Talkin' Rock with Nickelback's Mike Kroeger
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00:01Rock, metal, prog, and everything in between.
00:04If you're into rock, you've come to the right place.
00:07Welcome to this episode of Talkin' Rock with Meltdown.
00:11Don't forget to follow the audio-only Talkin' Rock podcast on all podcast platforms.
00:15And now, it's time for today's conversation.
00:18Here's Meltdown.
00:20Hey, Mike, good to see you.
00:22Good to be seen.
00:23I'll tell you, I ordered this just for you to make you feel at home, this snowy backdrop.
00:28Wow. Is that legit or is that generated?
00:31No, it's legit. We're in our second day of spring, and there's like three to five inches at Feltz Day.
00:36But I still went and played hockey this morning.
00:38Of course, as you do.
00:41I mean, whether it's rain or shine, right?
00:43But wow, that's something I don't miss is that weather.
00:49I don't miss that that much.
00:50Where are you now? Where are you at?
00:53I am in the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles, California.
00:56Okay, gotcha.
00:57Right. I live now.
00:59Before we get too much of a Nickelback, I've been playing.
01:01I don't know if I told you this last time I saw him.
01:03Brendan Morrison's been playing hockey with us a lot in the morning.
01:06Wow.
01:07How fast is that kid now?
01:09Oh, he's good. He's great. Great dude. Lives right by me.
01:11And yeah, he's been playing about a year and a half or so.
01:14But anyways, I was at the theater a couple weeks ago, and I was waiting in line,
01:19and I saw the Nickelback, love to hate Nickelback thing up there.
01:22And I'm like, I got to get one of the guys on here and talk about this.
01:25Does this movie have any ghosts or any busting of ghosts in it?
01:33I've been asked a lot of questions, man.
01:37Never been asked that one.
01:39Tell me where you're coming from here.
01:41No, I just saw Ghostbusters over the week, so I just was wondering.
01:45Oh, okay, okay. Now I understand.
01:48Because, yeah, that's funny.
01:48A friend of mine in Phoenix sent me a text because he went to Ghostbusters with his wife,
01:56and he came out, and he just sort of glanced over it, and our poster was there.
02:01And he was like, you know, I was like looking at him.
02:04So maybe we do.
02:05Yeah, you got to get some sort of ghost busting to kind of compete with the other movies, I think.
02:10But I'm looking forward to seeing this.
02:13So I saw the trailer, and I've watched the trailer several times.
02:17Is the outdoor venue there?
02:19Is that Pine Knob, or is that another venue?
02:21Because it looks just like Pine Knob.
02:23Oh, yeah.
02:24Yeah, the one where Chad says light him up, and you can see the fans that are supposed to make it easier to be in there in the summertime.
02:35I don't know if that's there exactly.
02:38I'm not sure.
02:38It could be, though.
02:40I basically, I figure I could probably have my mail redirected to Pine Knob as many times as I've played there.
02:47I think I could call it my permanent address.
02:49Yeah, no, because I know that some of these places look alike, but I paused it, and I'm like, man, that looks just like Pine Knob.
02:55I don't know.
02:55Of course, we saw you guys there last year, just sold out.
02:58What a great show.
02:59You guys are so good live.
03:01So tell us about this.
03:02Is it a movie?
03:03Is it a documentary?
03:04Where do you place this?
03:06I place it definitely firmly in the documentary category.
03:11It's the story of, it is the filling in of a few blanks and maybe telling some stories that no one knows.
03:20There definitely is that.
03:23There's, you know, a big part of, I think, sort of like the narrative that's been sort of conceived about Nickelback over the years, positive or negative, has largely been done in a vacuum because we haven't really shared that much.
03:36And I feel like some of the misunderstandings or fallacies surrounding this band may be our own fault for not telling our story.
03:47And this sort of dispels, and it dispels some, maybe some misunderstandings and also tells our story sort of in our own words.
03:59And, you know, frankly, man, like our name, you know, coupled with the word hate, has been sort of used as a clickbait device against us for so many years that we kind of decided to, like, grab the wheel and see, you know, how it works for us.
04:19You know, so we're using our own name and stuff as clickbait to see what happens when we do it.
