nickelBack
Rock
Climbers
by Alan Paul
Growing up in Hanna, a
tiny, isolated farming town in the Canadian province of Alberta, the members of
Nickelback were a good three-hour drive from anything resembling a city. Worse,
they had but one selection on their radio dial: an AM station that broadcast
country by day and church services by night. Maybe that’s why they
picked up instruments and began making music themselves.
“There wasn’t much
else to do in Hanna except play music or get into trouble,” says Chad Kroeger,
the group’s singer and guitarist. “I did plenty of both.”
Nickelback formed five
years ago, after Kroeger, his bass-playing brother Mike and lead guitarist Ryan
Peake moved to Vancouver. They started out as a cover band, but once Chad began
writing more material, the trio quickly developed its own sound, drawing a wide
range of influences into its straight-forward rock.
“I come up with the
skeleton for the song, then everybody else throws their own spice into the
spaghetti sauce,” says Kroeger. “And they add a lot, because everyone has
very different tastes. Mike is a metal guy, Ryan Peake is Mr. Melodic, and our
drummer is into jazz.”
The result is the punchy,
crunchy swagger of The State (Roadrunner), the Canadian quartet’s American
debut. Thanks to the singles “Breathe” and “Leader of Men,” as well as
touring spots with groups that include Creed and Sevendust, Nickelback has begun
the long process of making a name for itself.
“We’re just trying to
get a foothold in America so we can start climbing,” says Kroeger. “We’ve
been doing this five years and have a good handle on it. Most of our songs have
a nice rolling groove that gets the head nodding. We’re not
reinventing the wheel. We are a rock band writing songs that can stick in people’s heads.
That’s the goal.” —Alan Paul