were unsigned.”
“That’s when record labels started to take notice and came looking for us. We only seriously considered offers from a couple of labels: Atlantic and Universal. We ultimately decided to sign with Universal, and they have been fantastic to work with, and incredibly supportive of us throughout our career.”
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3 Doors Down. Photo: Dove Shore
“When we re-recorded Kryptonite song for the album, we really focused on keeping it as faithful to the original version as possible. We were concerned about losing the raw energy and feel of the original. Despite our efforts to stay true to the original, some people who had been listening to our initial version for a couple of years actually disliked the re-recorded version. They were saying, ‘What is this crap?’ We had tried so hard to please everyone.”
“Writing lyrics while drumming naturally leads to rhythmically driven lyrics. For our first couple of albums, I often wrote while playing the drums. Being a drummer allows you to really lock the lyrics into the drumbeat. This rhythmic foundation is really important because it gives the guitars and other instruments more freedom to play around within that structure, both lyrically and rhythmically.”
“Matt and I started playing music together because a friend of his had left a drum kit at Matt’s house for me to play. I didn’t own a drum set at the time, and Matt’s friend never used his. Matt was learning guitar as I was learning to play drums. Music truly is like a different language for each person. When you collaborate with someone new, someone you don’t know or haven’t worked with before artistically, the first hour or so is often spent learning how that person ‘speaks’ musically. But Matt and I learned to speak our musical languages together from the beginning, so we never had that initial adjustment period. To this day, I miss writing with Matt, and I miss him as a friend, period.”
“I believe Kryptonite song was released at the perfect moment because it offered something different from what was dominating the radio at the time, and there was a void for a song like it to break through. There was something about it that grabbed people’s attention, made them want to tap their feet, and it was simply an enjoyable song to listen to, with relatable lyrics. While Kryptonite isn’t my personal favorite song we’ve ever written – some of our other songs hold deeper personal meaning for me – at the same time, when people ask me, ‘Will you ever get tired of playing Kryptonite?’ My answer is always, ‘Hell, no! I love it.’”
“We were playing a show in 2019, at a fair or festival, something like that. There were several bands on the bill, and there were around 10,000 people in the audience. I noticed that the first 2,000 people right in front of the stage, not a single one of them was over 18 years old, and they were all enthusiastically singing along to Kryptonite song. At the end of the song, I was just laughing and said to the crowd, ‘It’s awesome that you guys are jamming to that song because it’s older than every single one of y’all!’”
The 20th Anniversary release of The Better Life is out now. For further info on the album and upcoming live shows, head to 3doorsdown.com
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3 Doors DownBrad ArnoldChris HendersonKryptoniteMatt RobertsPaul EbersoldTodd Harrell
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