04:25Well, you guys have goofed on your own, I guess, the fact that people hate you, especially with the funnier die thing right here in Detroit.
04:34I mean, that's just classic.
04:36That was just a classic one where you guys dressed up as people from Detroit.
04:40But before you guys went out on tour last year, if I'm not mistaken, I know I interviewed Chad.
04:44And at one point, I guess somewhere along the line when he was doing interviews, he's like, yeah, I'm going to stop about how much, you know, stop talking about how much people hate us or whatever the case is.
04:52But now you guys love to hate Nickelback.
04:54So now it's kind of back at it again.
04:57Well, it's you know what the thing about it is, is it's like not to fat shame, but it is the 800 pound gorilla in the room.
05:04And, you know, I don't mind.
05:08I don't mind addressing it myself.
05:11You know, and that's why I'm kind of doing the rounds on this stuff is because I'm like the I guess I I guess I've never really taken any of that very seriously.
05:19You know, it's never really it's it's hurt me and my family, as you'll see in the documentary.
05:25That's a spoiler alert.
05:27But, you know, now I don't really care about it.
05:30And now I kind of want to use it.
05:33You know, I always tell people, I think I've told you this before, too.
05:36It's like Chad doesn't care what you say about Nickelback when he's peeing in his gold toilet.
05:41Well, that's that's sort of, you know, one of the sort of misconceptions.
05:45This thing is is kind of designed to to to dispel or to clean up is is that, you know, that Nickelback is more than just a monolith brand golem thing that's stomping around the world playing arenas and doesn't care about what anybody says.
06:04Actually, we are people who have feelings and hearts and and, you know, when when people started coming at us, it did hurt.
06:13You know, it really, really did.
06:14I can't lie.
06:16And, you know, we just want to kind of communicate that we're people just like everybody else.
06:21You know, we we're we're four pretty ordinary guys that have a extraordinary job.
06:29You know, we get to do something that's really, really fun for a living.
06:33And, you know, that the term hate is often used.
06:41Regarding things, you know, in the sort of, you know, without getting to therapist, you know, in the in the cultural lexicon.
06:51And, you know, hate is something that really doesn't mean hate because hate means sort of you want to destroy or kill something.
06:58And, you know, maybe there are people that that would say that.
07:01But the truth is, it's a mild annoyance compared to things like starving to death or people literally trying to kill you.
07:08You know what I mean?
07:09Like that I'll put hate on that.
07:11You know, if somebody is trying to murder me or my family, I hate that.
07:15I hate that person a lot.
07:16But if somebody plays a song that I think I've heard too many times, I can't put it in the same frame.
07:21That's right.
07:22And it's funny as just like, you know, a derelict DJ looking from the outside.
07:29And look, I've been here for your guys whole careers.
07:31Matter of fact, I remember I saw a clip where you guys were talking about.
07:35Ryan was talking about it, about the first time that Chad brought him How You Remind Me.
07:40And it's funny because my boss at the time, I'll give him credit, Troy Hanson.
07:44He came up to me and he said, this song is going to be a huge hit.
07:47And like Ryan said in the film, he's like, I thought it was pretty good.
07:50And I thought it was pretty good, too.
07:52But all of a sudden, that kind of changed your guys' lives, didn't it?
07:55Well, yeah.
07:57And How You Remind Me was a weird one because we, at the point that we recorded that, we were still very much the underdogs that were probably never going to make it.
08:07You know, just because no one really ever makes it in this business.
08:12You know, playing music for a living is a pipe dream to begin with.
08:15To have, you know, the most played song in the world.
08:20I actually have the award.
08:21It's not in this office.
08:22I wish I had it here to show it to you.
08:23But we got this World Music Award from 2001.
08:27Most played single in the world.
08:29You know, it's, so to think that that's going to happen when you're just trying to string together, you know, intro, verse, chorus, intro, re-intro, you know, guitar, solo, double chorus out.
08:44Like, we're, there's no way, you know, there's just no way that you can even contemplate what that means at all.
08:53And, yeah, Ryan's wife, when she heard it, she said, that's a hit.
08:57And that's really, that was really nice of her to say that.
