It's no secret that the Nickelback dudes were close friends with Pantera's Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul. The two parties were fans of one another, and Darrell even contributed both songwriting and a posthumous guitar solo to Nickelback's 2005 track "Side Of A Bullet".
Now in a new interview with Tommy Carroll of 97.9 WGRD, Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger revealed that the brothers would often go to bat in defense of the band. Or in his own words, they'd tell people to go see Nickelback live and then hate on 'em.
"Vinnie Paul and Dimebag used to say all the time when the metal community would come down on those guys and be, like, 'What's with this love for Nickelback? I don't get it.' And they would defend us, and it was really, really lovely. They were, like, 'Go watch 'em play and then say they suck. Or then say something negative about them.' Because my favorite thing is when someone comes to the show, and they go, 'Honestly, I wouldn't call myself a fan, but I would definitely go see that show again.' I'm, like, 'I'll take that. I'll take that all day long. That's a hell of a compliment.'"
Kroeger also touched on Dimebag's tragic death in 2004. "That one hurt," he said. "I had a tough time — really tough time — with that one for such a long time. You'd see him on [the cover of] a guitar magazine or something like that, and I'd be standing there in a grocery store.
"And my girlfriend would go to pull me. She's, like, 'C'mon, let's go.' And she can't move me. And then she looks over and there's just tears streaming down my face. And I'm, like, 'Ugh.' And she's, like, 'Do you wanna go home?' And I'm, like, 'Yup. I wanna go home right now.'"
