State Champ Radio Billboard
Page: 226
Nick Cannon swears that he’s “good right now” with the amount of children he has — but he’s also unsure if he has any more on the way.
Speaking with Billboard News at the Billboard Live: R&B/Hip-Hop Power Players event, Cannon caught up with Tetris Kelly on the red carpet, who asked him about his musical endeavors and what he had in the works for the future. “I got a record with Chris Brown out now called ‘I Do,’” the multi-hyphenate explained. “It’s always working, more on the executive side, we got a lot of hot young artists coming up, so we’re excited about next year.”
And when asked about his brood — which currently consists of 11 kids and one on the way — the former talk show host said, “That’s my number one priority obviously. I wake up being a father thinking about my kids and everything else comes after that.”
Cannon also expressed his gratitude for his children being the driving force behind his many projects. “My kids are definitely the creative force in all that I do,” he gushed. “They’re the funniest, most innovative, best questions…every project I’m working on now is through their eyes.”
So are there more baby Cannons in the works? “I don’t know, man. I have no idea. I think I’m good right now!”
The Masked Singer host first became a father to twins with Mariah Carey in 2011, and most recently revealed in a November 2022 announcement that model Alyssa Scott was pregnant with his next baby. In the time since, Cannon has welcomed children with four other ladies: Brittany Bell, Abby De La Rosa, Bre Tiesi and LaNisha Cole. (Keep track of all of Cannon’s children here.)
Watch Billboard‘s interview with Nick Cannon in the video above.
The biggest and brightest stars and executives in the R&B and hip-hop world showed out at Billboard Live: R&B/Hip-Hop on Thursday night (Nov. 17) at Academy LA.
Billboard‘s deputy director, R&B/hip-hop Carl Lamarre and executive director, R&B/hip-hop Gail Mitchell started the evening’s festivities by thanking the R&B and hip-hop team, including reporters Neena Rouhani and Heran Mamo, and devoting a moment of silence to Takeoff, PnB Rock, Young Dolph, Pop Smoke, Nipsey Hussle and more rappers who have died in recent years.
Future, who currently stars on Billboard‘s cover, presented the Rookie of the Year award to Blxst, who recently came off a sold-out world tour and earned two 2023 Grammy nominations for album of the year with Kendrick Lamar’s Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers and best melodic rap performance with “Die Hard” by Lamar featuring himself and Amanda Reifer.
Fellow cover star SZA presented the Executive of the Year award to Tim Hinshaw, head of hip-hop & R&B at Amazon Music, who delivered a heartfelt speech that made sure there wasn’t a dry eye left in the room. And Vibe editor-in-chief Datwon Thomas presented the Rémy Martin x Vibe Impact and Excellence Award to SAINt JHN, which honors a musician who has made tremendous efforts in their community, as well as paving the way for the next generation of artists.
Opener Flo Milli performed songs from her 2020 debut mixtape Ho, Why Is You Here? and her 2022 album You Still Here, Ho? before City Girls took the stage and performed their hits such as “Jobs” and “P–sy Talk.”
The 2022 Latin Grammy Awards are finally here, taking over the Michelob Ultra Arena at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas on Thursday (Nov. 17).
The Latin Recording Academy announced this year’s nominees back in September, with Bad Bunny leading the way with 10 nods. Mexican songwriter and producer Edgar Barrera follows closely with nine nominations, while Rosalía and Rauw Alejandro both have eight. Christina Aguilera, Jorge Drexler and Tainy have seven nominations each.
As is the case every year, the 2022 Latin Grammys has a slew of star-studded performers ready to take the stage, including Aguilera, Camilo, John Legend, Elvis Costello, Karol G, Marc Anthony, Nicky Jam, Rosalía, Rauw Alejandro, Sebastian Yatra and many, many more.
The jam-packed event is hosted by Anitta, Luis Fonsi, Laura Pausini and Thalía, and Mexican icon Marco Antonio Solís was honored as Person of the Year at a gala on Wednesday (Nov. 16).
With so many A-listers joining the party, the red carpet was equally as fun, with Latin music’s biggest stars showing off their best looks. Check out our gallery of photos from the red carpet and the 2022 Latin Grammys below.
