Nickelback guitarist Ryan Peake discussed why they signed with Roadrunner instead of a different label, stating, “They wanted it more than anyone else, and that was a good feeling. In contrast, Nickelback's sound, which although was slightly more rock-oriented in the early days (although nowhere in the same league as these big metal acts), was straddling the fence between generic three-chord rock and pop. A decade later, they were cementing themselves as forerunners for the revival of metal music, as metal legends like Slipknot, Sepultura and Machine Head jumped on the bandwagon.

And what a push it was!Īs it turned out, Roadrunner wasn't really a good fit for the band's sound. Roadrunner Records was formed in 1980 as a label for the then emerging heavy metal genre. It turned out that first tryst with commercial recognition for Nickelback was like sitting on top of a slip-n-slide and waiting for a push. If you listen to tracks on both of these releases, you can pick up on their harder rock influence, a sound that was in tune with their successful contemporaries like Soundgarden or Bush.īut what little scope for evolution they had, the band threw away when they scored a record deal in 1999 with Roadrunner Records, their sound quickly shifted towards a more generic, radio-friendly pop feel, with a distorted guitar riff or two thrown into the mix. Kroeger's growling voice and the band's metal-influenced sound stood out at the time, and like most garage bands in the mid ’90s, they covered acts like Metallica. Chad Kroeger soon decided to pen his own tunes - the band self-released an EP named Hesher in 1996, and an LP called Curb the same year. The band sold out to the wrong record labelīack in the mid-nineties, when the rock world was still mourning the loss of Kurt Cobain, Chad Kroeger and company (can anybody even name the other three guys without Googling it?) started as a cover band called the Village Idiots in the small town of Hanna, Alberta, Canada. So how exactly did this certified multi-platinum rock act end up being so widely dissed, even landing NME's Worst Band award in 2003? Here is the strange and fascinating story of the band that everybody loves to hate. In fact, it's almost as if hatred for the band is a tribalizing force on the internet, meaning that two strangers can break the ice and get comfortable once they've acknowledged that both of them can't stand Nickelback! Just a quick glance at the thousands of memes about them is enough to give you a clue as to how far-reaching and widespread the hatred for the band is. Yet, Nickelback has carved out a reputation for being one of the most universally hated bands in the world.

Nickelback album sales to date