The first time I crossed paths with Canadian rockers Nickelback, they were traveling in a dilapidated tour bus, (in)complete with leaky windows, a door that was held shut courtesy of a well-worn bungee cord and a duct-tape-sealed toilet. On the wall above the toilet was a sign that implored any who would think to use it to “wait until the next stop.”

All aboard this wreck of a ride were sick, tired and near spoiling from the experience, but willing to endure these and other discomforts until the release of their debut CD and the reward of fame and riches each so earnestly believed would follow.

Though a familiar story to thousands of like-minded hopefuls, these trials were, for Nickelback, simply the paying of their dues. When the rewards for the stitching of talent and tenacity started flowing in, it was a virtual tidal wave of gold and platinum. Fame, fortune, adoration and the realization of a scene beyond dreams were most satisfying to the group — and it was only the beginning. That was in 1999.

In the intervening years, Nickelback has issued a string of top-selling albums, each laden with enough number ones to create an instant ‘Greatest Hits’ collection. In 2002 alone, the band’s Silver Side Up contained a half-dozen chart toppers including “How You Remind Me,” which was the most played new song on radio in America that year. Nickelback became movie soundtrack favorites and frequent choice for collaboration across the musical spectrum. In fact, band members were kept so busy that singer/guitarist/propulsive force Chad Kroeger quite literally forgot what his hometown of Vancouver, Canada, looked like and — if only for a moment — why it was he had gotten into rock and roll to begin with.

In a bid to collect his thoughts and reaffirm his convictions after five years on the road, Kroeger scheduled a break from work and went back home. He is not shy of telling anyone who would ask, “I needed to know if I was doing this rock star thing for all the right reasons.”

The ‘time off’ lasted all of two weeks before the core of the band was back in the studio and, as Kroeger remembers it, “Once we got in there and started to mess around, we just didn’t stop.” The result of this introspection — and seven months of intense studio sessions — is beautifully encapsulated in Nickelback’s latest CD All the Right Reasons.

Courtesy Julie Wilson

Nickelback used Kroeger’s home studio, so they were not in a rush to finish and they spent countless hours making sure every song on their fourth album was exactly the way they wanted it. The resulting 11 tracks are the most insistent, dynamic and diverse Nickelback has conjured to date.

As expected, the new CD comes with hits aplenty. “Photograph,” the most popular single so far, has sold an astonishing 2 million copies alone and has helped the full CD surpass the 4 million sales mark at press time. The disc is easily one of the most successful releases of 2005. Despite having only hit stores in October, it is number seven on Billboard’s album charts and is climbing once again due to the popularity of deeper album tracks.

“Photograph” is another intensely personal song in a string of similar work for Kroeger. This time the musical snapshot is of his teenage triumphs, more specifically, a first kiss. Says Kroeger, “I think I just wanted to take a trip down memory lane, and I wanted to see if I had enough ideas that would make other people take that trip, too. It’s so funny throughout the course of a day how many times you look back and think, ‘I wonder whatever happened to that one girl or I wonder if the house I grew up in is still standing.’ And after people started listening to it, I was amazed how many of them thought the same thing.”

The real triumph of All the Right Reasons comes not in the raw sales figures or in the marvelous realization that Nickelback has lived a longer life than most of their pop music counterparts while remaining productive. Instead, the disc succeeds because of the deeply held and eminently displayed conviction to truth in which it was created. Sure, there is a hard pop center, but this collection is a unique and far too rare capsule of an artist’s soul that no pop music machine could have produced.

It is an honest album and Kroeger’s proudest moment.

Courtesy Julie Wilson

“I guess that is really the bottom line, I did this record for ‘all the right reasons’ which has not always been the case,” he confesses. “Not that I am ashamed of anything that I have done, it’s just that this one began and ended with us seeing ourselves as ourselves and not as others may like to see us. It is the most honest thing I have ever done in my life.”

The music-buying public obviously agrees as it continues to snap up copies of the CD, download all that there is to download and give every venue that Nickelback play a workout by overflowing its capacity. It is a long way from unknown status and begging for a supporting slot on any tour that would present itself. In fact, as these words are being written, the group is preparing to perform for an estimated 100 million viewers as the headlining act at the Super Bowl XL pre-show in Detroit, Michigan, on February 5.

Toward the end of a recent conversation with Kroeger, we reminisced about those early days and the cold bus with the leaky windows, and I wondered out loud what ever became of a gerbil that was loosed by a fan on that bus during my first visit.

Kroeger laughed and said, “We never did find that thing. I guess some things can never be found no matter how hard or for how long you search for them. He’s probably in a better place now. Everyone else on that bus certainly is.”  et