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Classic Rock - March 2003
Face Off Chad Kroeger
Singer, guitarist, mouthpiece, producer and much, much more, the Nickelback mainman is either as talented as he talks it or the most arrogant got-lucky Mr. Average in rock. Model of modesty: Jerry Ewing
They are arguably the hard rock success story of the last couple of years. Four seemingly unassuming musicians from the Canadian wastelands who began as a covers band called Hanna, before relocating to Vancouver and, after borrowing $4,000, reappeared as Nickelback with their debut album "Curb" in 1996.
A mixture of hard graft, relentless touring of their homeland and blatant self-promotion proved to be the making of the band, and after moving to self-management two years later they could afford to spend $30,000 on their second album "The State".
Hard road work resulted in tours supporting the likes of Creed and Fuel. It was enough to attract the attention of Roadrunner Records, who released "The State" in the US. The record initially went on to shift half a million copies, laying the groundwork for the bandīs next album, 2001īs "Silver Side Up", and its lead-off single "How You Remind Me".
Few rock fans will be unaware of either "Silver Side Up" or "How You Remind Me". Both have crept their way to the top of their respective charts the world over, making Nickelback one of the most successful rock bands of the millennium. Chad Kroegerīs hit solo single "Hero" (taken from the 2002 Spider-Man soundtrack) was merely an extension of the bandīs massive popularity.
But success hasn't come without a price. Critics have been quick to express their dismay at the commercialisation of the grunge sound – a sacred cow to many since Kurt Cobainīs death in 1994 – and d**nation from some quarters has been both cutting and personal, focusing more on the bandīs attire and hairstyles than on anything else. Yet the kids who actually buy the bandīs records remain convinced.
As the bandīs coffers swell to multi-millionaire proportions, you might expect to find Chad Kroeger – a man who surely must have learned humility from persevering through the bandīs climb from nobodies to major rock stars – happily sitting on top of the pile, gleefully thumbing his nose at his detractors and applauding the taste of his fans. Wouldn't you? Apparently not.
Nickelback are probably the hard rock success story of 2002, and maybe the previous year too. That must make you feel good?
Absolutely. My mother's very proud. It's also nice to see the hard work paying off. It never feels good when you're working your arse off and you look around and it's like you're spinning your wheels and never getting anywhere. It's felt like that in the past, and it's nice to not have that feeling any more, cos it's like all the hard work has paid off.
How big are the band in the US in relation to the UK?
We're bigger, we're seven times platinum in Canada and four times platinum, I think, in America, so with the two combined we're looking at over five million records. When we play in North America we're looking at headlining festivals of 35,000 people, over in the UK we're just getting to the point where we can start putting people in arenas. When we get to the point where we can headline the V2 festival, that's when we'll feel like we're the same size over there.
What does it feel like to be that big? Surely it gets to a point where it ridicules the reasons that you started?
Things are very comfortable – very, very comfortable. Each one of us has our own bus on the road. We don't have to worry about where our next meal's coming from. It feels like we got to touch the brass ring for a couple of minutes, and we'd like to hold on to it for a little while.
Comfortable – can you get too comfortable in rockīnīroll?
I don't feel any pressure to repeat the success. If we put out our next record and it flops I won't really care, because we've already got to accomplish more than most people will ever accomplish in a lifetime. We've sold seven and a half million records; I've got to meet and hang out with some of the most amazing people on the planet, in my opinion; and I get to call me a rock star for a couple of years. What's better than that?
That's how you feel now, but what were you expecting back when you released "Curb"?
We never really had our sights set on the planet. We just had our sights set on Canada, really. We didn't know anything about what it took to get to this size, we just wanted to be a big band in Canada, or even a medium-sized band in Canada. Modest aspirations, but we were very driven. We got lucky in a way, too, because instead of signing a Canadian record deal, which we easily could have done, we signed an American deal.
So you'd say that signing with Roadrunner in the States was one of the most beneficial things in Nickelbackīs success story?
