Nickelback are no strangers to the heavy stuff and bassist Mike Kroeger managed to catch Meshuggah on their fall tour. He's now offered his reaction to seeing them live, blown away by not just the band but their mosh-happy fans as well.
The band's overwhelming success as a hard rock band often puts their music at odds with metal fans, but the band's members are quite fond of it all, even the more extreme underground permeated by the likes of Meshuggah, Sweden's pioneering polyrhythmic metal group often credited with being the founders of the djent subgenre that developed and was popularized decades after their career began.
Supporting their latest record, this year's Immutable, Meshuggah toured North America and Kroeger tells 106.6 Radio Rock he was originally eyeing a Los Angeles date before settling on New York City before getting to work to promote a new record of his own.
"I saw Meshuggah play at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City [in September 2022]," he recalls (transcription via Blabbermouth), "Before we came to Rome to do press for Nickelback's new album, Get Rollin'], we had a week vacation in New York. And I was really upset that I was gonna miss Meshuggah when they came to Los Angeles, but luckily I found out while we were in New York, they were playing in New York. So through some friends I got into the show."
The Nickelback bassist is quite familiar with the band, too, counting drummer Tomas Haake as a personal friend.
"I know Tomas, the drummer. I don't bother Tomas on show days; it's too much. Especially in Los Angeles, backstage is, like, 300 people. New York's probably just as bad. And I just said, 'Tomas, do a great show. I'll see you in another…' When we go to Stockholm is when we hang out, because he has time then," he says of their friendship.
Shifting his focus back on the concert experience, Kroeger exclaims, "But they absolutely ripped the roof off the Hammerstein Ballroom. I was in the balcony in the seats, and every head was… Everybody was moving in the seats. On the floor, they were, like, killing each other."
One rocker who did wind up at Meshuggah in Los Angeles was Mammoth WVH's Wolfgang Van Halen, who shared a video clip of the show on Twitter, writing, "Meshuggah is therapy."
https://twitter.com/WolfVanHalen/status/1579371563904020480
Lately, there's been a resurgence in chatter about a Nickelback covers album, where Mike Kroeger and guitarist Ryan Peake have floated names such as Testament, Slayer and Meshuggah as artists that may have interest in covering.
