As Nickelback prepare to unleash their new album Everything Under the Sun, bassist Mike Kroeger tells Erazer Magazine about embracing creative freedom, chasing the adrenaline of live performance, and why Pink Floyd’s The Wall would be his one rock album for life.
After more than three decades together, Nickelback have little left to prove. With arena-sized anthems, multi-platinum records and some of the most recognisable rock songs of a generation under their belts, the Canadian rockers could be forgiven for taking the well-trodden route when it comes to making new music. Instead, their upcoming album, Everything Under the Sun, has been an opportunity to slow things down.
“We just got to have fun,” bassist Mike Kroeger tells Erazer. “When it started to become any type of pressure, we would just take a break, take it easy, and just enjoy the process, because this is a really fun thing.”
Speaking ahead of an exclusive World Cup of Rock event in London, Kroeger reflects on the band’s latest chapter, their enduring relationship with their fans and the excitement of returning to the road when the new record arrives on the 30th October 2026.
The evening itself saw the bassist guide an audience through a knockout-style tournament of rock’s biggest names, with 16 bands battling it out for the crowd’s ultimate vote. Oasis, The Beatles, Slayer and Nirvana were among the contenders, before AC/DC and Black Sabbath faced off in a closely fought final, with the latter ultimately taking the crown. It was a fitting celebration of the music that has shaped generations, and a reminder of the scene Nickelback have occupied for more than 30 years.
For Everything Under the Sun, however, the focus was less on expectations and more on enjoying the ride.
“There’s not really any jobs out there like this where you get to say that you play for a living, and we play,” Kroeger explains. “That’s the way it should be, and playing should be fun. We had a lot of fun on this record.”
That freedom extended beyond the recording process itself. Without the same pressure to meet deadlines or deliver material to a particular schedule, the band could follow their instincts rather than force the creative process. “We didn’t really owe anyone anything time-wise or content-wise, and we didn’t have to do anything we didn’t want to do.”
It’s an approach that appears to have left room for both the familiar and the unexpected. While Kroeger describes much of the record as “pretty kinda standard Nickelback fare”, listeners can expect the mixture of hard rock, melodic ballads, love songs and mid-tempo grooves that has long defined the band’s sound. There is, however, an unexpected twist waiting at the end.
“There’s a song on here that’s borderline sugar pop, the last song on the record called ‘Last Night Was Fun’. That’s really different for us. I don’t think we’ve ever done anything quite like that.”
For Kroeger, that contrast is an essential part of the Nickelback identity: “If you listen to each record, you hear that they all have a breadth to them between hard rock songs and the lighter, more melodic stuff.”
Elsewhere, Everything Under the Sun sees the band revisit material that has been waiting patiently for its moment. One of the heaviest tracks on the record, ‘Rattle the Cage‘, spent years sitting on a hard drive before finally finding its place on the album. Despite having considered the song for previous records, including Feed the Machine and Get Rollin’, the timing never felt right.
“I don’t know, man, I wish I could explain that to you, because if I knew that, then maybe it would’ve made the last two records,” he laughs. “It just didn’t turn into a song. It didn’t seem ready to be born yet.”
When it finally came together, the result exceeded even Kroeger’s expectations: “I think ‘Rattle the Cage’ turned out better and heavier than I thought it would, and I was really happy for that. I like heavy songs myself; I’m all about the heavy music, so that one turned out a little more aggressive than I expected, and I like that.”
The track also features a guest guitar solo from John 5, whose distinctive playing adds another dimension to the band’s sound. Rather than simply relying on Chad Kroeger’s own guitar skills, Nickelback wanted someone with a recognisable style to make the part their own.
“We’ve had lots of guest players over the years, really, really great guest guitar players, who all have a distinctive kinda sound,” Kroeger says, referencing previous collaborations with the likes of Nuno Bettencourt and Ian Thornley. “We wanted to find somebody else who has a unique sound, and John 5 was definitely one of those.”
