Chad Kroeger and his Nickelback bandmates are used to being the punchline in jokes about terrible music, but the Alberta rockers have fans in Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and podcast host Joe Rogan.
On a recent episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” the comedian and UFC commentator got Corgan to talk about his career highs and lows and the pressures of living up to fans’ expectations.
Corgan said he was incapable of becoming a Vegas-style performer who performed hits night after night in a highly choreographed fashion, which prompted Rogan to respond: “That’s the Nickelback thing, right?”
Rogan began to defend the band — in a somewhat half-hearted way — by saying “Nickelback’s not that bad but they’re the … punchline of punchlines when it comes to bad music.”
“I like some of their music, I do,” Rogan added. ”I know some of it is like cliche subject matter and I don’t care. There’s a lot of great songs that have cliche subject matter.”
Corgan also came to the band’s defence and specifically singled out Kroeger as ”an incredible songwriter.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong (with Nickelback’s music) if that’s who you want to be. Pop to me is predicated on satisfying. Pop — I’ve said it many times — pop is porn,” Corgan said. ”We want to get you off. And it’s just how they’re going to get you off.”
Despite facing near-constant mockery, the band has been good humoured over the years about being ridiculed.
“I don’t think that all the haters and the critics know how many favours that they’ve done for us,” Kroeger said in a 2014 interview with The Canadian Press.
“Because otherwise we would just be this just-whatever band. And now we’re this controversial band. Everyone’s like ‘I hate them’ or ‘I love them’ — whatever it is, people are talking about us.”