Nickelback

You know them for all their commercially successful songs like "How you Remind Me", "Someday","Photograph", "If Everyone Cared", and "Far Away". You've been to their concerts and saw the thousands of teenage girls losing their brains over them. You've probably ran into someone who claimed they used to hang out with them when they were in high school in Hannah Alberta. You may have even bumped into them at a bar somewhere and thought to yourself "that was cool", although you would never tell your buddies that.

I don't really know why some people hate Nickelback so much. For one, if you ever listened to their full albums, you would hear that they write some awesome metal tunes. Sure they make their money from songs that were listed at the top of the page, but they got their start writing the heavy stuff!

I'll be the first to say "Nickelback is terrible", but then I'll secretly go to their concerts, download their music, and be happy to hear their songs on the radio.

The reason I'm talking about Nickelback is they just signed a deal with concert promoter Live Nation for an estimated 50 - 70 million dollars!! With that comes a 3 album/3 tour deal. By them signing that contract you can be guaranteed another three albums on top of the 5 they already have out ... but that's not where it ends. Right now they are signed to Road Runner Records, their long time label, and they still have two albums left on that contract before they can move on with Live Nations deal. My math isn't as good as it used to be, but after tallying up the remaining albums Nickelback has to write, it equals the amount of albums they've already put out .. which would be 5 if your following at home.

Get used to those guys coming out with their commercially successful music, because they got a lot of years left to make it!!

Now for my cool Nickelback story: About two and a half years ago, Trina (morning news lady at the time) and myself were lucky enough to score an interview with the guys from Nickelback before their show at the Brandt Center in Regina. We got there as they were doing the sound check, after sound check the guys came over .. Chad Kroeger and Ryan Peake went to do interviews with Hurricane Huber who at the time worked for The Wolf, and we got to go to the dressing room where we interviewed Mike Kroeger and Daniel Adair. The interview went awesome and we were just about to leave when Trina challenged the guys to a chugging contest because she had heard they were good at downing beers. Mike opted out but Daniel was all about it!! So there we were ... in Nickelbacks dressing room .... Trina, Myself, and Daniel Adair ... 3 Coronas ... Mike Kroeger timing us .... about to have a chugging competition ... when Chad and Ryan walked in. They instantly started laughing because they knew that their drummer was going to kill us !! Mike Kroeger yells GO and we start pounding back these beers. I honestly had enough time to spill it all over my shirt before Daniel finished. I didn't even get the neck done!! Trina actually finished her beer ... mind you, several minutes after the competition had ended ... but what a trooper!! The whole time this was going on ... Chad was just leisurely walking around the room shaving and laughing at how terrible we were at chugging bruskies. That will always be a fun story to tell ... especially because it was the first time I ever interviewed someone famous.

The guys were awesome to us, they do write a ton of great music and later that night they put on one of the best live performances I've seen. That's why I'm not surprised they've signed this huge deal!