Nickelback

Nickelback fuses visceral emotional rock with a calculated pop edge that has propelled the group to enduring mainstream visibility. The Canadian outfit carried heavy post-grunge into the new millennium and, by virtually every metric, stood as the decade’s dominant rock act, dominating rock radio once “How You Remind Me” topped the charts in both Canada and the United States following its 2001 release. Repeatedly topping rock tallies, the band offset crossover power ballads such as “Someday” and “Photograph” with provocative rockers like “Rock Star” and “Something in Your Mouth.” Their profile grew even larger when frontman Chad Kroeger ventured beyond the group to cut “Hero” for Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spider-Man soundtrack, while also guesting on releases by Santana and then-wife Avril Lavigne—appearances that underscored the quartet’s reach past core rock listeners. Loyal fans nevertheless sustained Nickelback through the 2010s and into 2022, when the grinding “San Quentin” from Get Rollin’ marked the band’s first American Top Ten Rock single in nearly ten years.

Chad Kroeger sharpened his stage presence fronting cover bands in Hanna, a modest Canadian community 215 kilometers northeast of Calgary. Wearying of other people’s material, he borrowed funds from his stepfather and moved to Vancouver to lay down his earliest originals. Bassist Mike Kroeger joined his brother, followed by guitarist Ryan Peake, a middle-school acquaintance, and drummer Ryan Vikedal, who hailed from Peake’s hometown of Brooks, Alberta. Nickelback formally coalesced in 1995 and wasted little time, issuing the Hesher EP and the full-length Curb the next year. By 1998 the members were self-managed: Chad courted stations, Mike oversaw distribution, Vikedal arranged gigs, and Peake ran the website.

The State, their second independent album, appeared in January 2000. Heightened Canadian-content rules at the time prompted local stations to hunt for domestic releases, and the record performed strongly on indie charts. Nickelback supported it with roughly 200 concerts alongside rising post-grunge acts. Industry attention followed quickly, with Roadrunner Records securing U.S. distribution and EMI handling Canada. While touring continued, Kroeger wrote fresh material, much of it tested live; those songs formed the bulk of Silver Side Up. Produced by Rick Parashar, who had earlier guided Pearl Jam’s Ten, Alice in Chains’ Sap, and Blind Melon’s debut, the album was tracked at Vancouver’s Greenhouse studio, the same facility used for The State. Rising popularity plus Kroeger’s songcraft drove Silver Side Up onto global charts, led by the smash “How You Remind Me.” Kroeger leveraged the moment by producing fellow Vancouver band Default and teaming with Saliva’s Josey Scott for the Spider-Man soundtrack. The Long Road followed in 2003, displaying a sleeker sound and another major single, “Someday.” Though some noted echoes between that track and “How You Remind Me,” the album easily retained the band’s broad audience and eventually sold more than five million copies worldwide.

February 2005 brought news that Vikedal had left; Daniel Adair, formerly of 3 Doors Down, took his place. The revamped lineup returned to Kroeger’s Vancouver studio for All the Right Reasons, which arrived in October 2005 and featured guest spots from ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons and the late Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell. The record became Nickelback’s biggest seller to date, lingering in the Billboard Top 30 for over two years and moving more than seven million copies in the United States alone while spawning five Top 20 singles. Impressed, producer Mutt Lange invited the band to his Swiss home to develop material; they ultimately enlisted him for their next project. Recorded in a converted Vancouver barn, Dark Horse emerged in November 2008 as their sixth studio album. Three years later came Here and Now, their seventh, preceded by the singles “Bottoms Up” and “When We Stand Together” and released on 21 November 2011.

In 2012 Kroeger began collaborating with fellow Canadian rocker Avril Lavigne on her self-titled fifth album; the pair soon dated and married in early 2013. Nickelback issued their first compilation, The Best of Nickelback, Vol. 1, that November, a 19-track set containing no new recordings. When their Roadrunner contract lapsed in 2014, the band signed with Universal Republic for No Fixed Address, which incorporated departures such as the radio-friendly “What Are You Waiting For?,” the socially charged “Edge of a Revolution,” and “Got Me Runnin’ ’Round,” featuring a horn section and rapper Flo Rida. The album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200 upon its November 2014 release and yielded rock-radio hits with “Edge of a Revolution” and “Million Miles an Hour.” While working on their ninth album in 2016, Nickelback released a cover of Don Henley’s “Dirty Laundry” and moved to BMG. Feed the Machine, their first BMG release and a co-production with Disturbed’s Chris Baseford, arrived in June 2017, debuting at number five on the Billboard 200; its title track reached number 12 on the Mainstream Rock chart. A non-album take on the Charlie Daniels Band’s “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” with guitarist Dave Martone surfaced in 2020, alongside a 15th-anniversary edition of All the Right Reasons. Nickelback resurfaced with fresh material via 2022’s “San Quentin,” the opening single from their tenth studio album, Get Rollin’. Again co-produced with Baseford, the record emphasized heavy riffs and upbeat themes, epitomized by the breezy single “High Time.”