08:59And it turns out she was right.
09:03But then at that time, we, you know, we were just doing, we thought that was just one song of many that we have, you know, you feel when you make them, you feel close to these songs.
09:15And I didn't really feel like it was that much better than all the others.
09:19But then, you know, another friend of mine, I played it for him, and I'll never forget, he said, I played him the rough, you know, the rough mix of How You Remind Me.
09:31And, you know, I stopped the track.
09:33And he's a musician as well and a songwriter in Vancouver.
09:36And I remember he just said, he just looked at me and he's like, that's got millions written all over it.
09:41And I was like, really?
09:44Okay, you know, that, all right.
09:48Turns out he was right too.
09:49But I didn't really take it that seriously.
09:51None of us really knew what we were getting into when we recorded that song, when we wrote, recorded that song, and also when, you know, we went out to support it and, you know, put out the record.
10:01And, you know, we just, we couldn't see any of this stuff coming.
10:06And besides, we didn't know what that even meant.
10:07Like, we'd seen, you know, documentaries about rock bands before Song Remains the Same and all that stuff.
10:15And it's not, you know, there are going to be moments that are crazy like that, you know, flying around on jets and playing rock shows and whatever.
10:26But you don't really know until you get there what it's really like.
10:30Yeah, because, you know, you just mentioned that.
10:32I mean, Rockstar is like a song.
10:35The first time I heard it, I'm like, did Kid Rock have a co-writing role in this?
10:39Because that seemed like a little bit, that one seemed to come out of a little bit left field.
10:42And that's a huge, monstrous hit for you as well.
10:45Again, not something we saw coming.
10:47And the truth is, is that Rockstar was our final single on All the Right Reasons.
10:56And we, it was the seventh, I think, seventh single, I think it was, that we put out off of that record.
11:04And seventh, number one, by the way.
11:06Wow.
11:07Whatever that, like just on that album, it's such a crazy situation.
11:11But we, I call that one the Aloha single.
11:17You know, it's like when you're going through an album, you know, what we call, like, not to get too inside baseball, but, you know, an album cycle.
11:31You know, like you're in the promotion of an album.
11:33So, you know, you work your singles until you kind of think you're done and you're about to move on.
11:38And you release the last single, which is the Aloha single, which is, you know, it's just the one that, you know, probably isn't going to be a smash hit.
11:49It's just the last one.
11:51You know, maybe it's the last picked one, maybe not, but, but it's, it's the last one you put out.
11:56And we have this really clever promotion team in London who, you know, we were, we were pretty happy with our performance of the rest of the record.
12:07But they got this idea that, that I think they stole from our dear friend, Alice Cooper, which was how he broke himself in England, which was, do you know the story of how Alice Cooper broke?
12:22No.
12:23So, no, no, not at least from here, of course.
12:26Of course.
12:27I know he went and played at Frank and Frank Zappa's front yard at seven in the morning one time, but go ahead.
12:33There's, yeah, there's several things that, you know, unorthodox approaches.
12:37His manager is a dear friend of mine and Alice, a dear friend of mine as well.
12:41What they did was they recognized a really peculiar social condition in the UK, which is the UK.
12:53They, it considers itself to be very prim and proper, very, you know, just, just very appropriate.
13:03You know what I mean?
13:05No one swears there, of course, you know, no one says anything inappropriate or does anything.
13:10It turns out they're a bunch of perverts like everybody else, but nevermind that.
13:13Everybody behaves as though they're, they're very, very prudish, you know, on the record, you know, off the record,
13:21there is eyes, white, eyes, white shit parties everywhere.
13:23But anyway, the, you know, so what Alice and his team did was they set up, you know,
13:30those A-frame trucks that they put on like on glass or, or, or marble slabs or whatever.
13:35They took one of these ones and they put two billboard posters like that, right?
13:40So, you know, when the truck was driving on the sides, you would see the same billboard from either side.
13:45The image on that billboard was Alice totally naked with a boa constrictor snake wrapped around all his naughty parts.
13:56And they took that truck and, you know, just dragging it around was enough because everybody, they were aghast, you know what I mean?
14:04Like everybody's, you know, doing the Scarlet O'Hara.