Barbra Streisand’s Live at the Bon Soir debuts in the top 10 on both Billboard’s Top Album Sales and Top Current Album Sales charts, and arrives as her 64th entry on the Billboard 200 — extending her record for the most total albums charted among women.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
The archival live set was recorded in 1962 and was originally intended to be Streisand’s debut album for Columbia Records. Instead, the project was shelved and her first release for her longtime label was the studio effort The Barbra Streisand Album in 1963. (It was also her first charting album on the Billboard 200, debuting at No. 17 on the Aug. 17, 1963-dated list, later peaking at No. 9.)
Live at the Bon Soir sold 7,500 copies in the U.S. in the week ending Nov. 10, according to Luminate, and bows at No. 8 on Top Album Sales and No. 7 on Top Current Album Sales.
Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart ranks the top-selling albums of the week based only on traditional album sales. The chart’s history dates back to May 25, 1991, the first week Billboard began tabulating charts with electronically monitored piece count information from SoundScan, now Luminate. Pure album sales were the sole measurement utilized by the Billboard 200 albums chart through the list dated Dec. 6, 2014, after which that chart switched to a methodology that blends album sales with track equivalent album units and streaming equivalent album units. For all chart news, follow @billboard and @billboardcharts on both Twitter and Instagram.
Of Live at the Bon Soir’s 7,500 sold, physical sales comprise 5,000 (all on CD) and digital album download sales comprise 2,500. The album will be released on SACD and vinyl LP at a later date.
On the Billboard 200, Live at the Bon Soir bows at No. 150, marking Streisand’s 64th entry on the chart. That extends her record for the most charting albums among women. It’s also her ninth live project to chart on the list, and she’s logged at least one charting live album in each decade from the 1960s through the 2020s.
Streisand’s live albums on the Billboard 200:Title, Peak Position, Peak DateA Happening in Central Park, 30, Dec. 14, 1968Live Concert at The Forum, 19, Jan. 6, 1973One Voice, 9, June 6, 1987The Concert, 10, Oct. 15, 1994The Concert Highlights, 81, June 10, 1995Timeless: Live in Concert, 21, Oct. 7, 2000Live in Concert 2006, 7, May 26, 2007The Music… The Mem’ries… The Magic! Live in Concert, 69, Dec. 30, 2017Live at the Bon Soir, 150, Nov. 19, 2022
At No. 1 on Top Album Sales, Taylor Swift’s Midnights holds tight for a third straight week, with 93,000 sold (down 19%). In its first three weeks, the album has sold 1.348 million copies in the U.S.
Joji debuts at a career-high No. 2 on Top Album Sales, as Smithereens bows with 17,500 sold. Of that sum, CD sales comprise 13,000, bolstered by its availability in a Target-exclusive variant with alternative cover art, along with an array of deluxe box sets sold through the artist’s official webstore.
The Beatles’ Revolver falls 2-3 on Top Album Sales with 15,000 sold (down 68%) while the Stranger Things: Season 4 soundtrack re-enters at a new peak of, fittingly, No. 4 with 14,000 sold (up 2,067%), following its arrival on vinyl. Of that sum, vinyl sales comprise 13,000, enabling its debut at No. 2 on the Vinyl Albums chart.
Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss – which launches atop the Billboard 200 – starts at No. 5 on Top Album Sales with 12,000 sold.
Home Free collects its highest charting effort on Top Album Sales, and third top 10, as So Long Dixie debuts at No. 6 with 8,000 sold.
Steve Lacy’s Gemini Rights bows at No. 7 with nearly 8,000 sold following its vinyl release. Nearly all of its sales for the week were driven by its vinyl LP (No. 3 debut on Vinyl Albums). Gemini Rights was released on streaming services and to purchase as a digital download album on July 15, but never sold enough to chart on Top Album Sales until its vinyl was released. It has yet to be issued on any other physical format other than vinyl.
Rounding out the top 10 on Top Album Sales is Berner’s From Seed to Sale (4-9 with 6,000; down 55%) and Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city (16-10 with 6,000; up 45% thanks to continued strong performance of its 10th anniversary reissue variants).
