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rocknews.com
January
18 - February 15, 2002
A Silver Lining
No matter where you turn your radio's dial these days, there's a good chance
Nickelback's ubiquitous smash hit "How You Remind Me" will be waiting
there to entertain you. Silver Side Up -- the Vancouver, Canada-based band's
sophomore major-label album -- debuted four months ago at No. 2 on the Billboard
200, and has since maintained a steady presence on the chart. Fueled by the
success of "How You Remind Me," the disc has already moved more than 3
million units in the United States alone. And it doesn't look like sales will
cool down any time soon.
The
quartet -- featuring singer-guitarist Chad Kroeger, guitarist Ryan Peake,
bassist Mike Kroeger and drummer Ryan Vikedal -- has been rocking out in the
Great White North since 1996. Dishing up an earnest brand of melodious hard
rock, Nickelback deftly lay down grungy grooves that serve as fertile pastures
for Chad's lyrical ventures into the darker regions of the human mind. The band's
early demos and home recordings have become highly sought-after collector's
items, with the self-released album Hesher recently selling for upward of $400
on eBay. The band's first major-label release, The State, dropped in Canada in
1999. Word of the album spread faster than a Rocky Mountain forest fire, and it
was rereleased in the States the following year -- spawning Top 10 modern-rock
hits "Breathe" and "Leader of Men."
In
support of The State, Nickelback embarked on a bundle of transcontinental jaunts,
playing alongside such modern-rock powerhouses as 3 Doors Down, Creed and Fuel.
Nickelback used the time on the road as an opportunity to write new material,
even fleshing out many of the songs bound for Silver Side Up onstage. After
nearly two years of touring, Nickelback headed home to lay down their follow-up
to The State.
For
Silver Side Up, Nickelback tapped Pearl Jam/Alice in Chains producer Rick
Parashar to man the boards, and returned to Vancouver's Green House studio --
the same place where they laid down tracks for The State. Silver, a 10-track
platter of thundering alternative rock, was recorded in a little over a month,
and hit stores on Sept. 11. "How You Remind Me," the disc's lead
single, has quickly become one of the biggest modern-rock hits of all time. In
October, the song was spun a record-breaking 3,016 times in one week on
modern-rock radio, surpassing the previous mark held by Sugar Ray's
"Fly."
Chad
Kroeger and Ryan Peake recently sat down with us to chat about the overwhelming
success of "How You Remind Me," the unexpectedly phenomenal song
phenomenon and keeping it real on Silver Side Up.(Joe Robinson)
How You Surprise Me
Chad Kroeger: We had an idea that ['How You Remind Me'] was a pretty good song.
We all really enjoy the song a lot, and we were getting a lot of positive
feedback right off the bat, but we just had no idea it was gonna do what it's
doing and as fast as it's doing it. It's almost just getting out of control, but
it's very, very cool. And we're very thankful for what the song is doing for us.
Ryan Peake: Every band tries to make the best song that they can, or the best
album that they can, and you hope stuff like this can happen -- hope that it
catches on and everybody enjoys it as much as you actually do playing it. The
speed this is happening is really kind of [shocking] -- it's not hitting anybody
yet, really. We really can't wrap our heads around it yet.
Worthy To Stay
CK: One of the songs that we thought was going to be the single in my opinion
turned out to be one of the weakest songs on the album. I don't want to say what
song it was, because that really ruins it for people. If I find out that, for
instance, Alice in Chains got onstage one time, and they said, 'We have to play
this song because it's in our contract, so here you go, here's "Man in the
Box."' And, it's like, that's an amazing song, but now I don't even care to
hear it, because I know the band is just completely unenthused about performing
it.
So, the songs we thought were going to be phenomenal -- including this one song
for me in particular -- just did not turn out the way I expected. And there were
songs on there that we went in going, 'Well, this will be a song just to fill up
some space on the album,' that turn out to be phenomenal songs.
Where Do I Hide
CK: When I was writing [Silver Side Up], I was starting to notice we were
getting a lot of e-mails from overseas -- from France and from Germany and
Scandinavian countries -- and they were just not getting the metaphors [in my
earlier songs]. There are a lot of kids from America and Canada that were not
getting the metaphors, so I said, 'Maybe this is a little too much, because I'm
the only one that understands it,' because it's so abstract in certain parts and
a little deep, you know?
I really enjoy the fact that some of my songs are like riddles, and if you can
figure it out, then you get inside my head. It was fun, and we did that, and
those songs are those songs. And then it was just time to make things extremely
blunt -- just spelling them out. No matter what, you're going to know what a
song like 'Never Again' is about, you know?
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