14:07Oh, I never, of course you have, you know, whatever.
14:10But anyway, they took it and then drove it to Piccadilly Circus, which is one of the biggest, you know,
14:18most busiest intersections in central London.
14:20And then the truck broke down and the driver left.
14:25I think I remember this.
14:26Yeah.
14:26Yes.
14:27You know, the story comes out that what the driver did was, you know,
14:32he just basically turned the engine off, threw the keys, got under the hood,
14:36but disconnected the battery and split because that's what his job was.
14:40So anyway, then they've leaked to the news in Britain that there is this outrageous, you know,
14:48this is the seventies, I think, early seventies.
14:52And so this, you know, there's this outrageous billboard that's in Piccadilly Circus
14:56and no one can get rid of it and everybody's seeing it and, oh, heavens, you know, what happens if, you know,
15:02so basically he was a star that, you know, he outraged everybody.
15:07So everybody wanted it.
15:09Right.
15:09And this promotion team, you know, fast forward 30 years or whatever, our promotion team,
15:15who I don't think they were a part of that effort, but they could have been, I'm not sure.
15:19But they, they decided that what we would do is, you know, if you've seen the Rockstar video,
15:23you know that we had sent a camera crew to the Playboy Mansion and got the Playboy,
15:29the girls from the mansion on camera and all that.
15:35And there was this narrative crafted that we at the Playboy Mansion had created this billboard
15:42that was just so depraved.
15:45It was just so bad, so sexy that no one should ever see that.
15:49So we're going to ban the, you know, the, the, the, the billboard was banned in the UK.
15:55The song was banned in the UK.
15:57The video was banned in the UK.
15:58None of it.
15:58True.
15:59All a lie.
16:01And what happened was it shot up the charts.
16:03It went to number one.
16:05Everybody couldn't get enough of the song.
16:07And yeah, we were, we became stars there.
16:11And then that, you know, as usually the cases, if something breaks in the United States,
16:16it breaks everywhere else.
16:17In this case, which has been, you know, and this has happened, like Bob Marley broke in London,
16:22you know, numerous Alice, you know, broken London, and then it spread from there.
16:28But yeah, so from then on, Rockstar was sort of a, it became a, it became kind of a little bit of a surprise smash.
16:37Because we used a system that clearly, you know, it, it, it showed real opportunity.
16:44And, and, you know, I just, I just thank that team for coming up with that one.
16:48And we, and at the same time, we were at this, in the studio trying to finish the next record.
16:52Like we were already, that's how far this had gone.
16:55We were just finishing the next album and we had to jump on the plane to England to play a, a UK tour to support Rockstar,
17:04which really didn't need any support.
17:06It, Rockstar just supported us.
17:08And, and that was just, yeah, that was, that was the funny, funny story of Rockstar.
17:12And, and Kid Rock's in that one.
17:14He's in that video as well.
17:15As, as he should be along with Billy Gibbons.
17:18But, you know, when you said it's, it's your Aloha song or whatever, it's like,
17:20I thought that that just afforded you enough money to buy a house in Maui or something.
17:25That's what I thought that meant.
17:26You know, it very well might've.
17:29Hey, you just mentioned about breaking in the States.
17:31So here's a question for you.
17:33Being a Canadian band and a very successful band down here in the States as well.
17:36There's been a lot of bands that were in Canada.
17:38Do you think it's more, what do you think is more important for a band to break in the States?
17:42Is it the music or you think it's the deal that they sign?
17:45Well, I think it's more important not to, I'm not dodging your question.
17:54I'm actually focusing in on what the real answer is.
17:57What the real answer is, is, is in order to, in order to fully break in Canada,
18:03we had to break in the United States first.
18:06Like we had Western Canada under control really well.
18:08And we kind of couldn't really get arrested in Ontario, Quebec and, you know, the places
18:15where all the people are.
18:16And until we popped in the United States, they didn't really take us seriously.
18:22But then once we, you know, achieved liftoff pretty much like in Texas, that was when, you
18:29know, that was when, uh, Ontario and Quebec thought we were okay.
18:33Yeah.
