In a new interview with Rock Feed, Nickelback guitarist Mike Kroeger talked about the band’s influences and how they were inspired to be the next Metallica.
Kroeger recalled seeing Metallica and other rock and metal bands for the first time and shared his first reaction, “Back in our day when we would see these shows, it would be Metallica live, it would be Poison live, it would be Mötley Crüe live, it would be Tesla live. We were just kids sitting in the audience watching this happen going, ‘This is awesome.’ I think those are just guys down there, they’re just people. I think we might be able to do that too.'”
“It’s a fairly audacious plan,” he continued. “We were just like, ‘Oh yeah they’re just guys,’ especially like the Metallica guys. Watching them play and understanding that 15 years prior they were nobodies. Then we see them playing into sold-out Arenas, it’s like one of those things where you go, ‘I think this can be done. We got to get our songs together and get to work. Maybe this is something that’s possible.'”
“We were reflecting back on that because at the time, we were sitting in there watching them, we hadn’t even begun to play yet,” the guitarist admitted. “We were reflecting on that experience of sitting in the audience watching whichever one of those bands and do the thing and realize that they just worked really hard and wrote songs to the best of their ability and practice and practice and practice and played every gig they could get their hands on and then hopefully one day it breaks through. People are inviting you to come and play instead of you just showing up and playing, ‘Hey, here we are.’ We did plenty of that, played to a lot of weight staff, played to a lot of single digit inhabited rooms.”
Kroeger and the rest of the band aren’t the only people seeing a connection between Nickelback and Metallica. Bassist Rob Trujillo once praised Nickelback, particularly Kroeger. “Listen, the guys in Nickelback are super cool, OK? That’s what I’m gonna say. I actually know the bass player [Mike Kroeger], and he’s awesome. I like really getting to know my bands and stuff like that, and he’s a good guy,” he told A Music Blog, Yea?.
Moreover, frontman Chad Kroeger once called James Hetfield his rock God and Nickelback even covered Metallica’s ‘Sad But True,’ leaving fans surprised about how good it actually sounds.
