Music Ruined My Life - Chad Kroeger Is My Dude

Now normally this column is on some "I used to think of you this way and this is what I think of you now" type-ish but this week we're going to switch it up a bit and talk about none other than everyone's favorite band, Nickelback! There is no internal struggle, no love-hate relationship, or any type of relationship shit going on here. It doesn't even have a fucking thing to do with music, at all.

As a matter of fact, instead of trashing the band throughout this column like a real asshole should, I'm just going to get it out of the way now. I think Nickelback sucks as much as the next discerning payer-of-attention to music who looks for more than whatever incredibly successful shit they churn out, but hey, I can't hate on fools for getting paid now yo. I ain't no hater, kid. I've heard their songs before, I'm sure of it, but never actively paid attention to them because whatever it was didn't hold my interest. Nothing against them at all in fact.

Somewhere between 2004-06 I was working for a big corporation and hating it like I should have, and had to go to Atlanta for five damn days for a conference and what was sure to be really fucking informative and useful training shit. I had my choice of a few flights, so I took the latest one, just to delay it for as long as I could. I had a new girlfriend at the time and I didn't want to be in Atlanta sharing a god damn hotel room with some strange dude. Number one, when and where are you going to rub one out in that situation, for five days?!? EXACTLY...

So, I land in ATL at like 11, limo gets me to what was actually a really nice 3.5/4 star hotel at 11:30. On my way into the lobby it hit me: I'm about to walk into a dark hotel room with another guy already in there, probably sleeping, put my shit away really quick, and somehow get over the awkwardness of the situation so I can fall asleep to get up for this bullshit at 6 a.m. I headed toward the bar that was luckily still open, ordered two shots of Jameson, a Budweiser, and took a seat. The only other person there, this pretty boy cat, boldly says to the bartender: "You know where I can get a bag? Like a bag of weed?" The bartender almost shouted an immediate "NO" and I couldn't help but to bust out laughing. "Nick" (for future reference) immediately asked who I worked for. "FUUUUUUCK" was his reaction to my answer, but I reassured him that we were in the same boat and we might as well combine our efforts to find a bag of weed and something to do for the next five days. As it turned out, Nick's gay uncle lived in town and was obviously a pot smoker (cus all gay dudes are weed heads) so he could easily hook us up... when he came back to town in two days.

Two days go by, I wind up with my own room somehow after the first weird night, and me, Nick and a few other of the younger people there were getting shitfaced in my room and having a good time. Nick's gay uncle gets home and takes us out to dinner at a famous local spot, we have a few drinks at a local bar, then he lays it on us... he can't get us anything for the whole week. Being already drunk, Nick and I devise a plan to approach cute girls who "look like" they might be friendly smokers. We struck out several times, but man, those southern belles are polite as Fuck when you, a total stranger, ask them to procure illegal drugs for them.

After a long night, we get dropped off at the hotel at around 1 or 2 a.m. Both completely tore down and bound to be absolute fucking wrecks all day tomorrow. I spot two heavily tattooed cats outside smoking, one wearing an Atmosphere shirt and strike up a conversation about music, going in for the kill. After maybe three minutes, I ask the question, and dude pulls out his Blackberry and says "let me check". Kinda weird, right?

We keep talking for a minute and his phone goes off and he tells us that he can't get us any, but would gladly smoke us out. Why not? So dude starts walking behind the hotel where there are no cars parked except an all black semi and two matching tour buses. I ask the tattooed guy what was up and he told me he was a roadie for Nickelback. Cool.. so we're going to the roadie bus, at this point, I don't give a shit either way... so me and my boy Nick walk in and sit down. There's a cloud of pot smoke in there, and about six or seven guys chillin', no girls, nothing crazy going on. It was pretty dark so I couldn't see faces (not like I wanted to), and I hear "hey... dude. Hey... hey man, you want this?" So I turn to my right, and it's Chad fucking Kroeger extending his arm out to me with a massive joint in his hand. For some reason I started laughing hysterically and the only thing I could say was "I thought this was the roadie bus!!". Everyone cracks up laughing, and Chad says, "nah, this is the band bus dude!". So me and my new found friend Nick introduce ourselves, smoke with these guys for about a half hour and shoot the shit. It was oddly normal, and all of them were really nice. Chad asked us about our jobs, seemed strangely interested, like he was asking us questions, and I asked about how their tour was going blah blah blah... Basic smalltalk.

At one point I realize that it's like 3 a.m. and I'm really fucked up. Starting to get the spins and definitely under the impression that throwing up may be in my near future so I give whoever was there some dap, thank them for their hospitality, and make a move toward the door. Kroeger stops us and is like "yo, what are you guys doing tomorrow? We're playing a show and we'll hook you up with tickets and backstage passes, we'll party again afterwards!" At this point the shit is just surreal. Without hesitation I write our names down to get on the list, then got to my hotel room where I puked and slept on the bathroom floor for two hours.

The next morning was BRUTAL. I met Nick down at the coffee spot and we both started laughing at either how awful we looked or how weird the night before was, if not both. The first words out of the kids mouth were "So, you want to go to that show tonight?" I paused for a second, and as soon as I began to speak we both said "NAAAAAH" in unison. One of the funniest moments of my life for sure. The next couple days were filled with more drinking, sneaking into the pool at 1 a.m., and earning bad reputations within our company that we were all trying to leave anyway. It was a good week.

He's pretty cute.