If you're into metal, you probably don't need to be told about Roadrunner Records. The label, an indie until last August when it merged with Island/Def Jam, boasts such heavy-hitting bands as Fear Factory, Coal Chamber, Machine Head, and Slipknot. Dig deeper into the Roadrunner back catalog, and you'll find some of the underground legends of metal and hardcore, including Deicide, Mercyful Fate, Type O Negative, and the Misfits.
So what's a straight-ahead rock 'n' roll band like Nickelback doing on such a haven for head bangers? Well, selling scads of records, for one thing, and getting heavy airplay, too. Nickelback's The State (Roadrunner, 2000) went Gold; their most recent, Silver Side Up (Roadrunner, 2001), has topped it by going Platinum. And if you haven't heard Nickelback's single “How You Remind Me,” then you haven't been listening to rock radio as of late. At press time, the tune was No. 1 on Billboard's “Hot 100” singles chart and had the largest audience of any song on the airwaves.
Still, one might wonder why this Canadian group signed with Roadrunner in the first place. Lead singer — guitarist Chad Kroeger thinks that if the band had inked a deal with a major label, they probably would have been swept under the carpet. “In our first week of sales, we probably sold 1,000 copies of The State,” says Kroeger. “In the first eight weeks on a major, if you're not selling upward of 15,000 records a week, you're going to get dropped. Roadrunner just kept plugging away and putting money into us.”
Before Nickelback struck precious metal, they had built a sizable following as a live act, gigging on their own and opening for groups such as Creed, 3 Doors Down, and Fuel. In 2001 and 2002, they've headlined large arenas and theaters across the United States and Europe in support of Silver Side Up. It's little wonder that the band (which also includes Kroeger's bass-playing brother, Mike; guitarist-singer Ryan Peake; and drummer Ryan “Nik” Vikedal) takes such pride in their emotive performances. Says Peake, “We tell people, if you listen to the stuff on the radio, that's fantastic. If you like the stuff on the album, that's fantastic, too. But before you make a judgment about the band, come see us live.”
Nickelback formed in 1996, after the Kroeger brothers and Peake played in a cover band called Village Idiot (in which Chad played lead guitar and sang backup). “We had this cover band for about eight months and cut our teeth on the road,” Peake says. The band moved to Vancouver and recorded a trio of projects: a seven-song demo called Hesher; their Canadian debut album, Curb; and The State. They released all three on their own self-named label.
Nickelback's big break came in late 1999, when they signed with Roadrunner. “I was mailing out our CD, and I did a mailing to a gentleman named Jan Seedman from Los Angeles, who worked for a music publishing company,” Peake recalls. “He couldn't do anything for a record deal specifically, but he sent our music to his buddy Ron Burman at Roadrunner, who came out and saw us play.” Roadrunner re-released The State, and the rest is history.
Chad Kroeger and Peake spoke with Onstage before their sound check for a concert at the War Memorial Complex in Syracuse, New York.
From a live-performance perspective, when did the band start to gel?
Kroeger: When we got our [latest] drummer, Ryan Vikedal — right before we got signed — it seemed to make a huge difference. He really complemented us and helped make the band what it is today. Instead of feeling like the three of us and some drummer, we started to feel like Nickelback.
Peake: He's been an absolute blessing. He'll know exactly what I'm going to do. It's such a comfort to play a song and have the drummer know when to stop [laughs], and not have to turn around all paranoid going, “Does he know?”
How much has all the touring helped your chops?
Kroeger: Vocally, I can sing higher than ever. I can sing with more power, and I can sing consistently every night. I think my chops [as a lead guitarist] have depreciated because I'm not playing as many solos as I used to. Now it's more about the songwriting really, than “look how fast I can play, or look at the cool shit I can pull off.”
Peake: I would say it's definitely helped my accuracy while I'm physically bouncing across the stage. Doing the two-gun walk — playing guitar and playing around — can throw off your playing. We're learning to put them together so we're not sounding like a big mess of notes.
Chad, you jump around a lot onstage. Are your stage moves spontaneous?
Kroeger: Yes, absolutely. If I feel like getting over to one side where I think the crowd's been getting neglected, that's where I'm going to head.
Do you use any signals or cues to communicate with each other during a performance?
Peake: We don't. We just kinda know, especially when we lock eyes. If we want to do something different, or if we know that something's gone haywire, I look over at him [Kroeger], and we give a nod or an A-OK look and go from there. When you get comfortable playing with somebody, you can do that. In the past two years everybody's synced up as a group, and it's really become easy to play.
How would you characterize your music?
Peake: I'll give you two terms and you pick. Not to try to dodge anything, but I think we're rock 'n' roll — I honestly do. I would also call it blue-collar rock.
Why?
Peake: I think our music connects with the average Joe, because we're not trying to fool anybody and we're not going for a certain niche. We're straight-down-the-middle rock. It's not extremely hard to listen to, but we try to make it interesting. And it's been connecting with a wide demographic of people — I guess, working-class people — because, again, we're not attempting to fool anybody. We go onstage and essentially say, “Hey, we're Nickelback. These are our songs, this is what we do, and we hope you enjoy it.”
Would you say that your music has elements of grunge?
Peake: I would have to say yes. But that's because we have elements from bands like Creedence Clearwater Revival and Blue Rodeo — a Canadian country-rock band from which I got my perspective on harmony. Someone asked whether we were influenced by Alice in Chains. If you want to make that connection, fine, but that's not where I got the ideas. I got the ideas from a country-rock band that made harmonies so important.