18:34Cause like, uh, I mean, obviously the, the, the band, you know, which band I'm thinking of
18:37is tragically hip.
18:38I mean, they, they couldn't get arrested down here, but they were, when they played
18:42their last show, Canada stopped.
18:45Yeah.
18:46I was at one of those, uh, yeah, it was, uh, pretty emotional.
18:51I don't know if you're, you're a fan of the hip or not, um, as close as, as you are, uh,
18:56to, to where they come from, it's, it's possible and, and probably will, it's such a great band.
19:01Um, uh, yeah.
19:02And, you know, I don't know why they didn't pop.
19:08Maybe it was because they were, they wore the Canadianism on their sleeve, maybe too much.
19:13And, you know, there is, you know, there is conjecture that, that might've been, might've
19:18been part of it just because people, not because people hate Canada, but it's, they don't understand
19:23all the cultural references that, you know, Gord, uh, would use, um, in, in, in those, uh, lyrics,
19:30he would be talking about things like, you know, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and, you know, um, uh, uh,
19:38Yeah, but he talked, he talked about New Orleans.
19:40He talked about some other things as well.
19:42True enough.
19:42And they did the majority, if not all their records in New Orleans.
19:46Oh, is that right?
19:47I didn't know that.
19:47Yeah.
19:47They recorded a lot, like they recorded a lot of their music in New Orleans.
19:51I think there was some kind of, uh, uh, uh, uh, stimulation down there that they, they
19:57really dug that the kind of transcended nationality.
19:59I think it was more like you're in a, you know, that that's a voodoo place, man.
20:04There, there's some pretty cool vibes down there.
20:06Yeah.
20:06You know, uh, that, that documentary, by the way, um, that they put out a couple of years
20:10ago about that last tour was really well, uh, well done.
20:13I have got to see that.
20:15I still haven't seen it yet, but I, like I say, I was at one of the last ones in Vancouver.
20:18I think it was, I think it was at the, either the last or the second last show that they
20:23did on that tour in Vancouver.
20:24And then I think they went on to do a couple more shows back, you know, out your way, but,
20:29um, but I'm not, I'm not, um, super positive.
20:32Well, the, the final show was in Kingston, obviously.
20:35And, uh, you know, I grew up in Buffalo.
20:36I moved here in 1995, so I'm part Canadian, I think.
20:40I, uh, yeah, by, by proxy for sure.
20:43You're, you're, um, you're not far off.
20:45You're, you're pretty much right there.
20:47Yeah.
20:48You just mentioned that those guys recorded a lot of their records in New Orleans.
20:51Did you guys always record in the same spot or have you guys, uh, kind of jumped around
20:54it and, and did, did the, did the different vibes produce different results for you guys?
20:59Yeah.
20:59You know, um, we have done, you know, in the beginning of our career, when you had to go
21:05to a studio to, to make a record, which you do not anymore, obviously, um, we did, we
21:11did record in studios in Vancouver.
21:13You know, the, the, all the famous ones, we, we were in those, um, then as things started
21:20developed and you were able to sort of take the technology wherever you want, um, right
21:25around that same time, Chad, uh, formed his studio out at his house, uh, to cut down on
21:31his commute, which was nice.
21:32And, um, then we use that place for a while.
21:36And then when, especially, uh, the album, uh, that we did called no fixed address that,
21:41that, that reason that title was given was because we recorded in many locations around
21:47the world, you know, um, Europe, Hawaii, uh, we recorded in Vancouver, other places, but
21:53we just sort of took the rig and all the gear and just would move someplace for, you know,
21:59two weeks or three weeks or whatever.
22:00And record in these, we would, we would get some, um, some big house somewhere.
22:07Uh, a lot of times we would intentionally look for one that had a, uh, a home theater in
22:12it or like a screening room, like in LA here, they're everywhere.
22:15You know, they, these houses with screening rooms is really common thing.
22:18And, and that was one of the towns that we, uh, that we actually, uh, recorded in was,
22:23uh, Los Angeles.
22:24We would take a screening room or a home theater situation and just move everything out of
22:29it and, you know, move all their stuff into the garage and move all our stuff into the
22:32theater room.
22:33And he's usually fairly soundproof.
