Thursday March 16, 2023
The Junos were in Edmonton on Sunday night and Nickelback was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Way to go Nickelback!
Monday morning over breakfast and coffee as we were watching the news, the highlights of the Junos were playing and we watched Nickelback’s backstage moments of reflection. This sparked a very involved discussion about Nickelback.
Have you ever wondered why when the name Nickelback is brought up in any conversation it causes a great deal of reaction and discussion about the band. Our household was no exception. You either love them or absolutely hate them. But I have never understood why Nickelback has received such bad press, criticism and why they are hated so much…
In keeping with this train of thought, just do the experiment that I did of typing into Google the following phrase, ‘Why do people hate’. You can’t even complete typing in the Google search without the word ‘Nickelback’ being automatically added to the end of the word ‘hate’ by Google. That just shows you how many times people have asked this question to Google. That is absolutely crazy! To be known for the most popular saying on google for the question “Why do people hate Nickelback”.
During that google search I came across an amazing article from Alan Cross that is written from an industry music professionals standpoint to explain this ‘hate phenomenon’ as Alan refers to it. He covers where it originally came from and explores all kinds of various aspects of this. Here is the link to the article if you would like to read further.
However what Alan doesn’t cover is what I think is the reason why Nickelback has experienced this ‘hate phenomenon’. It came to me as I watching what Chad Kroeger’s response backstage in the media room when he was asked, “How it feels to receive this award?” .
As reported by CBC News, (the link is below), Chad speaking on behalf of Nickelback had some choice words for the band’s haters: “We have been the whipping boys of the music industry for way too long. It’s nice to see things change … we’re four guys who make music, and we’ve been absolutely ripped through the mud. And worse for a good 15 years of our 27-year career. So what’s it like? It f–king sucks. What’s it like to win tonight? F–king redemption.” Here is the link to the clip if you want to watch it.
https://www.cbc.ca/music/the-most-memorable-moments-at-the-2023-junos-1.6772970
As I watched the emotion on his face and how Chad answered that question it became clear to me why they have suffered such cruelty. Which I will explain shortly.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like Nickelback. I am so proud of their accomplishments being that they are a small band that make it really big from a tiny little place in Alberta called Hanna. I love their music and I love their sound. But by saying that I love them publicly, my statement becomes fraught with all kinds of music lovers criticism from haters of Nickelback. If you tell anyone you like Nickelback you are then dubbed a person who has no musical taste or you don’t understand what good music is all about. I totally laugh it off when I am told this as I know how music affects me, it touches my soul. It has gotten me through every trial I ever faced in my life. Music is one of the most important things that I value in my life and adds meaning to my life. I used to say my ‘drug of choice’ is playing the piano. Music is the language of the soul. So for anyone to say this to me about my love of Nickelback, I just look at them and ignore their comments because I know in my core about my resolve and love for good music. I just mentally imagine putting up my hand and say in my head, “Talk to the hand.” Then mentally walk away from the conversation. In addition, it actually makes me think that what they are saying about me is actually what they are reflecting to me about themselves. There is no doubt that this band is highly talented, extremely successful and have sold over 50,000,000 million albums world wide. That alone is something they should be respected and celebrated for and I do.
But as I listened to Chad Kroeger speak, I understood in that moment why they have suffered the criticism and hatred over the last 15 years. During that interview instead of him being grateful and focusing on the amazing honour that they were given on Sunday night, he had so much anger, resentment and bitterness for the way he had been treated for the last 15 years of his 27 year career. He further goes on to say how difficult it has been for him and the band. Difficult? Really? It kinda makes you wonder if he actually understands what it means for life to be difficult? What it really means to go through difficult times? Then it hit me why he has been the target of this ‘hatred phenomenon’.
“Who you are speaks louder than anything anyone could say about you.”
It is Chad Kroeger’s personality that obviously is striking people the wrong way. His personality definitely rubbed me the wrong way. As I listened and watched him, I paid attention to the way it made me feel inside and I didn’t like it. I realized it is his personality that people are reacting to. It is his projection of ‘victimhood’ and ‘poor me’ attitude. At some point you have to ask yourself in life if the same thing is happening over and over for 15 years, “What are we doing that is causing people to react to our band the way they do?” I have to tell that in that moment watching him, I lost respect for him as a person. It was because of the way he handled the criticism and the hatred. He has bitterness and hatred for the haters.
Just in case you didn’t pay attention in school when they taught us how to deal with haters and bully’s. This behaviour can never be overcome with more bitterness and hate. Remember the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s how they continually destroyed each other and never got anywhere. It is a vicious cycle of never ending fear, retribution and tyranny. The lesson from that is don’t respond in kind with the same behaviour you are being presented with. One way to take all the power of the bully’s and the haters away is to turn it into a positive spin like Madonna did. Her famous words that I will paraphrase basically say “Talk about me good, talk about me bad, I don’t care, just keep talking about me.” She understood the power of people talking about her and how much money and success it can bring. There is no question it boosted her career to have people talking about her. Nickelback could have thanked the haters for their contribution to their success.