With the album’s release fast approaching, attention will soon turn from the studio to the stage. Nickelback have announced an extensive world tour for next year, beginning in Pittsburgh in February before taking in North America, the UK and Europe, and Australia. The run will give fans across the globe the opportunity to hear the new material alongside the hits that have soundtracked their lives. For Kroeger, there is little that compares to the feeling of performing live, even after decades of playing some of the world’s biggest venues.
“The thing that you get from playing live, it’s an impossible thing to explain, man. I wish I could tell you what it feels like, because I can’t,” he says. “It’s like a hit of brain drugs that the only way you can get it is by playing live. There’s no other feeling like it.”
That rush comes from the combination of pressure, unpredictability, and the energy pouring back from the crowd: “There’s a rush of pressure to perform and a rush of brain drugs when you’re kinda flirting with that danger of screwing up all the time, and at the same time you’re getting so much energy from the audience. They feed us up there.”
It is an adrenaline rush that can apparently override even the most significant physical discomfort. Recalling Nickelback’s performance at Rock in Rio in 2020, Kroeger describes how severe neck pain left him struggling to move before the band took to the stage. A massage therapist working on him beforehand was so concerned that she asked whether he had recently been involved in a car accident.
“I said I’d actually been in a car accident for 30 years playing this rock music, and maybe that has something to do with it,” he jokingly recalled.
Despite barely being able to move his neck beforehand, Kroeger went on to perform in front of approximately 150,000 people, without feeling the pain.
“The next morning, I couldn’t move my head anymore, but during the show it was all systems go and no pain.”
It’s a remarkable illustration of the intensity that comes with performing live, although the bassist is equally quick to recognise that the experience would mean little without the people standing in front of him: “Playing arenas, there’s nothing to it if there are no people there,” he says. “They’re the ones who give us the energy to put on the show we put on, and we couldn’t do it without them.”
That relationship has helped turn songs such as How You Remind Me, Rockstar and Photograph into something much bigger than individual singles. They have become generational anthems, with choruses that continue to be sung back at the band night after night. Asked whether there is one hit that still surprises him with the scale of its success, Kroeger is reluctant to single anything out.
“I like to believe that all the songs had a shot, and I think there’s some that didn’t get recognised. You have to feel good about them all, and the thing you can’t control is what becomes a hit. That’s truly up to the people; they decide.”
As Nickelback prepare to take their latest material around the world, there is also a new collaboration connecting them with one of the UK’s most distinctive modern rock bands. Don Broco, who have recently worked with Chad and Ryan from Nickelback on a song, will join the band as support on the upcoming tour. For Kroeger, the collaboration has opened the door to a band he has quickly grown to admire.
“I’m a really big fan of this band from the UK called Don Broco. Really like them, a lot!”
He admits that he was unfamiliar with the Bedfordshire group before the collaboration was suggested by management, but the resulting track encouraged him to explore their back catalogue: “When our management suggested they would like to do a collaboration with us, I had never heard the name before, and now that the boys did that and it turned out so well, I’ve done a deep dive on the rest of their catalogue.”
His verdict? “Yeah, man, they’re good!” It’s an exciting prospect for fans of both bands, bringing together two acts with very different approaches to modern rock and allowing Don Broco to introduce their music to Nickelback’s global audience.
Of course, with a career spanning more than 30 years, Kroeger has encountered no shortage of music along the way. But when asked which rock album he would choose if he could listen to only one record for the rest of his life, his answer is a classic.
“It would probably be The Wall by Pink Floyd.”
He admits it might not necessarily be the most practical choice, given how intimately he knows the record already: “I know every note, every drumstroke, every bit of it. I could recite all of it, but I think it’s one of the most complete works of rock music in history. Inventing a genre as they went along, and doing just a fantastically great job.”
It’s an answer that reflects the appreciation of a musician who has spent decades immersed in rock music, from its most ambitious concept albums to the riff-driven anthems that fill stadiums.
As for Nickelback, the next chapter is already taking shape. With Everything Under the Sun arriving on the 30th of October, and a global tour on the horizon next year, the band is preparing to reconnect with their audience on an even bigger scale. And if Mike Kroeger’s enthusiasm is anything to go by, the prospect of getting back on stage is every bit as exciting for the band as it is for the fans waiting in the crowd.
