WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - NOVEMBER 05: (L-R) Daniel Adair, Chad Kroeger, Mike Kroeger and Ryan Peake of ... [+]
It’s been more than 20 years since Nickelback topped the Hot 100 with "How You Remind Me," which would go on to be named one of the most successful hits of that decade in almost every respect. The group has since scored many more smash singles, especially in the rock world, where for a time, they reigned supreme. They’ve sold tens of millions of albums and toured the world, playing to their masses of fans.
Nickelback isn't only known for the music, however. They’re sadly recognized for claiming another, much less desired spot in pop culture as the most hated band in America.
At some point in the past decade or so, Nickelback became a trending topic for all the wrong reasons. What started as some people making fun of what they saw as a lame rock group turned into a phenomenon, where millions piled on and began hating on the Canadian outfit. Sometimes it was all in good fun, but things quickly turned dark, and the band, and its members, suffered because of the seemingly unearned backlash.
“I don't think that hate is deserved,” stated Leigh Brooks, the director of the new movie Love to Hate: Nickelback. The documentary tells the story of how the group was created—not in the highly-corporate way many have suggested—and also how the world turned on them after embracing their signature brand of hard rock.
In a recent call about the film, Brooks stated that his intention in making the doc—and focusing on this angle, which is specific to Nickelback—was to get people to view them in a less acidic manner. He hopes that when viewers finish the movie, they think, "Look, these are four guys that made it. They're all right. The music's not too bad.”
Ben Jones, the producer on the project, had a similar aim in mind. “I would like people to just stop for a moment and go, ‘Actually, maybe I had them down wrong. That looks like a really good rock and roll show. They've got a hell of a lot more songs than I remember.’”
Whether Love to Hate: Nickelback changes any minds—or whether it reaches anyone outside of the band’s die-hard following—is yet to be seen. But the documentary does paint a picture of a regular, working-class rock group that just happened to make it big and see their dreams come true...though even they couldn’t have imagined how things would pan out.
Love to Hate: Nickelback hits select theaters on March 27 and March 30. I spoke with both Brooks and Jones shortly before the movie arrived in cinemas about why they decided to make a documentary about a band so many despise and how they got the group’s members, who usually stay away from the conversation entirely, to open up about this difficult chapter.
Hugh McIntyre: I'm not going to say a Nickelback fan, but I am a Nickelback apologist, because I don't think that they deserve the hate that they get. So congrats on the film. Why don't you both tell me a bit about how the idea for a Nickelback film came about? And specifically a film about this weird phenomenon that they're a part of.
Leigh Brooks: I was booked by Ben to do an EPK originally for Feed the Machine in 2017. On the way out there, we both talked about it'd be a bit more fun if we did something a little bit bigger than that, just to see if there was any scope for anything outside of that EPK.
We decided to go down the traditional, "Oh, let's talk about the albums” route, just to see if there's any merit in that. The main interviews in that film were the first ones that we shot. We realized we had quite a lot of material in the can, and me and Ben started fleshing out something that was bigger than this five-minute film.
As it went on, we decided to go get some real up-to-date concert footage from the Feed the Machine tour. All of a sudden we started having this really good framework. Then I flew out and showed them some of the rushes just before getting on stage with them to shoot, and they really liked it. And they started saying, "Oh, we're going to go back to Hamburg to shoot this gig, this charity gig." And I thought, "Oh, you need to film that." By clawing away, gradually, we were in the mix by proxy. Before we knew it, we were making a documentary.
But it took quite a while. Where the band was in 2017, they didn't really want to talk about the hate then. They were still in the mix of it, so they didn't want to go there. They'd had enough talking about it. Every interview always referred back to it.
I remember one of the first questions that Ben asked in the initial interview of Chad, was, "Why do you get so much hate?" And Chad literally bashed it back at Ben and said, "Well, we always ask the interviewer, why do you think?" So it wasn't an answer, it was just straight back at Ben.
I didn't know enough about Nickelback at that point to know why there was this level of hate towards them. So it took a long time to get the guys on board to actually talk about it. I think it was year three of filming where we really started getting under the skin. Would you say that was right, Ben? Or year two?
Ben Jones: Yeah. Leigh and I have a standing joke that for a long time Nickelback would call us the people who they paid to run away from. How can you make a fly on the wall documentary when the fly keeps buzzing away?