Oh, absolutely. If we'd signed to a major label we would've been swept under the carpet a long time ago. Our first week of sales on "The State" was 1,000 records in America, the next week was like 1,100, and the week after that was 1,200. Any band that starts progressing that slowly is gonna get dropped. But they stuck with us and poured tons of money into us, and we toured relentlessly.
Do you think it's true that the US looks down it's nose at Canadian bands?
Yup.
How much did you stint selling advertising on a magazine in Canada help you gain an understanding of the machinations of the music business?
I think it helped immensely. I almost think that God had a masterplan, and he made me jump through all these little hoops so I'd learn things I was gonna need in my career. And I was good at it, too. God, I could sell f**king ice to an Eskimo. And I felt like that when I was selling Nickelback to radio stations. When I got programme and music directors on the phone I used every sales technique in the book. We got "Leader Of Men" charting and cracking the Top 20 with the lead singer calling f**king radio stations and not telling them he was in the band. I'd just say: "Hi, this is Chad Kroeger calling from the Nickelback camp. How are things in Calgary today?" And then I would literally start talking about anything I could apart from music – weather, sporting events, hockey games, movies – an get them laughing and having a good time on the phone. And that way it was like a buddy-buddy situation instead of making them feel they were getting sold something. And then after about ten minutes of talking I'd hit tem with the new record. And it worked.
Did that play a part in the decision in the '90's to manage yourselves?
We watched the mistakes our managers were making. How dare I even call them managers, they were just glorified booking agents. I thought it was far easier taking on all those duties ourselves. And it worked very, very well. You're not getting some watered-down excuse and you're not getting lied to. And if something didn't happen you always knew who hadn't done their job.
You borrowed money to record "Curb" and also "The State", both prior to landing your deal with Roadrunner. Was there a point at which you thought it might have been wasted money?
We were selling so many records in Canada independently, we didn't need a record deal. We sold 10,000 copies in six months. At $12.75 a CD minus production costs, that's a hundred grand that we put in our pockets – independently. Any record company that wanted a piece of that was gonna have to pay dearly. If four kids who don't know anything about selling records can put a hundred grand in their pocket, imagine what the machine could do, being a record company.
Was there a lot of interest from major labels at that time, given your success story as independents?
You'd be surprised how long we stood around waiting. Like: "Why is it taking them so long to call?" Most people who work at record companies are stupid, they don't have a clue what's going on. The only reason they got the job is because their uncle works at the place or they give a better blow job than anyone else at the place. They all have marketing degrees. "What do you know about music?" "Nothing, but I'm a marketing major and I know how to sell anything." Well it gets to the point where you have to know something about music. It's not just a product, it's a band, and there's songs and a career there. It doesn't have anything to do with how many degrees in marketing you have, it has something to do with believing in music.
In musical terms, your earlier two records are a lot harsher and less polished than "Silver Side Up". What do you think of them now?
It's like looking at high-school pictures: "God, I really looked like that? It's the same sort of thing, a growth period. But there's also some good stuff on there. There are some songs I wish I hadn't written then, because I'd like to record them now and do a really good job on them."
The band have definitely developed a more polished sound as they've progressed.
I think I learned more about songwriting after we released "The State", because I really started studying songs like "How You Remind Me" and "Too Bad" and looking at the magic of them. Like you can play the song for somebody on another planet just once and have them fall in love with it. It took me a while, really, looking at those songs and looking at the album and taking a real good look at the songwriting. It wasn't really a fluke, but there's definitely something magical about it.
Considering the enormous success of "Silver Side Up" both "Curb" and "The State" have been reissued. Was there any temptation to re-record any of the material from those two albums for the re-release?
We did actually take one song off of "Curb" called "Just Four" and re-record it for "Silver Side Up", which is kind of funny as none of us can remember that song even being on "Silver Side Up". But we were happy with the way it turned out.
When you were writing "Silver Side Up", why did you make the deliberate decision to change the way you wrote lyrics?