In the week ending Nov. 10, there were 1.749 million albums sold in the U.S. (up 8.1% compared to the previous week). Of that sum, physical albums (CDs, vinyl LPs, cassettes, etc.) comprised 1.363 million (up 10.2%) and digital albums comprised 386,000 (up 1.3%).
There were 631,000 CD albums sold in the week ending Nov. 10 (up 1.8 % week-over-week) and 720,000 vinyl albums sold (up 18.8%). Year-to-date CD album sales stand at 29.652 million (down 7.3% compared to the same time frame a year ago) and year-to-date vinyl album sales total 33.294 million (up 3.7%).
Overall year-to-date album sales total 80.993 million (down 6.7% compared to the same year-to-date time frame a year ago). Year-to-date physical album sales stand at 63.412 million (down 1.7%) and digital album sales total 17.581 million (down 21.1%).
Gryffin debuts at No. 3 on Billboard‘s Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart (dated Nov. 19) with Alive. The set starts with 5,000 equivalent album units earned in the Nov. 4-10 tracking week, according to Luminate.
It’s Gryffin’s second top 10 and fourth chart entry, following Gravity (No. 1, 2019), Gravity, Pt. 1 (Remixes) (No. 20, 2019) and EP Gravity, Pt. 1 (No. 12, 2018).
On the multi-metric Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, Gryffin (aka DJ/producer Dan Griffith) has amassed 33 total entries, including 10 from Alive. The new set has yielded Gryffin’s first Hot Dance/Electronic Songs top 10, “Woke Up in Love” (with Kygo and Calum Scott), which started at its No. 9 best in September and rebounds 28-18 this week.
New this frame from Alive is “Lose Your Love,” with Matt Maeson (912,000 U.S. streams). It’s the second straight week in which Gryffin has debuted a track at No. 20, after “Forever,” featuring Elley Duhe. “Lose” is singer Maeson’s second showing on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, following another DJ collab, “Heavenly Side,” with ILLENIUM (No. 12, July 2021).
Gryffin also scores on the Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, where his track with Olivia O’Brien, “Caught Up,” cruises 22-9. Gryffin’s fifth top 10 and O’Brien’s first, the team-up (which reached No. 12 on Hot Dance/Electronic Songs in May) is drawing core-dance airplay on Music Choice’s Dance/EDM channel, iHeartRadio’s Evolution network and iHeartRadio’s Pride Radio, among other supporters.
Not So ‘Bad’
Steve Lacy also lifts to his second Dance/Mix Show Airplay top 10 with “Bad Habit” (14-10). His “Live Without Your Love,” with Love Regenerator, hit No. 7 in 2020. (The chart measures radio airplay on a select group of full-time dance stations, along with plays during mix shows on around 70 top 40-formatted reporters.)
As previously reported, “Bad Habit” concurrently crowns the all-format Radio Songs chart, as well as Pop Airplay.
Time for Tiësto
Returning to Hot Dance/Electronic Songs, Tiësto bows at No. 8 with “10:35,” featuring Tate McRae. Tiësto’s eighth top 10 earned 3.5 million domestic streams in the tracking week. Tiësto has added three of his top 10s this year, as “10:35” follows “Hot in It,” with Charli XCX (No. 10, July), and “The Motto,” with Ava Max (No. 2, March).
“10:35” is McRae’s second top 10 on the tally, after “You,” with Regard and Troye Sivan, reigned for eight weeks in June-August 2021.
Concurrently, “10:35” starts on Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales (No. 6) and Dance/Electronic Streaming Songs (No. 8). The track is from Tiësto’s album Drive, due Feb. 24, 2023.
In its third-quarter earnings report Tuesday (Nov. 15), China’s leading music streaming company Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) said quarterly net profits soared 39% to RMB 1.09 billion ($154 million USD) from last year as the number of online music subscribers reached a record 85.3 million.
TME, which owns streaming platforms QQ Music, Kugou and Kuwo, plus karaoke app WeSing, reported that music subscriptions rose 18.3% to RMB 2.25 billion (USD $316 million) for the third quarter ending Sept. 30 compared to the same period in 2021. The number of subscribers rose by nearly 20%, up from 71.2 million in the third quarter 2021.
