It's not at all a secret that Nickelback and Pantera were good friends. Nickelback even paid tribute to the late and great Pantera guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott with their 2005 song "Side of a Bullet", which featured an unused solo from Dimebag himself.
In a recent interview with Australian Guitar, Nickelback bassist Mike Kroeger discussed the solo and even said Pantera were fans of the band throughout their career.
"We'd known the Pantera guys since a really early time in our career," said Kroeger. "They were fans of ours from the beginning, and we would always see them out on the road or whenever we would go through Dallas; they would come out and ply us with alcohol. It was always fun to be around those guys. They were our brothers. And then when Dime was murdered, we wanted to pay tribute to him. We were able to get some of his unused solos and a few other bits of his playing that we would actually lay into the track… It was a really special thing for us.
"The guy was a legend, as well as his brother — that whole band was, y'know? They didn't give a fuck. I mean, if you know anything about Pantera, you know they didn't give a fuck. They were just doing what they did. A lot of people didn't like the fact that they were friends with us, or fans of our music — but the metal world can be a little intense to its own, y'know? So it was just really cool that they didn't care about that, and they just wanted to be friends with us because they liked what we did."
Kroeger later on added that Pantera were just big fans of music in general. He then cited the one time he and Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul were in a limo listening to Christina Aguilera, and how Paul pretty much lost his damn mind.
"I remember the first time I met those guys, we were in a limo somewhere in Dallas, a little bit drunk and listening to Christina Aguilera. And I remember Vinnie just going crazy, saying how he thought it was the best shit ever. I was just sitting there going, 'What am I witnessing right now!?' They were really just fans of music — they didn't really let genres or personalities get in the way of what they liked. They just liked what they liked, and they appreciated what they appreciated. And like you say, that's so fucking metal."