In Alan Cross’s article he also gives the band their due by saying how incredibly talented the band is and naturally gifted at their craft. He explains that music and success comes so naturally to this band. So when ‘we’ as the general public hear a man like Chad, who has had so much success that comes to him so naturally, speak about how difficult things have been because of people criticizing them and this ‘hate phenomenon’, it infuriates ‘us’ to hear a grown man behave like a ‘victim’ and have a ‘poor me’ attitude. If anything Chad could have been grateful to all the haters because no doubt this phenomenon has propelled their success to even greater heights. In my opinion, Nickelback has absolutely nothing to prove to anyone because they have already accomplished more is this world than many of those ‘haters’ could ever dream of accomplishing.
Proud and a feeling of, “Great job to us” could been Chad’s focus in that interview and a little shout out and thank you to the ‘lovers’ of their music because that is ultimately who I would think the band is most likely writing and singing to. Lovers of Nickelback’s music could be who Chad addressed and thanked for their 27 year support. He could have made a statement like, “We knew what you (the lovers) always did which is how much talent our band does have and our gift for being able to recognize good music and songs that appeal to so many people.” Nickelback definitely has a gift I truly and deeply respect them for that gift, but as for how Chad expressed how he felt about their gift for music, that I don’t have respect for.
Being famous comes with lots of wonderful things but it also causes you instantly and in such a big way see yourself and how others see you. Fame provides you with the most intense larger than life mirror for you to see your reflection of your projection to others. People in this world are just seeing your projection of how you really feel about yourself. When you look in that huge fame mirror you have to be able to know, love and embrace who is looking back at you. What you project needs to be in balance with who you are. Like it or not, that is one of the gifts or to some curses that fame brings. If you believe what others are saying about you, then they will see that projection in the fame mirror and the vicious cycle begins. Your projection fuels their fire to keep going and thus is the beginning of a ‘hate phenomenon’. This little phrase of “who you are speaks louder than anything anyone can say about you.” has critical value at a time like this.
Even though I am not famous I have been through bully’s/haters saying terrible things about me that I know are not true. From childhood to school to family to friends to acquaintances and business relationships, when this usually happens, at first, I will try to deal with what they think they are seeing in my projection that is inaccurate. But, if I get nowhere and they are stuck in what they think is the ‘their truth of my projection’, and they have decided to become part of my own personal ‘hater phenomenon’, I won’t defend or try to repair it because there is no point. I won’t defend their comments or continue any further with them and the reason being, in the defense of their comments, I would be giving life to their words. I know who I am and I know their words aren’t true. As I stated earlier, you can never deal with haters with more hate. The only way to get rid of the haters is through love and kindness. I always leave love in my heart for them and in doing so over the years, I have had beautiful relationships with bullys/haters that treated me terrible in school and now are really great friends of mine. Had I decided to replace love with bitterness, resentment and hate in my heart, there wouldn’t be these wonderful relationships and I wouldn’t have the beautiful life I do. I wake up everyday with joy and love in my heart excited to begin my day.
As hard as it is, you have to look into the mirror and see the reflection of who is looking back at you. If you are proud, happy and at peace with what you see, then ‘haters’ words will never be able to penetrate how you feel about yourself. They certainly wouldn’t have the power to change the projection of yourself. Before we become famous, I would bet that life gives us all little challenges for us to practice and to give us strength to be able to deal with the big ones that come as your life and success grows. If I ever do become famous, hopefully I will have had enough practice to be able to handle it so that no matter what others are saying it doesn’t affect how I feel about myself and I am able to continue to project to others what I know in my heart to be true.
Here is my message to Chad Kroeger. If you actually believed in your God given talent and your incredible band’s success, there isn’t anything those haters could say to take away your joy and how you feel about your life and how successful you are. If you stood in your power to declare who you are because every fiber of your being knows it, this award would have only been a declaration and affirmation for you and your band to experience what you already knew to be true. It could have shut-up your haters and put an end to this ‘haters phenomenon’ with your award bringing your career success full circle. The acknowledgement for what you and your band already knew to be true. Instead you threw your award back in your haters face to say, “F**k you,” which no doubt has fueled your haters fire to continue to carry on the ‘hate phenomenon’.
So the moral of this little story is… If you haven’t made the connection between the mirror and your projection. Take a good look at yourself in the mirror and if you like or love what you see, then stand tall in your power to know that, “Who you are speaks louder than anything you can say about yourself.” ? If you have haters in your life, know that they will eventually come to see who you are and stop the hurtful lies that they are spreading about you. Their words will eventually die out if there is no reaction, life or power in their words. Your power is your integrity between who you are and your projection of your reflection. Stand tall, look yourself in the eyes and be proud of who is looking back at you!