“As we are employing a balanced approach to grow paying users…revenues from online music services increased at a healthy pace in the third quarter, driven by year-over-year gains in subscriptions,” Cussion Pang, TME’s executive chairman, said in a statement. “Meanwhile, effective cost optimization measures and improved operating efficiency led to increased profitability amid challenging macro conditions this quarter.”
Overall, online music services revenues rose by 18.8% to RMB 3.43 billion (USD $482 million), but that wasn’t enough to offset a 20% decline in revenues from social entertainment and services, the company’s other main business unit. TME’s total revenues fell by 5.6% to RMB 7.37 billion (USD $1.04 billion).
Media companies have reported widespread declines in mobile revenues for the third quarter, as increased prices for many and the worsening economic outlook globally has caused consumers to rethink everyday expenses. TME was not spared from the trend. The number of monthly active mobile music users fell by 7.7% to 587 million in the quarter, compared to 636 million in the third quarter last year — a decline the company attributed to casual listeners dropping off the platform.
Monthly average revenue per paying user of TME’s online music edged 1% lower, to RMB 8.8 million (USD $1.24 million) compared to RMB 8.9 million (USD $1.25 million) during the year-ago period.
The company bought back $800 million of its own stock in the third quarter, part of a $1-billion stock buyback program it announced last spring.
In September, TME launched a secondary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange; it was already publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in the United States. Its move to issue secondary shares in Hong Kong followed similar moves by other big Chinese companies seeking to safeguard themselves against potential ramifications of the geopolitical tensions between China and the U.S.
On Jan. 14, songwriter Emily Weisband posted a TikTok video of a new song and asked her followers to play publisher and suggest who should record it. The responses brought a string of worthy targets: Maren Morris, Kelsea Ballerini, Camila Cabello, Lauren Daigle, Demi Lovato and Danielle Bradbery, among others.
Additionally, Tenille Arts offered her own ideas about whom Weisband should have sing it: “Ummm, you. Or me. Lol”
Weisband didn’t know it at the time, but Arts — despite the “Lol” — was very serious about “Jealous of Myself.” “That melody was stuck in my head the minute that I heard it,” Arts says. “I kept going back and watching that TikTok over and over again.”
“Jealous of Myself ” became her newest single when Dreamcatcher Artists released it to country radio via PlayMPE on Oct. 14, exactly nine months after Arts first heard the TikTok.
The song’s actual birth came a day prior to its TikTok debut, when Weisband and Old Dominion’s Trevor Rosen met Big Loud writer John Byron in an upstairs writing room at his publisher’s offices. Byron went into the appointment with an agenda. He had previously lost an eight-year relationship, and he had also recently discovered that his ex had started seeing a man from Colorado who was now moving to Nashville to be near her. Byron was bummed, and his disappointment led to that “Jealous of Myself” title.
“I was very jealous of him,” concedes Byron, “but I was definitely more jealous of me when I did have her. So when I thought of the title, I wrote it down.”
He also held it for that Jan. 13 appointment with Weisband, believing she could provide a woman’s perspective for the idea’s inherent vulnerability. It got a positive response when he introduced it, and while they continued winding through other potential titles, they kept coming back to “Jealous.”
Initially, Byron and Rosen mapped out a musical direction on guitar. “We were trying to just start somewhere with some chords,” Rosen recalls. “But then at one point, Emily walked over — he had a piano sitting there — and she just sat down and started playing. It’s incredible how when she just starts singing whatever comes off the top of her head, we’re like, ‘Oh, my God. That’s it.’ It was magical.”
At some point, they came up with the full hook, “I’m jealous of myself when I had you,” and they determined to make it a mystery for the first-time listener by creating a storyline that would sound initially as if the new girlfriend was the target of the jealousy.
Rosen landed on the opening line, “She’s a little bit younger,” which established a path for the story. “That is such a good misdirection,” says Rosen. “It sounds like it’s a younger girl, but it’s the picture of ‘me’ when I was younger. So everything else sort of started to fall in around that.”
