NICKELBACK's MIKE KROEGER Reflects On Split With Drummer RYAN VIKEDAL: 'It's Like Firing A Member Of Your Family'

In a new interview with Bryan Reesman of Grammy.com, NICKELBACK bassist Mike Kroeger reflected on the band's split with drummer Ryan Vikedal. Vikedal worked on NICKELBACK's "The State" (2000),"Silver Side Up" (2001) and "The Long Road" (2003) before parting under less-than-friendly circumstances. He told the Edmonton Sun he was fired just as NICKELBACK began work on their 2005 album "All The Right Reasons".

"It was terrible," Mike said about the decision to kick the drummer out of NICKELBACK. "It was really, really hard. It's like firing a member of your family. It is business, and the decision to let him go was not a personal one. It was more of like, Hey, we can see this is not functional, and we're going to act before this just falls apart. We felt that that was coming, that if we pretended that everything was fine and kept doing that, probably sooner rather than later something was gonna happen."

Mike admitted that the emotions surrounding the decision to fire Ryan were complicated. "We're not firing a person out of personality conflict," he said. "Of course, it's personal. There's no way to say, Hey, man, no hard feelings, right? Yeah, right."

NICKELBACK's new documentary, "Hate To Love", reveals how NICKELBACK guitarist Ryan Peake visited Vikedal years later to try to mend fences, and the musicians renewed their friendship. Vikedal was eventually replaced by Daniel Adair from 3 DOORS DOWN.

"All The Right Reasons", which marked Adair's recording debut with NICKELBACK, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard albums chart in October 2005.

In November 2005, Chad Kroeger filed a lawsuit against Vikedal in a Vancouver, British Columbia court in an attempt to stop the drummer from collecting royalties from the public performance of some of NICKELBACK's biggest hits. In the suit, Kroeger claimed he was the sole author and "maker" of NICKELBACK's songs, and as such, he and his production company, Arm Your Dillo Publishing Inc., were suing Vikedal for royalties received since he stopped being the band's drummer in January of that year. According to MTV, the suit claimed that while Vikedal was with the band, he received small percentages of the public-performance royalties of many NICKELBACK songs but that when he left the band, he forfeited his right to any future royalties.

2023 Canadian Music Hall Of Fame recipients, and diamond-certified selling group NICKELBACK were named the "most successful rock band of the decade" by Billboard in 2009. Globally celebrated for their career defining and award-winning hits "How You Remind Me", "Photograph", "Far Away", "Rockstar" and more, the four-piece comprised of Chad Kroeger, Ryan Peake, Mike Kroeger and Daniel Adair is one of the most commercially viable and important acts of the past two decades. Their success includes worldwide sales of more than 50 million units, solidifying their status as one of the top-selling acts of all time and the second best-selling foreign act in the U.S., in the 2000s decade, behind only THE BEATLES. Their inescapable and irresistible smash "How You Remind Me" was named Billboard's "Top Rock Song Of The Decade" and was the No. 1 most played song on U.S. radio (any format) in the 2000s according to Nielsen Soundscan, with over 1.2 million spins.

Amongst all of these accolades, they've also been named Billboard's "Top Rock Group Of The Decade" and received nine Grammy Award nominations, three American Music Awards, a World Music Award, a People's Choice Award, twelve JUNO Awards, seven MuchMusic Video Awards, and have been inducted into Canada's Walk Of Fame (2007) and the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame (2023). With more than 23 chart-topping singles and fans spanning the globe, NICKELBACK boasts more than twelve consecutive sold-out world tours, playing to well over 10 million diehard and adoring fans.