Here's a band who for the best part of 30 years, had never really done this. Right? And what's crazy is, they never really even filmed themselves. When we started digging into, "Well, guys, you grew up in the 1990s and the early part of the noughties. Where's your archive?" "We don't have any." I was like, "What do you mean?"
There's more footage of the moon landings than of Nickelback. It just goes to prove that they weren't used to having cameras around. They've done a lot of interviews and they've had to sort of cover themselves...being Teflon-coated to being asked shitty questions.
When they realized that we were asking not shitty questions, but difficult questions, and there was a reason and a rationale behind that, we weren't trying to get clickbait or we weren't trying to make a rise out them, but we were trying to get to a story, that, as Leigh says, was when they kind of went, "Well, okay, we get it."
McIntyre: Can you detail a little more at what point you brought up that this is a direction you were going to take with this film? And did it take them a while to come around?
Brooks: It got to a point where I think we took the film as far as we could without any archives. There was nothing, nothing at all. It was current concert footage, music videos, and it felt like we were completely tied-in. We couldn't even download anything from YouTube. Telling a story like that was not even possible. It got to a point where the film nearly went somewhere else and I actually thought that was it. That was my involvement, done with it. I thought, "We're out of here now."
Then when the actual film came back about a month or so later, I remember sitting down in the edit suite thinking, "I've got nothing left in the tank for this film." And then I think after two days of literally staring at the edit and not knowing where to take it at all, I said, "Right. If we're going to do it, we are going to go in. We're going to really try and get as far as the guys will let us take it with the hate and everything else."
So that's when we were like, "Oh, can we use this clip?" We were getting small clips down. We were downloading the memes. I was getting my VFX guy to build up these big meme things that were flying everywhere. We went bang-in. You know what I mean? There were some ones where even I winced when we actually put some of those memes in.
I remember one time, I think it was the first two-minute intro, there was a Stone Sour clip where I think Corey from Stone Sour got the crowd to start chanting, "Fuck Nickelback." We put it in there, and I remember Ryan didn't even notice. It was in there for about a month or so, and he really liked the intro. And all of a sudden he said, "Are they saying fuck Nickelback?"
It was at that point when we were like, "Well, all they can do is say no." But we got to the point where we stopped worrying about what they would say and just thought, "Let's show them it. And if they want it out, it will come out." But luckily at that point, I think Mike was onboard with it. Ryan was as well. So we were able to really start honing into that kind of thread and go, "Do you know what? If you're going to show it, show it."
Jones: There was a screening yesterday at Soho House, a member's screening of the film. I've seen it 9,000 times. And yesterday I saw it for the 9001st because I went to see what it's like with an audience. It was really interesting because I watched it and I went, "The best bit of this film is when Leigh shot them around the pool table." He's a very good director. He could also be a great therapist as well, I think, and a great negotiator, frankly, as well. You can see it in the footage—none of that stuff's going in the film because it was really personal.
I think the whole film, you see these four individuals, but you also see a collective and a band, as Daniel says at the end, we are a band.
I think there's also something to be said about being 46. Someone should make the documentary about the journey that Leigh and I have been on personally in the making of this film. There's not enough time to go into that. But there is actually something quite relatable about guys being sort of superheroes in their 20s and 30s and being a little bit more vulnerable in their 40s. And that's okay, right? The journey that you go on is okay.
Here's a guy, this director here—I'd never met him before we got on the plane. He's one of my closest friends. I think there's a lot of that that is quite relatable to Nickelback as well. They are better together, frankly.
McIntyre: Making this, did you have a goal in mind? Was it just, "This is an interesting band. We want to make a doc about them?" Or are you hoping to open people's eyes, change the narrative around them?
Brooks: For me, it was especially not having really any preconceptions about the band to begin with. It was changing the narrative a little bit about them. It was showing that they weren't a corporate band that was created and they were brought together. They're not The Monkees of the ‘90s—and I love The Monkees, by the way. They're amazing.
It was literally just showing the story. You think about them, it's just not that case. Where they came from in Hanna, and everything else. I didn't know that Mike and Chad were brothers before I started filming. I had no conceptions of them one way or the other.
