ABOVE: Watch Nickelback on Global’s The Morning Show.
TORONTO — Popularity breeds contempt. Just ask Nickelback.
The quartet has managed to become both Canada’s most successful rock band ever and its most polarizing — somehow selling more than 50 million albums around the world while being derided and despised.
“People just say things,” Mike Kroeger, Nickelback’s bass player, said Friday. “It’s OK. People can say things.”
His brother, vocalist Chad Kroeger, also gets it.
“The last decade, it was tough to get away from Nickelback,” he said during the band’s appearance on Global’s The Morning Show. “We record a lot of different kinds of music and when it gets played in that many places sometimes it’s tough, especially if you’re not into the band.
“That can cause some backlash but the nice thing is it can also garner you a lot of fans and allow us to be able to go everywhere in the world and play our music for people ‘cuz that’s our job. That’s what we signed up for.”
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The Kroeger brothers and bandmates Ryan Peake and Daniel Adair choose to focus on the millions of fans who buy their music and tickets to their concerts.
“We’re here and we’re making music and we’re so lucky,” said Chad. “So lucky to still be able to do this for a living because this is a tough business.”
They don’t take success for granted. “I used to think that we were pretty good at what we did and the longer we keep doing this, the luckier I know we actually are — and were.”
Nickelback’s new album — its first since 2011’s Here and Now — is No Fixed Address. Chad said the band took some risks for its eighth release.
“We’ve tried some new stuff again. We tried to get a little funky with a couple of songs,” he explained. “It’s fun to be able to explore all these different things.”
Chad said he tested the new material on his wife, singer Avril Lavigne.
“She was a good sounding board. I’d play her stuff and ask her what she thought,” he said. “She’s a tough critic. She’s a good ear and really honest.”
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