22:35So we could kind of work late and not worry about neighbors.
22:38And also, uh, they generally sounded good too.
22:41So that was, we did that with a no fixed address.
22:44That was fun.
22:44It sounds like a Dave Grohl studio, six, six, six thing, where I don't know if you saw that
22:49movie.
22:49Not many, but I haven't seen that, but I'm aware of the, um, of the, uh, concept or whatever.
22:54And, uh, a funny thing was, uh, actually Chad was invited to, uh, be, you know, in that
23:03when they were shooting that he, Chad was going to get, I think decapitated.
23:09We were, we were too busy and we couldn't, I forget what, what, what, what the problem was.
23:14Oh, Oh, I remember Chad, uh, at that time, wasn't a member of SAG or something.
23:20It wasn't like legally, it wasn't okay for him to act in it because he wasn't in the union
23:25or some kind of crap.
23:27Well, I think there's as many people on this call as there was in the theater when I went
23:31and saw it.
23:31So I don't think he really missed out on much, but I thought, well, let's, let's hope our
23:36documentary does.
23:38Yeah.
23:38That's going to be on March 27th and 30th.
23:40By the way, I thought that movie was, uh, was fun, but, uh, you know, I remember talking
23:44to your brother last time and I can't remember who told me this.
23:46It might've been Tyler from theory, or maybe it was Brendan Morrison.
23:49I can't remember, but they said, when you guys were recording one of your first records,
23:52your first or second, uh, one night, a bunch of hockey players came there and they got drunk
23:56and there was throwing up in the bushes and all sorts of stuff.
24:00Oh yeah.
24:01Um, uh, you don't have to name names.
24:05I just, you guys probably, you know, I don't have to name names cause I got those too, but
24:09I will tell you the team.
24:10It was, um, the, uh, Colorado avalanche were in town actually.
24:15Okay.
24:17And, uh, truth be told, as soon as it all started to happen, I left.
24:22Just because I don't, you know, whatever.
24:24I just didn't want to, you know, uh, and, um, yeah, the, uh, the boys, uh, from Colorado,
24:33um, were feeling, uh, much mirth and I think we had already ruined our chances with, uh,
24:38hanging out with the Vancouver Canucks.
24:40I think there was a no hanging around with Nickelback rule because what happened to the
24:44Colorado boys was, uh, you know, as hockey players do, as you know, uh, occasionally play
24:49guilty and, um, I think the entire first and second lines of, uh, the Colorado avalanche
24:58were playing guilty against the Canucks the next night.
25:00And, uh, as you know, playing with a hangover can have one of two effects.
25:07It's either you play great cause you're determined and maybe a little pissed off or your body doesn't
25:14work right.
25:14And you suck.
25:15And plan B is what happened to Colorado.
25:19They just got show act by the Canucks the next day.
25:21And I think Colorado got the, uh, I think the Avs got the, uh, no more hanging around
25:26with Nickelback memo.
25:28Hey, speaking of hockey players, Connor McDavid, uh, was on stage and he, like, he inducted you
25:33guys, right?
25:33The Canadian music hall of fame.
25:35Is that right?
25:36Correct.
25:36That is right.
25:37He's, he's become a really good friend over the years.
25:39And, um, it's, uh, it's cool to kind of be, uh, indirect sort of participant in his
25:50greatness.
25:50You know what I mean?
25:51Like, because he, he calls us his friends and we call him our friend.
25:55Uh, and he, uh, he's been really good to us over the years.
25:59And, you know, we, they, they ask him, who do you want to induct you into the, into the
26:06hall of fame?
26:06He gets to choose.
26:07Oh, nice.
26:08And so he was our choice.
26:10And then, you know, when they, when the Oilers were hosting the, uh, heritage classic in
26:16October, uh, he was as captain, he was asked, you know, who, who the team would like to have
26:23play, you know, in, in, in the game.
26:26And, um, you know, what, what rock band or what, what band would be, you know, their preference.
26:31And he chose us.
26:32So it was pretty damn special coming from Hannah, Alberta to play the battle of Alberta, an outdoor
26:39version at Commonwealth stadium.
26:40And Edmonton was pretty, uh, pretty sexy.