I had a lot of s*** happening and I wanted to get a lot off crap off my chest. And I had a lot of people talking about how they couldn't understand the lyrics on "The State" because they were so laden with metaphors. I had slowly been revealing a lot of deep, dark secrets about my life and my family, but they were so wrapped in metaphors that no one could understand them. It was time to pull back the curtains and start screaming about some stuff I needed to get off my chest.
Given the criticisms of "grunge copyists" you've received, the choice of Rick Parashar (Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Blind Melon) to produce "Silver Side Up" seemed a bit odd.
He was the cheapest we could find. That was truly it. We got him for $35,000. The record company wouldn't let us produce it, so we said: "Fine, get us the cheapest producer you can." And they came back and said: "Well, Rick Parashar did Pearl Jam and this other stuff." And we said: "Oh, great. That's all we need – someone else to tie us to grunge."
Were you aware while recording "Silver Side Up" that you were creating this enormous beast?
[Lengthy pause] Not really. It wasn't like we were all sitting around rubbing our hands and sitting on a gold mine. We finally got to make an album with someone else's money and take time in the studio, and it was great. We were just having a lot of fun.
Did you expect it to take off the way it did?
No. It
was actually a toss up between "How You Remind Me" and "Never Again" for the
first single. We couldn't decide which would be best, but I decided that "How
You Remind Me" was a better song which could reach more people, so we went
with that one first. Although my brother was adamant that he wanted "Never
Again" to be the first single. But once "How You Remind Me" started getting
played on radio stations – and it literally took no longer than two weeks for
it to get picked up by radio all over the world – it started shooting to
Number One all over the place. It started with the record company saying:
No. It was actually a toss up between "How You Remind Me" and "Never Again"
for the first single. We couldn't decide which would be best, but I decided
that "How You Remind Me" was a better song which could reach more people, so
we went with that one first. Although my brother was adamant that he wanted
"Never Again" to be the first single. But once "How You Remind Me" started
getting played on radio stations – and it literally took no longer than two
weeks for it to get picked up by radio all over the world – it started
shooting to Number One all over the place. It started with the record company
saying: "We think you'll sell 50,000 records this week", and that went to
80,000, the 100,000, and the predictions just kept going through the roof. If
September 11 hadn't happened – cos that was the day our record came out – then
they reckoned we could have sold 250,000 records just in America in our first
week. We still wound up selling 186,000 copies. It debuted at number two on
Billboard, too.
Touring "The State", during which you played to over a million people, certainly must have given you a taste of major success.
Nickelback is really good at coming to your town as an unknown and really impressing the $#!+ out of you. I think we're far less impressive the second time. I have a million lines in my back pocket that can make people stand up and pay attention to us. And we just got really good at showing up and blowing people off the stage. We would get on stage, and if we'd had to light ourselves on fire to get people to pay attention to us and say "That's great", we would've done. I would slam my guitar on the stage and start climbing the lighting truss, and find myself 60 feet in the air screaming at the crowd and watching them freak out, saying "Look at this guy, he's gonna kill himself". But when you've got 15 band on a bill and there's still six to go after you, how the hell do you get anyone to remember who you were? Cos everyone's drunk and stoned and having a great time at a big festival, and you're thinking you got to do something.
Was it slightly unnerving to see "Silver Side Up" take off in such a massive way?
No. It was like the dream come true period. We were selling 100,000 records every week just in America. We were breaking records left, right and centre. We broke so many records with "How You Remind Me". It was just amazing.
Isn't that much success difficult to get your head around?
It was cool. You start feel like a rock star. Nobody's saying anything bad about you at that time because you're exploding. Once you get to the top and you start standing on the top of the hill, that's when everyone starts taking shots at you, and that's when it really starts to remove all the glory and great feeling and magic. Anybody who's a music critic ... Well, how good a music critic can they be if they're in love with the most popular thing on the planet? Because they're supposed to have all these esoteric bands who nobody's ever heard about and they're underground, and that's what's cool. Anything that's selling that many records a week can't be cool any more, so everyone starts talking $#!+. Every other band on the planet gets jealous, and you end up going through your CD collection and throwing half of it out cos all those bands that you used to love all hate you now cos they have to open up for you when you headline a festival. And it really takes the polish off it.
