Mike Kroeger: 'Nickelback haters have verbally abused our families & sent us death threats'
Nickelback bassist Mike Kroeger has revealed how "outright nasty" some of the band’s haters have been towards them.
Despite the Canadian rockers having a loyal following and regularly selling out arenas across the globe, the band have been the subject of a lot of mockery over the decades.
Even Arnold Schwarzenegger equated Nickelback with herpes, and in 2016 a policeman was forced to apologise after he threatened drink drivers with Nickelback’s music.
From their hilarious retorts on Twitter through to frontman Chad Kroeger joking that he “sounded just like the loser from Nickelback” when he woke up from a vocal cord operation, Nickelback often react with humour to the ire fired at them.
However, speaking to Singapore's Bandwagon ahead of their show in the country next Wednesday (20th February), bassist Mike Kroeger said some haters have plunged to the depths of “verbally attacking our families and sending us death threats.”
Asked how he feels about the hate aimed at Nickelback, Chad said: “Initially, it kind of hurt our feelings. I think it's safe to say anyone in the world would feel that way if people were saying negative things about you.
“I think as time has gone on, it sort of became humorous sometimes. Sometimes people try so hard to be mean, that it falls flat and I think that's the case most of the time.”
He continued: “It doesn't matter if it's my band or not, if someone says something that is legitimately funny, I'll laugh at it, especially if it's me. Sometimes people can just be outright nasty and take things too far, and start verbally attacking our families and sending us death threats and all that kind of stuff, and that's where you have to step back and think, ‘We're obviously doing something right if someone hates us that much’, and you let it go because you have better things to do.
“I don't really see a benefit to reacting to these people and being nasty back at them. When it's funny, it's funny.”
Nickelback last toured the UK in May 2018 on the seven-date Feed The Machine arena tour.
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