The mystery, and the jealousy, fits in a surprisingly melancholy musical package — surprising, since the bulk of Weisband’s chord progression is major chords, but the flow feels more moody, like a minor key.
“I tend to play different voicings of major chords, so sometimes they’ll sound a little more like longing than just the basic major chord,” she says. “There’ll be like one little note off in the chord that kind of makes it feel a little more dissonant because [I think] the full range of human experience is like this bittersweet, tension thing.”
The melody followed in bittersweet suit. In the pre-chorus, it hangs on the seventh note of the key, one that begs for resolution. But it simultaneously falls in the middle of the chord, literally creating heartbreaking dissonance with two of the three notes in the triad.
Byron played piano for a piano-vocal demo at the end of the session, with Weisband delivering a smoky vocal on the floor, hunched over a microphone she clutched with both hands.
“When Emily sings, she does whatever she needs to get into the real emotion,” says Byron. “She gets down on her knees and starts wearing into this song, and it’s just breaking my heart because the title is already near and dear to me. And so she’s ripping my heart out.”
They determined that it needed an extra diversion after the second chorus, so Weisband added a soaring vocal section on the fly. When it was completed, Weisband was anxious to have people hear “Jealous.”
“Writing songs, to me, has been my healer throughout my life, and that’s why I do it,” she says. “If it’s my healer to write it, then it’s going to heal somebody else who listens to it, you know? I kind of feel that way about every sad song I get to be a part of writing; it’s absolutely a part of the healing.”
Once Arts heard it on TikTok the next day, her team reached out to the writers, and a few weeks later, she enlisted producer Nathan Chapman (Taylor Swift, Keith Urban), who had produced three tracks on her 2021 album, Girl to Girl.
“One of my favorite things that he said to me last time we were working together was to sing the verses like you were telling a story and then to sing the choruses like you’re a singer,” she recalls. “The amount of emotion that he was able to get out of my vocals in the past, I just knew that he was going to be able to pull that out of me.”
OneRepublic’s Ryan Tedder had recently mentioned to Chapman that ’80s pop sounds were beginning to feel in vogue again, and when Arts mentioned that she thought “Jealous” needed an ’80s sort of sound, Chapman thought it was an astute read. He had keyboard player Dave Cohen apply an era-appropriate electric piano, and he gave it a slow build.
“A lot of songs in the ’80s kind of bloom like that, and it’s because people’s attention spans were a lot longer,” reasons Chapman. “I thought, ‘If we’re going to be in that world, let’s really unfold the track the way those songs are treated. Let’s not only hit the piano tones and drum sounds, but let’s hit the architecture of how those records are made as well.’ ”
He also chose to record it like a pop song, building it one track at a time with drummer Aaron Sterling, who also programmed a bass part; Cohen; and guitarist Kevin Kadish. Chapman, Arts and Sara Haze added backing vocals, which grew in prominence as the song progressed. And late in the process, Arts and Dreamcatcher founder Jim Mazza visited Chapman’s studio, convincing him at that point to add atmospheric steel guitar to lend a little more country and a little more pain.
“This is one of those songs where it’s like, ‘All right, producer, don’t screw it up,’ ” Chapman says. “ ‘You got a great song. You had a great direction for the artists, and you got a great vocalist who’s going to crush the vocal — don’t screw it up.’ And in this one situation, I don’t think I did.”
Arts debuted “Jealous of Myself” during a CMA Fest performance in June, and fans asked afterward where they could purchase it. It has since become a featured song in the set, and she’s optimistic that it could become a standout on the airwaves, too, once it gets exposed there.
“It’s a true country song to me,” she says. “It’s a story song, it says something new that really hasn’t been out there, and I think Nathan’s production is so different and unique. And that’s been the response that we’ve had from country radio, that it doesn’t sound like anything else out there right now. I hope that’s a good thing and that we can have another No. 1.”
It’s been over five years since Nickelback released a new album, but one of Canada’s biggest rock exports has finally returned with Get Rollin’ — and its ’70s-styled album cover with a beach-bound van and spray-painted title certainly belies the classic-rock touches within the grooves.
