“50 million albums worldwide, 11th best selling musical act of all time, Billboards most successful rock group of the last decade, six Grammy nominations, 12 Juno awards (those count), six Billboard Music Awards, two American Music Awards, one People’s Choice Award- Canadian, and a partridge in f**king pear tree.” We can thank Deadpool for that highlights reel of one of Canada’s biggest exports, Nickelback. The unlikely hero came to the defence of fellow Canadian alumni being the butt of all jokes in the latest trailer for Once Upon A Deadpool, a notion highly appreciated by bassist Mike Kroeger.
“It’s a novelty being on the right side of a joke for once,” Kroeger admits. “Ryan Reynolds is such a cool guy. Beyond the fact that he likes us, he’s a pretty awesome guy. He’s hilarious! And the Deadpool character is an interesting take on a superhero, because not only is the character clever and witty, he’s also Canadian, which whoever heard of that!”
The Nickelback directed praise is well deserved. Even being the punch-line, the rockers sell out arenas worldwide boasting twelve consecutive sold-out international tours and performing to more than eight million diehard fans.
“When you get to see someone present all of these data points and propaganda it’s a pretty compelling argument that we’ve done some stuff, and to have him do that was very nice and very kind. Hats off to Deadpool for jumping to our defence. We may sign him up to be our PR person in the future,” Kroeger laughs. Though the jokes can be tiring, Kroeger notes, “For any challenge that we have, I think it pales in comparison to the challenge that a new artist has now.”
Australia is no exception to the Nickelback lovefest. In October the four piece announced their return down under in 2019 for the Feed The Machine Tour. Playing just three shows on their Australian leg in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, they were disappointed that time constraints meant they couldn’t add Adelaide, Perth and even the north of Australia to the dates and “humbly ask that fans travel to see them”. The last time Nickelback were in Australia was in May 2015, and they’re sure excited to be back, especially since Kroeger was almost one of us!
“Ever since we first came I’ve loved Australia and I did actually consider moving my family to OZ early on because it’s such a great place and I thought it would be a great place to raise kids. It’s just a wonderful country but it was a little bit too far from the grandparents.”
We would have received him with arms wide open , just as we’ve received their 2017 ARIA #3 “straight up hard rock” album, Feed The Machine, beating out even their home country for the most streams and album sales.
“As far as Feed The Machine goes I think it’s the biggest debut in Australia we’ve ever had. It seems like Australia just want to rock. At this point we’ve sold more records or albums or streams on Feed The Machine. We’ve sold more music in Australia than in Canada which Canada is normally heads above the rest.” Kroeger continues that it makes sense as he has always felt connected to our country with warm welcomes every time he touches down. “Every time we get off the plane we go why don’t we come here more often and we can’t really come up with an answer so we’ll have to keep coming back.”
The return is not ‘far away’ now with the ‘rockstars’ bringing Bad Wolves, out of LA, with them.
They’ll hit Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on February 16. Tickets are available at Live Nation.
Written by Tammy Walters