Your songs are straightforward and very powerful. What's the main focus when you're arranging them?
Kroeger: We work to make everything extremely cohesive and pleasing to the ear. We try not to have abrasive parts. When you're eatin' spaghetti, you don't want to be tasting all the ingredients. You want to be tasting it as a whole. That's sort of how we look at our musical process.
Peake: When we're writing music, we try to keep things dynamic. That way, when we play it onstage, we can be loud and boisterous at one point and then all of a sudden bring it down.
Guitars are integral to your sound. Talk a little about your guitar arrangements.
Kroeger: Songs tend to change quite a bit when we go into the studio. If you're sitting there and the song is laid down in front of you, it's usually like, “Let's throw down this part.” You end up layering all these parts and picking the one that will sound best live. So you wind up doing a trade-off: “Okay, I'm not going to play this riff [live]; I'm actually going to play this melody part here.” It's also funny the way that songs develop themselves live. And there's some stuff that people really latch on to [from the recording] that you don't perform — a little melody, for example.
How is playing live different for you from playing in the studio?
Kroeger: You have to be in two totally different head spaces. Playing live is all about projecting and entertaining. When you're working in the studio, however, you're not trying to entertain anybody — you're just trying to give the best guitar take, sing the best vocal take, and so on.
Peake: In the studio, I just focus on the actual playing. When I'm onstage, though, there are points when I'm not as concerned about the tone and other elements as when I'm in the studio, because onstage you can be a little sloppy sometimes. There's a lot of crowd interaction when we play live. We like to get the crowd very involved and worked up. If that entails missing a note and doing a couple of chooga-choogas instead [laughs], that's what happens. It's part of the show. And you need to know when that's acceptable. I also like improve moments. They definitely mix things up for us. If you want to hear the music exactly that way it is on the CD, go home and put it on.
Kroeger: We'll go off and jam. We expand solos and stuff. All that contributes to being good live entertainers.
Kroeger: I'd do anything. I'd damn near set myself on fire to get their attention. I've climbed lighting rigs, I've jumped on top of speaker stacks, I've laid down my guitar and leapt into the mosh pit, which was really stupid.
What was life like in the early days of the band?
Kroeger: When we got to Vancouver and recorded our first demo, we slept on the engineer's floor for two months. In that situation, you eat a lot of Kraft dinners and try to stay alive. You work any job you can, try not to sell drugs, and just make a go of it.
Peake: I actually appreciate everything I went through. I think anybody that's trying to do this has to have confidence in his or her project, and I really had confidence in it. I put everything I had into this thing because I thought there was something to go for. But I never, ever would have expected to do something that would become this big. You always hope — you always dream — but I wasn't confident enough to expect this. And I want to see how far we can take this. It seems like something new is happening every day.
What drove you to keep going when things were tough?
Kroeger: I didn't want to work a job for the rest of my life that I was going to hate. So I got this one! Also, I just hate to lose. I view life — and every single time we play a show — as a personal battle, and I want to win them all.
Was there ever a point when you thought the band wouldn't make it?
Peake: There was a point, and I can remember it vividly, when we had recorded a demo and didn't feel that things were strong enough. We hadn't had the time to make something we were happy with, and our confidence level became so low. We were like, “But what else can we do? Where else can we go?” But at times like that, you have to give yourself a kick in the ass and keep going. Otherwise, put your guitar down and find a day job.
Do you ever perform music live from your pre-Roadrunner releases
(Hesher
and
Curb)
live?
Peake: It's not in the set plan right now, but yeah, absolutely. We may pull out some of the stuff for our Canadian tour because that's where people would recognize it.
Chad, have you always played music with your brother Mike?
Kroeger: This has been our first band. When we were growing up, we never jammed together. He would be in his bedroom across the hall jamming on his shit, and I would be in my bedroom jamming on mine. I'd be learning this Metallica song, he'd be learning that Megadeth song. I'd be practicing my scale, he'd be practicing his. But we never really got together because we weren't writing stuff at that time — we were just honing our chops.
Ryan, how'd you get your start in music?
Peake: I was classically trained on piano and played trombone in a band. My dad played bass in a country band for 20 years to help support our family; he's extremely musical. For me, guitar was the next progressive step. My brother got a guitar for his birthday; I stole it, started playing with his drummer, and that's how I got into playing guitar. The only thing to do at that point was to play in a band and drink beer — small-town life, I guess.
What do you do to stay healthy and sane on the road?
Peake: Lately, I'm trying to keep my mind as positive as possible. Because music incorporates, I'd say, 90 percent of my life, I need to walk away from that once in a while. I do a lot of reading and golfing. The bassist, the drummer, and I play golf. You get to check out for four hours, and it relaxes you for the show.
Do you have any words of wisdom for aspiring musicians?
Kroeger: Practice, practice, practice. Absolutely. The other thing to do is to pay attention to songs that you really like; listen to choruses, listen to verses — pay attention to songwriting. I try and pick out the reason I really dig a part, and then I study it. I try to assess what makes a great song.
What's changed about your life now that you're “rock stars”?
Peake: I'd really have to sit back and think about all the things that have actually changed, because I don't pay attention, I guess. But I am conscious of being more grounded. People every day are either trying to bring you up or knock you down. The more albums you sell, the more you're public enemy No. 1, it seems, and that can really mess with your mind. Yet you can't believe everything you read, good or bad.
