Nickelback
The lyrics were born of an argument, and two missing beats cost them five grand, but the heartbreak and money proved worth it.
The lyrics were born of an argument, and two missing beats cost them five grand, but the heartbreak and money that this song cost them proved worth it.
25 JOKER AND THE THIEF
Wolfmother
When Aussie rockers Wolfmother arrived in a blaze of hair and heavy hooks with their self-titled debut album in 2005, it felt like the Second Coming of Christ. In terms of proper rock’n’roll, that is. Glowing reviews and comparisons to Sabbath and Zeppelin followed their self-titled debut album, and Joker And The Thief was their canyon-sized flagship track. All classic rock beef, with sharpened teeth and fire in its belly, it’s easy to see why it ended up appearing in numerous TV, film and videogame soundtracks (and why Slash had Andrew Stockdale sing on his own album). PG From: Wolfmother, 2005
24 THE BALLAD OF JOHN HENRY
Joe Bonamassa
Joe Bonamassa co-credited Mississippi John Hurt for the halfborrowed vocal hook, but the younger bluesman was the true architect of this hammerheavy career standout.
The title track of his seventh album, The Ballad Of John Henry was a master class of tension and release, its banjo-plunking verse setting up a swaggerous electric guitar riff and a skin-busting beat worthy of the titular steel-driving folk hero. Most thrilling was an instrumental section that broke free of the blues moorings, with a proggy chop of orchestration, and a tripped-out solo that was far from Bonamassa’s usual liquid-fingered pentatonic playing. HY From: The Ballad Of John Henry, 2009
23 HIGHWAY TUNE
Greta Van Fleet
Robert Plant knows the score. “Greta Van Fleet are Led Zeppelin I,” he said of the Michigan four-piece. He meant it as a compliment, and rightly so.
Highway Tune, the first track on their 2017 debut EP Black Smoke Rising, partied like it was 1969 and wasn’t afraid to let the world know. Jake Kiszka’s throaty guitar riff and brother Josh’s paint-stripping wail couldn’t help but bring to mind you-know-who, but why was that such a bad thing? What Highway Tune lacked in originality it made up for in exuberance. Sometimes it seemed like modern rock had become scared to sound this electrifying. DE From: Black Smoke Rising EP, 2017
22 HOW YOU REMIND ME Nickelback From: Silver Side Up, 2001
Before How You Remind Me was released in 2001, Nickelback were more perspiration than inspiration. They hadn’t yet won the tag of ‘Most Inexplicably Hated Rock Band Of All Time’ tag, either. Up until that point the five-piece had released two unremarkable albums, and pushed them to moderate sales with a punishing tour schedule. But while the band’s work ethic and live prowess was impressive, their albums had yet to infiltrate suburbia and the world at large.
The song itself began with an argument between frontman Chad Kroeger and his girlfriend. As the dispute reached boiling point, Kroeger stormed down to the rehearsal room in his basement, where he attempted to pinpoint why their relationship hurt so much. Deep down, he knew he loved his girlfriend. He also realised that living with the frontman of a struggling rock band couldn’t be easy. At the same time, however, he wanted to let her know that enough was enough. It was this curious cocktail of emotions that shaped How You Remind Me.
“Even though I do say in the song that I love her, I kinda wanted to throw her a back-handed slap,” says Kroeger. “So I was being very direct, and yelling into the microphone so that she could hear what I was saying.
“I was trying to be nasty, trying to put in these really sarcastic lines. Then she opened the door, and she was like: ‘What’s that? I really like it.’ So it kinda defeated the object of what I was doing.”
How You Remind Me was recorded in Vancouver. Alongside Kroeger and guitarist Ryan Peake were Chad’s brother Mike on bass, Ryan Vikedal on drums, and producer Rick Parashar controlling the ebb and flow of the atmospherics. It was a decent song, the band felt, but lacked something in terms of dynamics.
Peake had already suggested a series of ‘stops’ to give the chorus more impact, but the defining moment on the track came from drum technician Andrew Mawhinney.
“The big climax of the song at the third chorus, when there’s a stop and I sing ‘For handing you a heart worth breaking’, that was our drum tech’s idea,” Kroeger explains. “He was like: ‘You guys should do a big stop there.’ We already had those ‘I’ve been wrong/I’ve been down’ lines where we were stopping, but we needed the third chorus to do something special. We paid him five thousand dollars for that – for one suggestion!”
Like many big hit singles, How You Remind Me was nearly buried as just an album track. “Almost every band, when they put an album out, hopes certain songs will be heard on the radio. But we never had that conviction,” says Peake.
But How You Remind Me did get heard. And bought – by enough people to send it to No.1 in Canada and the US (the first song for more than 30 years to do that simultaneously) and keep it in the UK Top Five for weeks. After nearly 10 years of toil, Nickelback were finally an overnight success. “I don’t know how much money it’s made us,” says Kroeger, “but it’ll pay for our retirement.”
And he hasn’t tired of playing it. “You have to maintain perspective,” he says. “You have to realise that you’re not the first band to have a song like this. As soon as I get sick of playing How You Remind Me, Mick Jagger should walk up to me and slap me in the face and say: ‘Hey! When you’ve played Start Me Up as many times as I have, then you can bitch.’”