Nickelback's radio-friendly brand of rock was absolutely everywhere in the 2000s. So how did they become the preferred punching bag for the music industry? Here are just a few of their most famous haters.
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00:00Nickelback's radio-friendly brand of rock was absolutely everywhere in the 2000s. So
00:05how did they become the preferred punching bag for the music industry? Here are just
00:09a few of their most famous haters.
00:11The indie rock duo The Black Keys features Dan Auerbach on guitar and vocals and Patrick
00:16Carney on drums. The Keys play the kind of blues-inflected old-school rock that's not
00:20often heard on commercial radio, and while they've made a name for themselves, it's nothing
00:24compared to the scale of what Nickelback has achieved.
00:26In 2012, Rolling Stone asked Carney about the state of rock music, and he didn't hold
00:31back, saying,
00:32"'Rock & Roll' is dying because people became okay with Nickelback being the biggest band
00:36in the world. So they became okay with the idea that the biggest rock band in the world
00:39is always going to be s----. Therefore, you should never try to be the biggest rock band
00:43in the world."
00:44Carney got specific, calling Nickelback's music,
00:46"'Watered-down post-grunge crap. Horrendous s----.'"
00:49It's no surprise, then, that Carney gets offended when The Black Keys' music is lumped in with
00:53the Nickelbacks of the world. Did Nickelback respond in anger to Carney's comments about
00:57them? Not at all. Instead, the band posted a cheeky message to Axe, writing,
01:02"'Thanks to the drummer and the Black Keys calling us the biggest band in the world and
01:05Rolling Stone. Hehe.'"
01:08Nickelback and Slipknot were signed to the same label, Roadrunner Records. Roadrunner
01:11was a heavy metal label, repping artists like Machine Head, Typo Negative, and of course
01:16Slipknot, so Nickelback always felt like an outlier.
01:19Joining a metal label was definitely strange."
01:24Former Roadrunner exec Monty Conner admitted that there were feelings about Nickelback's
01:28addition to the roster.
01:30"'Slipknot' were the top dogs at the label when Nickelback hit. I don't think Slipknot
01:33loved the fact that Nickelback came in."
01:35There are definite bad vibes between Nickelback's Chad Kroger and Slipknot's Corey Taylor, that's
01:40for sure. Appearing on the Metal Covenant podcast, Kroger criticized Taylor for talking
01:44trash about him and the band in the past, and saying it's simple to write a hit song.
01:48"'Well, show me. Show me. Write one. I've yet to hear one.'"
01:54Once he got going, Kroger had more to say on the subject, asking,
01:56"'How good can your music be if you gotta beat each other up on stage? Throw up in your
02:00own masks every night? I mean, music shouldn't come with a gimmick. Music should just be
02:05music.'"
02:06Speaking to 98K UPD, Taylor begged to differ.
02:09"'I've never said it was easy to write hits on. I don't know what the hell planet he's
02:12living on. Apparently it's planet Kroger.'"
02:15He then fired back, saying,
02:17"'I've been voted sexiest dude in rock wearing a mask. You've been voted ugliest dude in
02:21rock twice, without one.'"
02:23Years later, Taylor threw a backhanded compliment at Nickelback, saying they'd been eclipsed
02:27as the most hated band alive by Imagine Dragons.
02:31Back in 2011, very few people's bingo card included Nickelback beeping with Australian
02:35baseball player Peter Moylan on social media. It started after Moylan attended a Foo Fighters
02:40gig and decided to let Nickelback know all about it on X. Tagging the band, the former
02:45MLB star wrote,
02:46"'Note to Nickelback, please attend a Foo Fighters concert. That's how it should be
02:49done. Chad.'"
02:51Nickelback didn't disagree, but couldn't help but fire a fastball at Moylan, replying,
02:55"'Foo's are killer for sure. We're doing just fine too, thanks. For you Pete, is watching
02:59Kimbrel better from the bench or on TV?'
03:02"'We try and laugh it off. You can laugh off about 90% of it, and some of it, it hurts.'"
03:07A few days later, Nickelback attempted to squash the beef, saying it was all in good
03:10fun. But while Moylan appeared to accept the truce, it didn't recant or call Nickelback
03:15the ultimate gods of rock, so is the beef really over?
03:18Blake Shelton has been in the music industry for over a quarter of a century and has seen
03:22his share of ups and downs. He knows how the game works, so one would expect him to sympathize
03:27with Nickelback, whose popularity has been weaponized against them. Not so, however.
03:32Speaking to People magazine in 2022, Shelton described how his driver told him he was mentioned
03:36on the Peacemaker television show, recounting,
03:38He goes,
03:39"'Well, John Cena and this other character get in an argument about how dorky each other
03:43are, and she's making the point that John Cena's so white that she starts comparing
03:47him to people, and you're the first one. She says,
03:49"'You're just a Blake Shelton.' I was like, oh my God, I'm the new Nickelback.'"