When I met them, I was like, "Man, these guys are awesome. They're lovely. They're really cool." Chad is one of the best hosts. In fact, he's probably the best host I've ever met in my life. He can't do enough for you. He really can't. And I've met some people that have quite disappointed you when you've met them. And Chad was like, "Wow, this guy is awesome." He gets such a bad rep, or he got such a bad rep. He's charming, and he's a lovely guy, and his family loves him. His mum loves him. You can see that.
It was just showing that these guys come, they had a hard slog to get where they are. I don't think that hate is deserved.
So it was changing that narrative a little bit and just say, "Look, these are four guys that made it. They're all right. The music's not too bad. What do you think?"
Jones: For me, it was [that] there aren't many front men that can do what Chad does. He makes it look so effortless. That's the sign of a good front man, frankly. I wanted to give them their dues to allow them to get a little bit of respect.
Here's the thing—I think the fans are going to love it. Of course they will. But I don't expect people to watch it and suddenly rush out and buy concert tickets or their entire back catalog. But I would like people to just stop for a moment and go, "Actually, maybe I had them down wrong. That looks like a really good rock and roll show. They've got a hell of a lot more songs than I remember."
I remember, my wife, I took her along to see the O2 filming that we did a few years ago, and she almost came along kicking and screaming, "Oh God. I don't know Nickelback. I don't know their songs." Had the best time. I'd like people to watch it. It's an entertaining hour and 20 minutes, hour-and-a-half, and to come out and go, "Actually, yeah, they're all right." And do you know what? The thing about music is it's really subjective. And he thing about filmmaking is it's really subjective. Some people are going to like it, some people aren't.
Brooks: And also people want more blood. We know that. People want some kind of monster. They want to see these four guys really hung out to dry in front of the cameras for their own personal gratification. But you can do that online any day of the week. Do what you want. That was never going to be what we or the band wanted to do. I think we pushed it as far as we could.
Jones: I think Leigh’s right. I do think that some people expect some kind of monster from this. And that's not what every music documentary is going to be.
Brooks: No. Nor should it be either. It doesn't have to be this, that, or the other. I just think if it's entertaining and it's got a good story and a good heart, and there's a message in it. And I think there is. I think there's some nice little narrative threads that come around in the film.
I think the Daniel thread is really strong, stuffing everything down and not telling anyone what you're really feeling. You've got this preconception. I've suffered from that. I worry too much about what people thought of me, when really what I realized, what really matters, is what's inside of you. Then all these things that you project out don't really exist.
I think that was a really cool moment with Daniel. He thought he was this outside member of the band, and that's not what the rest of the band saw.
McIntyre: I was surprised to see that this is coming to theaters, because a lot of music docs don't get that opportunity. Can you talk a bit about deciding to go that route?
Jones: I think it's classic Nickelback, really, in the sense that shit happens. And actually, at the moment, it's good shit. Why did it end up in cinemas? We did the Toronto International Film Festival. That was fairly organic because the band are Canadian and we were lucky enough to be selected to be included there. And what is a film festival? It's an opportunity to sell your wares. People got to see the film, and I think people liked it.
Along came a wonderful company called Trafalgar, who specialize in putting these kind of films into theaters. They're not stupid. They'd have done their homework, they'd have done their numbers, whether it's the Beyonce film or the Taylor Swift film at one end of the spectrum, then there is a very loyal and die-hard fan base for Nickelback at the other end.
You've got to remember that they get 16 and 17 million monthly streams on Spotify alone. So there's an audience there. I'd love to say it was some giant master plan by these two creative geniuses that are on this Zoom call. That's not the case. Other, smarter people thought it would be a great idea.
We saw it on Tuesday in the cinema. I kept looking across to Leigh because it blows my mind. I think it deserves to be seen on the big screen. Yeah, you can watch your music documentary somewhere else, but on the big screen with the 5.1 sound mix with those songs, with the drone footage, it shows you what a Nickelback show is all about.
Brooks: I love that footage that came in from the Nickelback team. It's quite rare to see that level of that concert footage coming through. That drone is amazing. It's so small and tiny, but God, some of the shots they got for that, it just really, really shows that at the end, I think. I'm really proud.
Some of the concert footage, it's just being on stage with them and following them around on there. It feels like you're another member of the band when you're on stage with them.