Explore
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Whereas the quartet’s last album, 2017’s Feed the Machine, embraced a heavier musical direction, the new album (out Friday, Nov. 18) contrasts bombast with many moments of contemplation and introspection. Working once again with producer Chris Baseford, Nickelback brings its trademark swagger to tracks like “San Quentin” and “Vegas Bomb,” while “Steel Still Rusts” and “Tidal Wave” take more melodic and even haunting turns.
“San Quentin” hit No. 9 on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart (dated Nov. 5), where the band has had eight No. 1 hits and 20 total in the top 10. Seven of its 10 albums have reached the top 10 of Billboard 200 albums, including the diamond-certified All the Right Reasons peaking at No. 1 in 2005. According to Luminate, in the United States alone, Nickelback has earned a combined 31.6 million equivalent album units, and its catalog has tallied a combined 4.89 billion on-demand official streams.
Brothers Chad and Mike Kroeger (frontman-guitarist and bassist, respectively) sat down with Billboard to discuss Get Rollin’, their maturation through the years, unexpected cover songs and a forthcoming band documentary. Chad also has recently been correcting the perpetual mispronunciation of the siblings’ last name — it actually sounds like “Kruger.” (A different gaffe regarding the band generated some lighthearted headlines earlier this year.)
Some songs here indicate a bit of heartache, like “Tidal Wave” and “Standing in the Dark,” and then “Steel Still Rusts” and “Horizon” give the vibe of searching for something and feeling displaced. Are these related to people whom you know?
Chad Kroeger “Horizon,” to me, just feels like unrequited love. When you’ve got those feelings for someone, but you’re not sure if the other person is willing to leap at the same time because you’re such good friends – that’s where that one comes from. I’ve definitely been stuck in the friend zone and wanted more out of a relationship, and realized that the other person wanted to stay friends … It’s really tough to stay friends after you’ve put your feelings out there. There’s this [feeling of] “I just really kind of want to crawl under a rock right now and hide.” (Laughs.) It’s something I think a lot of people have gone through, and it made for great subject matter on this record.
Was “Steel Still Rusts” inspired by a specific person that you know?
Chad Yeah, 100%. Our first bodyguard. Him telling us these stories about being in conflict overseas and missing the birth of his children and all of these different things. Some really, really unpleasant things that would keep you up at night. Then, coming back, he remembers standing on the corner — I think he was in San Diego — and he looked down and still had sand from the desert on his boots. He was still wearing his fatigues. He said just looking over to Starbucks and then looking down at what you just brought back from a war zone that’s still on your feet is a little bizarre.
It was the stories that he would tell me … and [him not getting] the best treatment when he got home. And I’m not talking about Vietnam, but just trying to get help from [Veterans Affairs]. Just a ton of nightmarish stuff … It was eye-opening and jaw-dropping at the same time.
Mike Kroeger You did a really, really good job with that song, Chad. The lyrics and the way you wrote that — it still gets me every time I listen to it, really. Honestly, it’s a real gut punch for me because I know the guy, I know that story, and you put it so well.
Chad Thank you.
The band wrote a lot more party-hearty and decadent songs back in the day, and that has diminished over time. In the setlist now are fewer songs concerned with sex, and more songs like these new tracks we’re discussing. Was this a conscious choice?
Chad When you’re in your twenties and you’re standing onstage, singing some of the stuff that, I think, is hilarious — I mean, we got to start a song with, “I like your pants around your feet.” I think that’s absolutely hilarious, and they played it on the radio. We have a song where the hook line is, “You look so much cuter with something in your mouth.” And they played that on the radio. That’s “Weird Al” [Yankovic] to me. I think it’s the funniest thing, and the fact that you can listen to that and think that we take ourselves seriously is in itself laughable.
But yeah, you get to a certain age where … I’m 47 years old, and there’s certain things that you just don’t want to see a 47-year-old dude sing onstage. So the subject matter has definitely changed. There’s moments where I look over at [guitarist] Ryan [Peake] when he has to harmonize with certain lines. He’s got a daughter, and I just watch him squirm. He gets so squeamish when he has to sing some of this stuff, and I just think it’s so funny.
