Polarising band’s rise-fall-rise documented
Along with crude oil and maple syrup, they’re arguably Canada’s biggest export of the 21st century. The four-piece “multi-platinum monsters of rock” who exploded all over the planet in the early noughties with hits such as How You Remind Me, Photograph, Far Away and Someday and sold-out arenas around the globe.
However, despite Nickelback’s success, not everybody was a fan, sniffy music critics dismissing their sound as “Nirvanalite”, “blatantly mainstream” and “blandly irrelevant”, while the rise of social media and online memes saw a wave of hostility and mockery unleashed against them.
Almost 20 years after their heyday, the culture war over their legacy still rages
– a “debate” best summed up in a scene between Fred Savage and Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool in the festive, slightly more family-friendly 2018 “reimagining” of Deadpool 2, Once Upon A Deadpool.
“They’re overproduced, formulaic, ear garbage,” proclaims former child star Savage.
“Oh really? You know who might disagree with that? Facts!” the Merc with a mouth replies, going on to cite Nickelback’s sales of 50 million albums worldwide, six Grammy nominations, two American Music Awards and one People’s Choice Award as evidence of their popularity.
While rock documentarian Leigh Brooks’ (whose previous subjects have included Life of Agony and Terrorvision) intimate, near two-hour look at the rise and fall and rise of Nickelback certainly doesn’t shy way from criticism of the group, the overall feeling is of a warm portrait of a band of brothers, cousins, schoolmates and a succession of drummers (and yes, it is hard to stifle a snigger as they detail their early Spinal Tap-esque constant changing of their man on the sticks or cruder songs like 2008’s Something in Your Mouth).
You’ll learn how inseparable siblings Mike and Chad Kroeger were joined by Ryan Peake and their cousin Brandon in beginning their music careers by forming Village Idiot, playing Metallica and Led Zeppelin covers in bars in and around their Alberta hometown of Hanna (population 3000).
That, after honing their big-guitar, bigdrums and screaming-lead-singer “sound” and renaming themselves Nickelback, they recorded an EP in Vancouver and then began travelling around Canada in a minivan, playing to initial crowds of between 10 and 20 people each night.
And what led them to signing on with Roadrunner Records, a company better known for metal acts like Slipknot, but whose savvy marketing (especially to radio stations) helped propel Nickelback to stardom.
There are regrets and recriminations (Chad Kroeger’s teenage delinquency is explored in detail, but his two-year marriage to Avril Lavigne is mentioned only in passing), tales of health scares and how they struggled to deal with the hate, but mostly it’s just the brothers and others shooting the breeze while shooting some pool, as they recount the highs and lows of their journey and remind themselves just how lucky they’ve been to be able to do what they love for a living.
Reynolds, Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan and an in-concert Lewis Capaldi all turn up to show their support and love. some of the other “expert” interviewees, however, aren’t exactly household names.
Hardly innovative, not exactly revelatory, Hate to Love is unlikely to win Nickelback any new fans, but it is a solidly constructed, sober look at one of the most polarising musical acts on the planet.
To (badly) paraphrase their own lyrics, “this is how they remind you, of who they really are”.
Hate to Love: Nickelback is screening only today in select cinemas.