The Truth about Nickelback

I should like them.

They are a bunch of hick small town boys.

I'm a hick farm kid.

They've been known to wear cowboy hats.

I have been known to wear a cowboy hat.

They like beer.

I like beer.

So I should like them but I don't. I risk angering a few of my precious readers with this one...but I just can't hold it back anymore!

If I'm being totally honest I'll admit that I thought "How You Remind Me" was a solid arrangement. By that, I mean the way the song is put together. Start off with acoustic guitar and vocal. Full band for verse. Then a bridge. Typical verse bridge chorus, really, but then alter the vocal melody in the final chorus to make it seem that much more meaningful and you know, angst ridden. Big anthemic chorus. Finally an acoustic guitar coda. Not especially innovative, but solid. Plus that song is quite singable for those of us with questionable talent.


It occurred to me one fall day, as I was driving and singing away at the top of my tiny lungs, that lyrically, it didn't make any friggin sense at all. What the hell does it mean if you never made it as a blind man? Tried walking around with squinted shut eyes and a white cane but did not successfully negotiate a curb and tripped, sprawling across the path of an oncoming bus?

Look, I am not totally against the Deep And Meaningless school of songwriting, okay? My favourite band of all time is Led Zeppelin. Clearly, I am in good with Deep And Meaningless lyrics. I have attempted some myself. But this? Are we having fun yet? If you have to ask....!

By the time we went to England in the spring of 2002 to visit Jethro's cousins, the creeping ubiquitous fog of Silver Side Up had reached Europe. And I was sick of it.

It didn't take much longer to notice that this band has basically two song templates which they make a few adjustments to before shoving them back into the Scientific Failproof Hitmaking Machine. (It's a similar model to the one Mutt Lange uses to manufacture huge global hits out of Shania Leppard Adams. Do not get me started on Mutt.)

It bugs me that the vocals are always processed. Always. Doubled, processed, stacked. Not a lead and backup vocal. It's a vocal, a growl track, a breath track, a whisper track, a grunt track, an octave below track. Like thirty times. And then autotuned to death. It's harsh and it hurts the delicate ears of recording engineers. And it's the same all the way through. I'd have to say this really hit the wall for me when we saw them perform live, just a few hundred feet away from us, at the Juno Awards telecast this past April. Imagine my surprise when the second guitarist went up to his mic...and sang in Chad Kroeger's voice!!!! I looked at Jethro and declared, in my best attempt at sarcasm, "Holy s**t they're good. That guy can sing in the other guy's voice! How much practise did that take?"

I know. Lots of bands run tracks in live performances. My favourite band when I was 14 was Duran Duran. I've seen lots of performances with two guitar tracks but mysteriously, only one guitar player. But geez. We can only suspend our disbelief so far.

I'll give Nickelback credit though, because man, they had some awesome pyro. I'm still enough of a rock geek that I loves me some good pyro.

This is Truth Month here at Hickchic, right? I have found myself accidentally liking them. Maybe it's the hick thing. But then two things slap me in the face.

One. I get tired of lazy lyrics quickly. Hey, I enjoyed high school too, but now that we're in our thirties, must we still have songs about fooling around in the car?
Two. They take themselves way too friggin seriously.

Come on, Chad! Lighten up! somewhere under that furrowed brow, I think you might have nice eyes, but I can't tell because of that menacing scowl. If you're going to be that menacing, you better not be in Nickelback. You better be shredding guitar in friggin Lamb of God or Cannibal Corpse or something. Any guy who spends that much time on his hair cannot be that menacing! You're a decent solid musician, I'm sure of it. Just...quit trying so hard, okay?

I don't make it a habit to make fun of people, at least not without their permission, but I have to do this. I have to.

Because I can read Chad's mind in this picture: "I stand way out in front of the other guys because I'm the most important part of this band. I'm the only one whose name you know. And because you want to check out my belt buckle. Look at my belt buckle. Look at it. Ha. I saw you checkin me out."

I can read all their minds in this picture. From left to right:
"Chad makes me stand behind him because I'm the little brother and I only play bass. I never said anything but I think mom liked me better."

" Look...at my belt buckle. It's huge, look at it. Ha. I saw you checkin me out."

"I'm the new guy. But it's okay because nobody remembers the old guy. If I stay here behind Chad nobody will catch on."

"Hmm. Y'know. If Chad were ever to suddenly be rendered, you know, comatose...that would make me the guy. Not that I'd wish for that. Hey, um...what do you think of this belt buckle?"

I feel so mean spirited and non-Christian for making fun of these guys. I'm sorry.

Okay I'm not really totally sorry.

Now I'm going to tell you the real reason why I've got it in for this band. Last year I was reading Canadian Musician Magazine. What? I'm allowed to read it! I'm one of those things! The cover story on Nickelback- which featured of cover photo of only Chad Kroeger- described Mr. Kroeger's studio. I gradually turned green with envy. He bought a little chunk of land in British Columbia. A nice little acreage. With a house. And a barn. A big old barn. And then he hired an army of contractors. He paid them to work around the clock, in shifts. And in 30 days--what the hell can I pay somebody to do for me for 30 days?-- he had...I get dizzy just thinking about it...a recording studio in his barn.

Did you get that? Not only does he have a barn. He has a studio. In the barn.

Jethro assures me that he does not want a studio in a barn. He'd rather drive home from the studio and get away from it at the end of the day. Okay fine. I'm over it. But for years I thought, geez, if I had a studio in my barn, I could keep my man on my property! He could walk across the yard and sleep in his own bed! A studio in the barn would be the perfect combination of what Jethro and I want, and we'd never have to leave the property!

But you see, Nickelback has sold more records than me and Jethro put together. And as a result, Chad can afford to pay people to build him a studio in 30 days, in a barn, and I spent five months in living in construction hell and I still don't even have my own barn.

So really, the truth is that I'm jealous. Because Chad Kroeger has a studio in his barn.

And I don't.