You did a shredding cover of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” in 2020 with guitarist Dave Martone, and last year, you collaborated on a sea shanty rendition of “Rockstar,” complete with a sailor-inspired TikTok clip. Who was doing what drugs when you came up with these ideas?
Mike (Laughs.)
Chad The shanty thing came through our band assistant, Brad, and he found these guys called The Lottery Winners on TikTok. I think it was just the guitar player initially. … Brad’s like, “Dude, we have to reach out to this guy and just say, ‘Would you be interested in doing this with all of us?’ And really lean into this and have some fun with it.”
I wasn’t going to go to the level I went to until I saw Ryan standing in profile, looking out at the ocean on the rocks [for the TikTok video]. That’s literally 40 steps from his living room because he was living right on the water in West [Vancouver]. He just went out there and he put on a knit cap, and he’s just looking very sailor. He started singing this thing. He’s all serious. I got his footage first, and I was like, “I have to pull the boat around.” I went down by the barn I’ve got back there, and I pulled this boat up into my front yard. Brad got a lighting package and he lit me up, and he’s on the back of the truck. I got this sailor’s hat and put on this jacket, and then we were just so committed to this thing. It’s like, “Don’t half-ass it, just go all the way and be silly with it and have fun.” It was just so lighthearted. I love that stuff.
Mike “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” we had sitting around as an idea for a while that didn’t get fully finished and was just waiting in the wings. When we decided to go for it, before we moved forward with it, we reached out to Charlie Daniels himself to send him the rough idea to hear it and get his approval. And he actually did approve of it. He heard it and said he liked it. He was alive when we did it, and he passed [in 2020] before we released it, so he didn’t get to hear the final version of it, unfortunately.
Mike, your family moved from Hawaii to Los Angeles before the pandemic. Your son wants to make music. What was it like to make that transition?
Mike At first, I was kind of curious how it was going to go. Because when we lived in Canada, we lived in the country, way out in a place not unlike Chad’s place. It was not a short drive to everything. You’re apart from everything. Then when we moved to Hawaii, we lived in out-of-the-way country places, too. So, moving to the Hollywood Hills, I was bracing for some kind of culture shock because it is Hollywood. It’s still weird to say that I live here.
Yesterday when I walked my dog, I saw a deer from my house, so it’s not exactly the concrete jungle. We got coyotes, we got deer, we got owls. We got all that stuff here. I think it’s awesome. We’re in this little pocket of nature that’s really nice, and we can just shut the door and hide out here, and if we want to see what the big, scary world looks like, we go out there.
The band has been working on a documentary for a few years. How is it going to differ from what we’ve seen from you in interviews and onstage? What types of revelations can we expect?
Chad We go back to our hometown, and you can see the house that Mike and I grew up in.
Mike The house that we didn’t grow up in. (Laughs.)
Chad Yeah, that I was rarely at. I think I left when I was 14 and moved out for a while. But we go back to our hometown [of Hanna], and then we play a gig there, and we filmed it. But it’s with our old singer, Scott [Holman], and then we got up and played like three songs. It wasn’t really supposed to be about us playing Nickelback songs. It was about us being back in the old iteration of the band in the early ’90s. We just had a camera crew follow us for about four and a half years and film all kinds of stuff. I think they did a really good job.
Mike There’s some really cool moments of frankness in there that you’re not going to get in this interview. (Group laughter.) I’m sorry.
After being in this band and living this life since 1995, is there any major life lesson you can impart to fans? Any motto you have?
Mike If I can be indulged to speak on behalf of Nickelback here, I think the motto is that the experience that we’ve had, our best move was just to never stop. The thing we did that I think has brought us to this point is that we just didn’t quit on ourselves, and I think that’s something that a lot of people do. They give up on themselves and quit on themselves. I don’t know if our fans just started to like our music or if they just gave up because we just kept pounding until they were going to like it.
Chad You’re going to like us, goddamn it! Whether you like it or not, you’re going to like us!
Mike One thing they call it in Canada is stick-to-itiveness — just keep staying on the path, keeping your eyes down range, and don’t stop moving forward.