It would be true, then, to say that the flack that's been thrown Nickelbackīs way irks you?
It's easy to hit the kid who's standing on top of the hill. You've got this English rock magazine, they come to America and literally start an argument with us in the dressing room, so we knew this guy was gonna do everything he could to make us sound like the most horrible people on the planet. And he did. And then after that they took a poll and called me the ugliest man in rockīnīroll. My parents read that, my girlfriend read that. Nobody on the planet outside the UK knows who the f**k that magazine is until they take shots at the biggest star in the world at that time. The next thing you know, everyone knows who that magazine is, and every interview I do I get asked about how I feel about being called the ugliest man on the planet. That's lovely, it feels really good.
Unfortunately, often that is the price of fame.
Yes, that's true.
What do you have to say about the accusations that Nickelback are
nothing more than a corporate, watered-down grunge band?
"How You
Remind Me" is a grunge song? Anybody who calls "How You Remind Me" grunge
hasn't got a clue. I would say there's a Seattle influence in what we do, but
not grunge. When someone says grunge music, it has always driven me crazy.
Grunge? How can you call a rock band, Pearl Jam, a punk band, Nirvana, and a
metal band, Soundgarden – three totally different types of music – grunge?
Grunge is an attitude? When was the last time you saw someone in Nickelback
wearing Doc Martens boots and a flannel shirt? That's truly what grunge is: an
attitude. A f**k-you attitude. Well, last time I checked ... I just bought a
house for 1.6 million dollars. I blow money like you wouldn't f**king believe.
I'm the furthest thing away
"How You Remind Me" is a grunge song? Anybody who calls "How You Remind Me"
grunge hasn't got a clue. I would say there's a Seattle influence in what we
do, but not grunge. When someone says grunge music, it has always driven me
crazy. Grunge? How can you call a rock band, Pearl Jam, a punk band, Nirvana,
and a metal band, Soundgarden – three totally different types of music –
grunge? Grunge is an attitude? When was the last time you saw someone in
Nickelback wearing Doc Martens boots and a flannel shirt? That's truly what
grunge is: an attitude. A f**k-you attitude. Well, last time I checked ... I
just bought a house for 1.6 million dollars. I blow money like you wouldn't
f**king believe. I'm the furthest thing away from grunge you can possibly
imagine; I drive sports cars, I spoil myself rotten when it comes to shopping.
The grunge attitude is like Alice In Chains or Kurt Cobain: "I just want to
wear these s***ty clothes". I don't know. When did you ever hear about one of
those bands spending 3,700 dollars on a shirt? I've done that.
That is a bit excessive, wouldn't you say?
Sure. It's a great shirt. It's one of a kind and it's made of leather. I have millions of dollars in my bank account. I don't give a f**k. That's not a grunge attitude. There are some little aspects, like the tuning. We tune down really low, and Soundgarden liked to tune down really low. But Black Sabbath did it long before they did. I just hate that f**king grunge tag. We're a rockīnīroll band. When did you last see a grunge band bring $120,000 worth of pyro to a show and light everything on fire? We've got flame towers that shoot 25-35-foot flames in the air; we've got concussion bombs, raining spark curtain. Everything. And we blow up everything. And who does that any more? Back in the day, bands were so big they could afford it. Bands don't like spending money on their show cos it costs so much. I see so many bands making so much f**king money it's disgusting. And what do they give back to the fans? They don't give anything back to the fans. Not a f**king thing. They're playing the same show they played three years ago, before they got to that point. So what are they doing with it? Obviously just putting it in the bank. Why not spend some money on stage and your show and really give something back to the fans? That's the attitude we take. On our one tour when we've really started using pyro and we have this real elaborate stage and things, we went across Canada in two weeks and cleared about $1.2 million, and we spent $830,000 on the production. It wasn't about making money at all, it was about getting on stage and blowing people's minds. That's what we tried to accomplish.
Do you think Nickelback are misunderstood?
