3 Doors Down Singled Out Week: Kryptonite

Keavin Wiggins | 03-22-2021

3 Doors Down album cover art courtesy UMe

3 Doors Down are releasing 20th Anniversary Editions of their blockbuster "The Better Life" album this week and to celebrate we asked frontman Brad Arnold to tell us the story behind some of the songs. Today he tells us about "Kryptonite". Here is the story:

It was written in math class and I took it to practice and we wrote the song and like I said, we got signed through that song being played on the local radio station, We begged them for two years to play it. We didn't realize that they just can't do that. But finally they did just do that. The guy, Phinny, said, "I'm going to give the boys a chance and show what they can do." They played it once or twice on their local show that they would have once a month and ended up getting a lot of requests for it and it just took off.

And for the video, they sent us a bunch of treatments and I didn't even know what video treatments were and they told us, "Well, it's just a script for a video with a storyline." There's not usually any spoken lines, just the lyrics of the song. So we were reading through these treatments and one was by Dean Karr and he had directed a lot of the videos for Marilyn Manson..."Beautiful People", I think.

They're not my thing but were very artistic at the same time. Cuz, it was some pretty edgy imagery in those and it wasn't the kind of thing that we were going for but the treatment for "Kryptonite" just grabbed it and it ended up so perfect for that song. I think that the video actually led to the success of that song as well. Because a lot of people say, "Man, that's the weirdest video I've ever seen." And I say, "Yeah, but you remember it, you know?" (laughs) And that's what it's all about at the end of the day...it sticks in your mind,

I remember shooting that video, The guy who plays Superman for lack of a better name...I guess he was the green something... (laughs) He was a really nice man. He had done several things but in real life, one of his things was that he was a hypnotist, And he was trying to hypnotize me to not be nervous, cuz I was pretty nervous about it. And that scene at the start of the video where we were on the top of this sign on the building in LA...that was the first thing we shot in the video which was the first thing that I had ever shot of anything. And it was on top of this huge building in LA on the sign. I wasn't scared but it was weird, you know (laughs)

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the album here