Nickelback

Vancouver, Kanada, 1996. Hier arbeitet Mike Kroeger in einem Starbucks Café. Nebeher spielt er mit Ryan Peake, Ryan Vikedal und seinem Bruder Chad Kroeger in einer noch namenlosen Band. Die vier mögen Soundgarden, Bush, Nirvana und beschreiben ihre Musik selbst als "Hard rocking, energetic and entertaining rhythm driven songwriting. Guaranteed to pack the floor and drive a crowd into a frenzy!" Als Mike irgendwann Wechselgeld zurück gibt ("Here's your Nickel back."), kommt er auf den Bandnamen.
Die vier beginnen Songs zu schreiben und nehmen ein Demo-EP namens "Hesher" auf. Einen Plattenvertrag bringt das zwar noch nicht, aber sie gehen immerhin in Kanada auf Tour. Im Herbst 96 veröffentlichen sie ihr erstes Album "Curb", eintausend Exemplare werden in Eigenregie unter's Volk gebracht. Wieder kein Plattenvertrag, wieder steht Touren auf dem Plan.

Im Sommer 98 gehen sie wieder ins Studio und nehmen "The State" auf. Die selbstveröffentlichte Single "Leader Of Men" schafft den Sprung in die Charts und plötzlich stehen die Plattenfirmen auf der Matte. Für Kanada bekommt EMI den Zuschlag, für den Rest der Welt Roadrunner Records. Endlich läuft die Promomaschine an und das Album "The State" verkauft sich in den USA mehr als 400000 Mal. In Kanada erreichen Nickelback Goldstatus und gewinnen Anfang 2001 den Juno-Award in der Kategorie "Best New Group". Im Frühjahr 2001 wird "The State" dann auch endlich in Deutschland veröffentlicht. Und Mike Kroeger muss nie wieder in einem Café arbeiten.

Zum Zeitpunkt der Veröffentlichung von "The State" sind Nickelback jedoch schon damit beschäftigt, den Nachfolger einzuspielen. Der hört auf den Namen "Silver Side Up" und erscheint am im September 2001. Zuerst liegt das Ding recht schwer in den Regalen, was sich aber im Zuge des Charterfolges von "How You Remind Me" schnell ändert. Die Single penetriert die Spitze der Bestenliste und zieht in seinem Schlepptau das Album in die Top 5. Als folge dessen müssen die Kanadier ihre für kleine Clubs gebuchte Tour in größere Hallen verlegen. Auch diese sind in kürzester Zeit ausverkauft und bescheren der Band ein mediales Interesse, mit dem sie wohl selbst nicht gerechnet haben. Ihre Plattenfirma gibt dann dem Affen noch zusätzlich Zucker und veröffentlicht 2002 das schon lange vergriffene Debüt "Curb" neu.

Zwischen umjubelten Hallen-Konzerten und Festival-Auftritten finden Chad und co. genügend Zeit, um neue Songs zu schreiben und aufzunehmen. Kroger legt parallel zu den Touraktivitäten das Duett "Heroes" mit Josey Scott von Saliva für den Spiderman-Soundtrack hin, bevor im Herbst 2003 "The Long Road" an den Start geht. Anscheinend haben sie jetzt ihr Profil so weit geschärft, dass ihr Konzept fest steht. Die Unterschiede zu "Silver Side Up" sind folglich nur marginal.

2005 gibt es einen Wechsel im Line-up: Daniel Adair, bislang im Studio und auf Tour als Drummer im Einsatz für die College-Rocker 3 Doors Down, ersetzt Ryan Vikedal am Schlagzeug. Adair stammt ebenfalls aus Vancouver und verlässt seine bisherigen Bandkameraden ziemlich überraschend. Gemeinsam beginnt der Vierer mit den Arbeiten am Nachfolger zu "The Long Road", der im Sommer in den Läden steht.

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Canada's Nickelback started life as a cover band in Hanna, 215 kilometres northeast of Calgary. Eventually, they tired of playing other people's songs and singer/guitarist Chad Kroeger put together a bunch of original songs, borrowed 4,000 bucks off his stepfather, and went to big city Vancouver to record them in a friend's studio. Based on the results, Kroeger's guitarist brother, Mike, and pal bassist Ryan Vikedal all relocated to Vancouver in 1996; that same year, they recorded and released the EP Hesher and full-length Curb independently and embarked on a series of cross-country tours. The group's singer had spent two years selling advertising for a soccer magazine and now applied some of the skills he had learned to his band. He asked his friends to fax and phone radio stations to request their first single until it was played often enough for Nickelback to pick up fans on their own.

In late 1998, the band decided their managers were unable to bring them to the next level and started managing themselves. Mike Kroeger handled all the distribution, brother Chad handled all the radio tracking, and Ryan Vikedal handled all the bookings. The group had also invested $30,000 into a new album. The State was released independently in January 2000 during a slow rock period when Canadian content requirements were increased and local rock radio began desperately seeking out homegrown product. What they found was Nickelback's single "Leader of Men." Nickelback toured ceaselessly for The State and 200 shows later, the band had gone from virtual unknowns to playing in front of over a million people alongside the likes of Creed, 3 Doors Down, Fuel, and more. The band's post-grunge commercial appeal wasn't lost on the record industry and The State was snapped up by Roadrunner/Island, Def Jam in the U.S., and EMI in Canada. It eventually sold an impressive 500,000 copies.

Many of the songs that comprised the next album, Silver Side Up, were written even before The State was released in America and road-tested in front of eager audiences on cross-country treks. The other significant change about this set of songs was Chad Kroeger's conscious decision to write his lyrics in a more direct manner rather than the metaphoric and vague lyrics of previous releases. "Too Bad" was about the father who was never around when Chad and his brother were growing up. "Never Again" is a song inspired by broken homes. "How You Remind Me," the first single from the album, was written at rehearsals shortly before the band went into the studio.

To record the album, the band decided to work with producer Rick Parashar (Pearl Jam, Temple of the Dog) at the same studio as The State, Vancouver's Green House. The album was completed in five short weeks and the 13 tracks were mixed by Randy Staub (Metallica, U2). The combination of Parashar and Staub, Nickelback's growing popularity, and the quality of the songs sent Silver Side Up into the sales charts around the world, spearheaded by the hit single "How You Remind Me." It was only the second time in history since the Guess Who's "American Woman" that a Canadian band had been number one on both the Canadian and U.S. rock charts at the same time. After their initial mainstream exposure, Kroeger produced Vancouver natives Default and colaborated with Saliva singer Josey Scott for the Spiderman soundtrack. In the summer of 2002, the band re-released Curb since it had fallen out of print years before.

The more polished The Long Road arrived in 2003. The single "Someday" shot to #7 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart, but it's similarity to "How You Remind Me" was a hot topic on the Internet with one site going as far to stream the two songs together - one in the left speaker, the other in the right - to prove its point. Despite the naysayers, the album went on to sell five million copies worldwide and was supported by another successful international tour. In February of 2005 it was announced that Ryan Vikedal had left the band, but Vikedal claimed in an interview he was pushed out for not being "the type of drummer" the band required. A month later it was announced that former 3 Doors Down drummer Daniel Adair was his replacement and the band was jamming at Chad Kroeger's studio in Vancouver in preparation for their next album. ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons and the late Dimebag Darrel from Pantera were guests on All the Right Reasons which saw release in October of 2005.