26:43Now that's obviously a high point in your career.
26:45But if, if I remember back, uh, you guys, didn't you guys open up the ceremony and at
26:50the Olympics one year, right?
26:51We closed it.
26:52Oh, close it.
26:53Okay.
26:53Yeah.
26:53I mean, how cool is that?
26:55Well, let me tell you a story about it because it was, um, uh, this is, you know, having done
27:02what I've done, um, you know, done this thing, it's busy, met so many people, had so many
27:07things to happen, few traumatic brain injuries.
27:10Uh, you know, I can't remember everything, um, but I'll never forget this.
27:14Uh, so what happened was, is we were invited to play the closing ceremonies of the 2010
27:18Olympics in Vancouver.
27:20And that was totally awesome.
27:22And, um, you know, the other boys all lived in the Vancouver area.
27:27I had flown in from Maui where I was living at the time.
27:30They were on a tsunami watch that day where I lived, which is crazy.
27:36I was watching like surveillance cameras, watching the ocean to see if it was gonna, uh,
27:41brother, that, that was a whole other part.
27:43But, um, uh, so what happened that year is, I don't know if you remember, but, um, USA
27:52and Canada were playing for the gold medal in hockey.
27:56I do remember.
27:57Yes.
27:58It was the last event of the games, arguably the most important to Canada.
28:04Canada and our boys were playing for, um, for gold against the USA boys, which are my boys.
28:14Now I'm a dual citizen now.
28:16So I'm, I'm one of you.
28:18And a Red Wings fan too.
28:19So go wings.
28:20So true that.
28:21Um, so, um, what happens, but, uh, Canada's leading, I think, oh geez, I can't remember
28:28the score.
28:29Canada was up by one goal.
28:30I think it was three, two.
28:30And going, you know, basically looked like sprinting to the finish.
28:36Canada's going to win gold.
28:39A player who shall be unnamed scores with like, what was it?
28:44Four seconds.
28:45Oh, yeah.
28:46Yeah.
28:46Yeah.
28:47Yeah.
28:48You, you know who that was.
28:49It was amazing, but we were in the room.
28:52We were in, we were watching the game and we just barely got tickets in the nosebleeds
28:57because, you know, we didn't buy tickets in advance and they, they, they put us in, you
29:02know, just shoved us in there, probably kicked out some poor people and got us some seats,
29:04but we watched the game and anyway, so, uh, I believe initials as ZP scores with about
29:13four seconds left, sucked every breath of air out of that.
29:18You could hear a pin drop in there.
29:20Like I could have heard somebody fart at the other side of the arena when he scored that
29:24goal, because at the same time that the whole audience was aghast, like just couldn't believe
29:28what just happened.
29:29You know, it looked like we were getting our gold medal stolen from us, you know, because
29:33now you got four seconds to score and win.
29:35It's probably not going to happen.
29:37You're going to overtime.
29:38So we found out later, of course, at the same time, all the training staff.
29:43Was running into the dressing room to round up all the champagne and all the championship
29:46t-shirts and, and hats that they were going to wear for the press conference.
29:50They had to get all that shit out of there because now we don't know who's going to win.
29:56Then open overtime, uh, and another, uh, another name, uh, unnamed hockey player with the initials,
30:07uh, SC went on to score in overtime, uh, for, for Canada to, uh, pull off the win.
30:13And having been through the emotional journey, we were, you know, like, I almost puked when,
30:21you know, when USA scored, you know, to take it into overtime, I, I just about vomited and,
30:25you know, and I wasn't the only one you could look around and everybody says, you know,
30:29like, you just couldn't believe it.
30:30And, and then, um, then when they scored to win the gold medal, we didn't even get
30:34to see the, the ceremony being presented because we had to run out the back door across the
30:42street into BC place, the, um, soccer stadium, uh, across the way, which is where we were
30:49to play our song for the closing ceremonies.
30:54And after having gone through all that shit to get in front of 70, 80, whatever, how many
31:02thousand people and play, uh, I think we just played burn to the ground.
31:06I think that's it.
31:06And, um, uh, it was like a cakewalk.
31:10We were like, we can do anything now.