No. People aren't that stupid. I was on a ferry going to Ireland, and this kid came up to me and said: "You're the singer from Nickelback, can I have an autograph?" And he went to get something to write on, and went into this little magazine shop on the ferry and came out with that exact issue of that magazine. I said: "I'm not gonna sign that." He said: "Why not?" I asked him if he'd read the article and he said: "Yeah, the guy hates you. Who gives a $#!+? I just want your picture, I don't care what that guy thinks about you. I think you guys are great." So I flipped it open and signed right across the picture. And that made me feel really good. Kids can see through so much bull$#!+, and that's why we don't try to throw anything at them.
How did you move into working with bands like Default and Theory of a Deadman, and having your own 604 label?
It's just so much fun. If someone gave you a brand new vehicle and said drive this for three months and all you got to do is give us 15 suggestions on how you think we can improve it, how great would that be? It's no different to me walking into a studio and listening to other people's music. It's so much easier to give a critique on other people's stuff. That's why it's so much easier giving other people advice on their life. Critiquing your own life or relationship is hard to do, but when you look from the outside in it's so much easier to do. That's what I find listening to other people's music. It's just a lot of fun producing other bands in the studio. It's the only time I get to be the producer. I don't get that in Nickelback, I'm just one of four. But I can get a lot more adventurous and take chances. With my own music it's really difficult to remove yourself from it because you wrote it. But when it's somebody else's you're not really that concerned about it. I love the business aspect of it, too – getting bands signed and watching them grow. And since I learnt so much about the music business when Nickelback was growing and moving through its pubescent stages, that's always stuck with me – the good business sense and how to make sure the band is being most effective.
I assume you haven't been very happy at the way the press have quick to note the starting sonic similarities between Nickelback and both Default and Theory of a Deadman?
They're both rock bands, and we've all got a similar flavour to us. So we're moving way way away from that. We've gone about as far way from that as you can imagine. And we're signing nothing like that. Once you listen to Default, he's a true singer, and I've never heard him sing flat once. I've seen him get up at eight, having gone to bed at six, and out comes this golden voice. I'm more of a rhythmic guy with my voice, I don't sing like that at all. And along came Tyler from Theory of a Deadman, and he's one of the best guitar players I've ever seen in my entire life. This kid can shred. He could go toe to toe with Joe Satriani. He's got talent like you wouldn't believe. He makes me look like a moron.
You had a solo hit with "Hero", which is on the Spider Man soundtrack. Does that mean we'll get a Chad Kroeger solo album?
I dunno. Maybe way in the future. Anything I write in this genre is always
gonna sound like Nickelback, and anything else is such a departure that
Nickelback fans won't like it anyway.
Then why didn't Nickelback record "Hero"?
My band members didn't think that was a Nickelback song. So I recorded it for the soundtrack. But I've just submitted something to Santana album [Shaman], and that's a huge departure. Way out left-field. And at this very moment I'm on my bus, and I've got a studio on my bus, and I'm recording a song for Faith Hill.
Yes, what is it about having separate tour buses? Do you really need them? Do you not get on?
No, no, no, it's not that all. It all started when I said I wanted my own bus. It didn't have to be new or expensive, I was happy with a s***ty old bus as long as I could gut the middle of it and put a Pro-Tools rig in there and record stuff. I don't like distractions and people running in and out, and people playing video games out the back. And if they start cracking beers and smoking dope then I want to join in. If there's nobody around, it makes it a lot easier for me. I was happy writing songs, and had a great big bed in the back. And I think my band members were like: "Hey, we want to get our own buses too". It didn't matter that I had an old one. So the next tour and it's all brand new buses.
Rockīnīroll excess, eh?
Sure. None of us are hooked on coke or heroin or anything like that, and if we're gonna be out here for 18 months at a time, the guys like to bring their families. Mike's got a baby, they've got dogs and s***. A 45-foot tour bus with a wife and a dog and suddenly it seems really full.
So what next? How much pressure do you reckon you'll be under?
I'm not under any pressure. We've got the next album already written. I could play it for you now. And there's some great songs on there. But if it flops, who cares. At least for one whole tour, for 18 months, we got to be on top.