03:53Shelton's history with Nickelback goes back quite a few years. For ages, there was a rumor
03:58that his ex-wife Miranda Lambert punched Chad Kroeger at a party. Shelton all but confirmed
04:03the incident to Rolling Stone, stating,
04:05"...people always try to pop off or call her bluff at bars. One of them, I don't want to
04:09say the guy's name, but he's the lead singer of a very popular rock band. His initials
04:13are C.K."
04:15Jimmy Kimmel said Nickelback performed live on his show, and they even participated in
04:19the Mean Tweets segment.
04:20I would rather stab myself in the taint than hear another Nickelback song. That's funny.
04:27That's how we make Nickelback songs."
04:28Though there shouldn't be any real drama here, right? Wrong. In 2022, Kimmel brought the
04:33band up in a political segment.
04:35Nobody likes Ted Cruz, and yet somehow he's still out there doing his thing. He's like
04:40the Senator version of Nickelback. It's inexplicable.
04:43Kroeger may not be crazy about Kimmel, either. In an appearance on Kevin Pollak's chat show,
04:48Bobcat Goldthwaite described directing an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! featuring Nickelback.
04:53According to him, the band's manager asked him not to shoot Kroeger from the side.
04:56I go, why? He goes, because he's got a big nose.
04:58Maybe if he'd said nothing, it would have been okay, but Goldthwaite couldn't help himself.
05:02I said to the assistant director, tell me when I got ten seconds. She goes, ten seconds.
05:06I go, shoot the nose. In seven cameras, snap, zoom in on this guy's nose.
05:11In 2016, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a promotional video for an AI system called
05:16Jarvis, voiced by actor Morgan Freeman. Zuckerberg demonstrated how Jarvis works around the home.
05:22Hey, play us some good Nickelback songs.
05:24I'm sorry, Mark. I'm afraid I can't do that. There are no good Nickelback songs.
05:30A proud Zuckerberg looks back at the camera and says it was a test, and Jarvis just passed.
05:35Zuckerberg's attempt at humor didn't sit well with singer Avril Lavigne, Kroeger's ex-wife.
05:39She took to her ex account to send him a message, writing,
05:42"'Many people use your products. Some people love them and some people don't. Either way,
05:46you're allowed your musical opinion. However, your jab at Nickelback is in poor taste."
05:50She added the pointed hashtags,
05:52"'Say no to bullying.' The joke is old, and Nickelback has sold over 50 million albums."
05:58The origins of the Nickelback hate can be traced back to a joke made by comedian Brian
06:02during an episode of Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn in the early 2000s.
06:06No one talks about the studies that show that bad music makes people violent. Like,
06:10Nickelback makes me want to kill Nickelback."
06:13Nobody could have predicted the ripple effect this one joke would have.
06:16All of a sudden, it was cool to dunk on the Canadian rockers.
06:19Appearing on KFC Radio in 2022, Kroeger addressed the matter, saying,
06:24"'Some comedian, I'm gonna have to go find the guy's name so I can go bomb his house.
06:27This guy makes this s**t crack about us, and he's on Comedy Central. They took that,
06:31they put it in a commercial for that one show, and that played on Comedy Central
06:35for six months straight. This Nickelback joke. That starts this whole thing going."
06:39Daniel Adair added how many of their peers admitted they hated them irrationally,
06:43just because it was the cool thing to do, and actually started to like them once they met in
06:46person.
06:48British rock duo Royal Blood, consisting of multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Mike Kerr
06:53and drummer Ben Thatcher, posted a message on X in October 2016 regarding their view of the
06:58American election candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The post read,
07:02"'Donald Trump plus Hillary Clinton equals Nickelback.'"
07:05The tweet didn't endear the band to either Democrats or Republicans,
07:08and fans blasted them for their attempted humor, adding that Nickelback is a Canadian band,
07:12so they should have substituted them with someone like Creed, another one of the most
07:16hated bands in music. Nickelback saw the message and didn't take long to reply, writing,
07:20"'Nickelback jokes are like Royal Blood. They were a lot cooler a couple years ago.
07:25Don't drink and tweet, fellas. Stay safe. XO.'"
07:28They added a Canadian flag emoji, for good measure.
07:31Rock and roll and wrestling are a match made in heaven, and from 2009 to 2012,
07:36Nickelback's track, "'Burn It to the Ground,' was the official theme song of WWE Raw.
07:41At the time, one of the WWE's biggest stars was CM Punk, who featured prominently in the
07:46various montages accompanied by Nickelback over the years. But that doesn't mean he liked it.
07:51In 2015, Punk stirred up one of the internet's most committed fanbases with a spicy post on X,
07:56writing,
07:57"'Troll Game' strong with anyone who says Phantom Menace is a good movie."
08:00A user hit back immediately, telling him to look at the film's sales figures as
08:04confirmation of its quality. Punk didn't mince his words with his response, writing,
08:08"'Nickelback sells albums. Don't make them good. Get out of here with that s----.
08:12Millions of people on Earth are dumb.'"
08:14Apparently, Nickelback didn't care enough to comment.
08:20you