Nickelback - The Real Story

These days, if you look up Nickelback online, you'll find plenty of places to download music videos and listen to the band. Their beginnings were less than auspicious, however. This Canadian band was started up by four musicians, Chad, Brandon and Mike Kroeger and Ryan Peake, in Alberta. Their first album was an extended play disc called Hesher in 1996. Later that same year, they released a full length album that basically flopped. The album, Curb, produced a single, "Fly", that never made it to any charts and was circulated only in the local area on radio stations.

Despite the disappointment of their first recordings, the men of Nickelback went on to record The State, their second album, just two years later. This time, they struck gold and were given a record contract with EMI and Roadrunner Records. Their second album was re-released as a EMI/Roadrunner production in 2000, four years after their first album flopped and this time it hit gold, literally, in both the United States and in Canada.

It wasn't until Silver Side Up, the third full length album for the band, that they finally hit the mainstream market and became popular with the general public. The single from that album, "How You Remind Me" hit the top of the charts across the board in the US and Canada and became the Billboard Hot 100 number one single of the year, a prestigious title to have. The second single from the album, "Too Bad", also did very well.

Over the next few years, the band had great luck, releasing two more albums. Their main issues were with their drummers, first Brandon was replaced by Michael Guindon, who was replaced by Ryan Vikedal, a friend of Ryan Peake (Nickelback's lead guitarist). Finally, in 2005, Vikedal was replaced by Daniel Adair who is still the drummer currently.

Interesting Nickelback Trivia
The band got its name from something Mike Kroeger used to say frequently when handing change to his customers while working at Starbucks,"Here's your nickel back."

While the lead singer, guitarist and bass player remain the same, the band has gone through at least four drummers. Ryan Vikedal, the drummer before current musician Daniel Adair, claims he was forced out of the band.
Chad Kroeger, lead singer and rhythme guitarist for the band, performed "Hero", the Spiderman theme song along with Josey Scott.

If you download music videos of the hit Nickelback song of "Someday", you can see the production crew walking around in the background of the video.

The song "Figured You Out" was placed on the list of Top 100 Worst Love Songs, compiled by VH1 . . . despite the fact that it's not even a love song, but only discusses the involvement of love.

Nickelback songs have been used in several big movies, including The Scorpion King ("Yanking My Heart Out") and Daredevil ("Learn the Hard Way").

Silver Side Up was an extremely popular album, but not necessarily in the expected countries. While it went five times platinum in the US, the album went double platinum in Australia of all places. Incidentally, their music video for "See You at the Show" was filmed in Australia. They are particularly popular with the Aussies, it seems . . . the album, The Long Road, hit triple platinum in the same country.

Nickelback has had its fair share of problems with finding a drummer to stick around and was off to a rough start at the beginning. Nowadays, though, their music videos and albums are more popular than ever and they have a worldwide audience . . . not bad for a bunch of Canucks!

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