31:12We lived through that.
31:13You know, like, I can't even imagine what it was like to be on the ice or the bench.
31:17That's just terrible.
31:18So, uh, that had to shave years off everybody's life.
31:21But, um, so we played the, you know, the thing and, and yeah, and then went out with the
31:26boys and Gretz and everybody after it was insane.
31:30But the thing that was funny was we were having dinner with Gretz and the boys, uh, afterwards
31:35and, um, you know, somebody came up to us and was like, Hey, um, just, uh, you know, like
31:42pretty cool night.
31:42Right.
31:43You know, Canada wins the gold medal.
31:46Hooray.
31:46Hey, um, you know, we get to play awesome.
31:50And the guy goes, yeah, but there's one more thing that, that you probably don't know that
31:54I should tell you about.
31:54And we were like, can this get better?
31:57And he goes, yeah, actually, as a matter of fact, it can get better because, um, your
32:02viewing audience for your performance was over a billion people worldwide.
32:06And we were just, uh, we kind of thought 80,000 was okay, but it turns out we played for over
32:13Bill.
32:13Uh, so that that's, I don't know, you know, what do you do with these things?
32:18Right?
32:18Like how do you, how do you, uh, interpret this data?
32:21Uh, uh, I still don't understand it because I don't know really, I don't know what a billion
32:27of anything looks like.
32:29No, I, I hear you.
32:29I was with, uh, Darren McCarty that night watching the game.
32:33Yeah.
32:33I was watching the game at a packed bar.
32:35And I literally said, if Sidney Crosby, as Sidney Crosby scores the game, when he go,
32:40I'm going to throw this beer through this TV screen.
32:42And it was like 10 seconds later.
32:45And D Mac went around and high-fived everyone in the bar who was of course, reluctantly high-fiving
32:51him because he's a Detroit legend.
32:53Nobody wanted to, but they did.
32:54And there was like two other Canadians there who were going bananas.
32:57Yeah.
32:58Yeah.
32:58Yeah.
32:59Yeah.
32:59Yeah.
32:59Yeah.
33:00Hey, I only got, I only got a couple minutes left here because my thing is going to run
33:03out, but I was asked, I was asked by a John to ask you about cheesecake.
33:09Okay.
33:10You know what?
33:11That fucking guy.
33:12All right.
33:12So, uh, yeah, John, um, do you know, John?
33:18Yeah, I know him.
33:19Yeah.
33:19Of course you do.
33:20Yeah, sure.
33:21Actually.
33:22Yeah.
33:22You probably met him when he was working with us.
33:24Yeah.
33:24So I shined down to everybody.
33:26Yeah, of course.
33:27Yeah.
33:27So as you know, John is a security guy, uh, John and I have a unique relationship because,
33:32um, we police each other's diets.
33:35And so, um, anytime, you know, one or the other, it was both, we both got each other
33:41all the time, you know, um, just come up and, you know, uh, come up beside behind somebody
33:47when they're at the dessert table and in catering and kind of like poke them in the pudge
33:52and be like, Hey, what are you looking at?
33:53You know, what's for dessert?
33:55Big guy.
33:56And then split, you know, he'd probably, uh, he'd probably take me out if he, if he got
34:00ahold of me, but, uh, you know, just, uh, fun times, uh, really, really fun times, but
34:04I still send him like emojis of like cupcakes and stuff.
34:07Uh, just keep him on his toes, right?
34:10I am so glad you're not following me around.
34:13That could, that could never happen.
34:15Well, you're having another bourbon again.
34:18Likewise.
34:19Uh, likewise.
34:20Well, I'm, I'm no, uh, I'm no choir boy.
34:22That's for sure.
34:23Well, I'll tell you what, Mike, thank you so much for the time.
34:25I can't wait to see the rest of this, uh, hate to love Nickelback.
34:28That's going to be in theaters on two days, March 27th and 30th.
34:31And, uh, I'm always there to help you guys support whatever you got going on.
34:34I love you guys.
34:35I love the band and, uh, uh, I'm one of your fans.
34:37So I appreciate you taking the time out with us.
34:40Thanks so much, brother.
34:41It's really great to talk to you.