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Nickelback

A Peake into Nickelback
Interview by Kelly Ladd
with guitarist/vocalist Ryan Peake

HardRock.com: What's it like to have your song "How You Remind Me" in the #1 spot on Billboard's "Mainstream Rock Tracks" chart?
Ryan Peake: It's amazing. It's something a band always wants but you're never prepared when you get it. I still really can't wrap my head around it. It's cool. It's very cool.
HardRock.com: How is Silverside Up different from your other albums?
Ryan Peake: Silverside Up took us longer to record with more money to record. So that means more time and actually instead of saying, "That's good enough, let's move on," it's like we can get exactly what we want and that's a big part of it. But it's been three years since The State (our last album) so we had a lot of ideas buzzing in our heads and we were itching to get in the studios. You'll see a lot of growth and development. It's not like it was a year and then the next one. It's a big space in between. So hopefully you'll be able to see it in the song writing.
HardRock.com: Tell us the truth, what do Canadians really think of Americans?
Ryan Peake: The truth?
HardRock.com: Yeah.
Ryan Peake: Oh, you guys don't want the truth. We have Canadian cults. We talk about you guys all the time. It's really disturbing. No. No. What do we think of Americans? We don't really think any differently. Everyone is patriotic to their own country. You guys are kind of like big brother. Not in the 1984 sense. Everyone's the same. I think the Americans have a lot of preconceptions of Canadians, more so than the other way around.
HardRock.com: Like with the South Park movie?
Ryan Peake: That's a big part of it, because of Strange Brew--"Hey, eh..." I hear all that in the northern states and then the drawls in the southern states. Then you go to the southeastern side and you have a different accent. If you're from Boston you have a different accent. Then if you're from California… I just think America is full of accents. You shouldn't pick apart **** like that.
HardRock.com: Have you ever been pulled over by the Mounties? How can you take them seriously with those pants that they wear?
Ryan Peake: Okay, let me iron something out here. Yes, I have been pulled over by the Mounties before. For one thing, they don't ride horses on the job anymore. But they don't wear those pants. It's ceremonial dress. They are pretty fancy pants though. The cops. The Mounties are cops now. We won't discuss why I was pulled over…Next question.
HardRock.com: If time travel were possible, which historic musical event would you attend?
Ryan Peake: That's a tough one. I can see all these standard answers you can give to that. I want to think of something very cool. I heard a lot about the Tibetan Freedom Concert. I never got a chance to attend those. I think that'd be cool. Very cool.
HardRock.com: Is it because you're a Beastie Boys fan or because of Tibet?
Ryan Peake: A little of both. I'm not fully versed in the in-depth issues of Amnesty International. But I believe in that group and they've had interest in Tibet and China and everywhere the situations are unfavorable to human rights. We're not heavy political that way. But I do believe in that. I pick and choose my battles. If something's important I like to bring it up. And I like the Beastie Boys. That doesn't really hurt anything so that would be a nice combo. It would be very enjoyable and interesting.
HardRock.com: My favorite song on your new album has got to be "Hollywood." To me it sounds like there was a Black Sabbath influence. Is this true?
Ryan Peake: That's very possible. It's tough to tell what influence goes where, because there is so many to rock to country to jazz. That's surprising. That's funny that that's your favorite one. That one came out the best. It sounded thick and rock 'n' roll sounding. It was the biggest, bassyist, raw, just plain ol' rock 'n' roll, meat and potatoes rock 'n' roll. And maybe that's a Black Sabbath kind of thing. We grew up in the day. We listened to Black Sabbath, Zeppelin, Metallica, older…well Metallica isn't really that old. Sabbath is rockin'.
HardRock.com: Now that we are talking about Black Sabbath, if your manager asked you to bite the head off a bat for publicity, would anyone in your band do it?
Ryan Peake: Uh, I don't know. Nick might do it, our drummer. Our bass tech would do it. I'd have to pay him five or six bucks. It's always about money with that guy. Our drum tech, he's a whore for money, too, so I'm sure he'd do it. Money would probably have to be involved, but I could get the job done.
HardRock.com: What's the craziest thing that you would do for publicity?
Ryan Peake: That's a crazy question, I never really though about it. (Bassist Todd Harrell of 3DD comes to the interview for a brief moment to say hello and then quickly steps out) I don't know…Outrageous…It'd have to be something really embarrassing. You'd really have to push it. It'd have to involve a mask, though. If you're wearing a mask you can do anything you want and you just take all of the inhibitions away. I'd probably wear a mask and nothing else.
HardRock.com: Would you put Nickelback across your chest?
Ryan Peake: Yeah, probably. But I wouldn't let anyone know I'm in the band, though.
HardRock.com: Now that you guys are making a name for yourself, what kinds of opportunities are beginning to show?
Ryan Peake: Different countries for us basically. Being from Canada, we've toured Canada for four years, three and a half to four years pretty much straight. There's only so much touring you can do in Canada. And now the name is getting bigger and we get shows with our buddies 3 Doors Down, which opened a lot of doors for us down here. That's when the fan base started growing. And we get to bring our music to more diverse areas, like Europe and Australia. We never really imagined that before. It also, getting more popular, not to get back to the political thing at all, but in a sense…the more popular we get, the more people listen to what we say, and it's not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. There are many examples of that in history. But I think at some point we will have the responsibility to maybe do something good and use, I don't want to say status, I don't believe its really any kind of status, a lot of people have your CDs, big deal. But if you are in the public eye and you have something to say and you wanted to make some positive changes or make some positive points. I think it's almost your responsibility to do that at some point. But there are a lot of bad examples out there. So if you can do something good in that part of your career, I think you should do it. I really think you should it.
HardRock.com: And finally, do you have any thoughts or words that you want to send to the people in D.C. and New York?
Ryan Peake: I don't think I could send them anything that they haven't been sent. There's nothing that I didn't send them the day it happened. I woke up at 9:00 and turned on the TV and I saw that second tower go down and I had tears coming down my face. You think about the people on top. I don't want to describe it. You can't describe it. You just have to send your heart out to these people. The victims' families and the fire fighters that tried to get in there and got trapped. It's like horror on horror. And the best thing that you can do is what's going on right now; find some kind of unity in it, globally, which is the best thing I think that could come out of this. And it's horrible that it had to happen here, but if something has to happen for people to wake up and realize that this isn't just a small problem, it's a human problem. That's the only thing that you could see that could come out positive from this. If people could see the long road in this, if they could see where we'll end up because of this that may help. They may feel that these people weren't erased in vain. There should be a point of this at the end. There's nothing I can say, except God Bless Everybody.

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