Nickelback Documentary ‘Hate To Love’ Hits Theatres In March

How long have you been waiting for this?! “Hate To Love: Nickelback“, the feature-length documentary film about one of Canada’s biggest rock bands all-time is hitting theatres worldwide for two nights only: March 27 and March 30!

The documentary premiered last September at the Toronto International Film Festival and tells the band’s story; from small town Hanna Alberta to massive global success in 2001, spurred on by their mega hit, ‘How You Remind Me’ and beyond!

You can grab tickets for the global theatrical release as of February 22 at 10am ET thru NickelbackFilm.com. It’s being show in over 1350 locations in 30 countries!

Nickelback says, “We are very excited to finally bring this film to theatres this spring. It’s been a long road to get this project across the finish line and we must thank Ben Jones and Leigh Brooks for all of their hard work. We hope everyone enjoys our story, fans, friends or otherwise.”

“Hate To Love: Nickelback” is 90 minutes long, and as you’d expect, has never-before-seen archival footage, concert footage, interviews and endorsements from celebrity advocates like actor Ryan Reynolds and Smashing Pumpkins singer Billy Corgan.

“Hate To Love: Nickelback” Director / British filmmaker Leigh Brooks finished working on the doc in June ’23, saying on his LinkedIn profile, “Wow. 6 years filming the Nickelback doc and today was the last day, Nickelback and everyone one of the Nickelteam are fine fine people. Eternally grateful the band let us document this amazing film. There were times I didn’t think this day would come, and although it feels like a freight train grinding to a halt, I’m really excited for what is pulling up at the station as we speak.”

Brooks admitted, “At the beginning, I knew nothing about Nickelback. I knew ‘How You Remind Me’ and I remember I loved the tune at the time. I was one of those people that thought… I didn’t, didn’t agree with [Nickelback frontman] Chad’s [Kroeger’s] hairstyle, I didn’t agree with some of his dress sense. To be honest, looking back at some of my hairstyles and dress sense at the time, I had no right to throw shade, man… And that was really all I knew. ‘Cause I was [into stuff like] Biohazard, I was [into] Life Of Agony. I was [into] Metallica, which, ironically, these guys [in Nickelback], when they grew up, they, they were bang into Slayer and Anthrax and Metallica. And yeah, we went over and did this thing on ‘Feed The Machine’, and it quickly turned out, it looked like we [were] gonna do like a longer version about all of the albums. And then that morphed into, ‘Ah, let’s go back and shoot a bit more concert stuff.’ And then I found out the guys were going back to Hanna [Alberta, Canada], which is their hometown. And I’m, like, ‘What for?’ And they’re, like, ‘We’re gonna go play a gig?’ I’m like, ‘Really?’ ‘Yeah. The place we used to play when we were really, really young. It was like two and a half thousand people in Hanna. That’s it. And I was, like, ‘We should be going to film that.’ And then all of a sudden it just went from there. Every opportunity, there was a bit more to film or a bit more to explore. But, yeah, the controversy [surrounding Nickelback] definitely intrigued me, ’cause I was, like, ‘Well, there’s gotta be more to this that meets the eye.’ And man, there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. They paved the way for everyone else to get their asses handed to them on the Internet, basically.”

Nickelback singer Chad Kroeger was interviewed on Tucson, Arizona’s KFMA-FM radio station and talked about why he thought so many people didn’t like his band, “That kind of used to be a thing. I shouldn’t say ‘that kind of used to be’ — that was definitely a thing for a long time. And I think there’s been a softening — there really has, thankfully. I’m not sure if it’s because we receive a ton of love on TikTok or whatever the hell it is, but for whatever reason the teeth have kind of been removed. It’s really nice, it’s really nice to not be Public Enemy Number One.”

Kroeger continued, “I think that with the range of songs that we write — from rock to all the softer, melodic stuff, all the way down to… Well, I know that ‘Far Away’ got played on country stations even and I know that ‘Rockstar’ — the heavily redacted version — got played on CMT. So when you’re going that far and the scope is that wide, it makes it tough to get away from the band if you’re not into the band. And if you’re trying to switch the radio station three times, and it’s just, like, ‘Ah, there they are. There’s their rock song on the rock station. There’s their pop song on the pop station. And oh my God, I can’t even go to the country station and get away from these guys.’ That type of oversaturation could piss people off. But at the end of the day, we’re just a band that makes music. I can’t stand a couple of bands, but I don’t go online and turn into a keyboard warrior and just start hating on them. I just change the channel or I put on something that I wanna listen to.”

Chad was a gest of KLOS radio station’s Full Metal Jackie and said that the negative press actually kept the band in the spotlight, “Well, I’ve been saying that for years. All the detractors, all the haters, all the keyboard heroes, they have no idea how much they keep us in the press loop. It’s hilarious. Those people that would love to see us go away, if they really wanted to see us go away, they would just shut up. Because all those bands that came out with us at the same time are all gone, because nobody said anything about them. They all just sort of disappeared. But we’ve really kind of spun this whole negative thing into a positive thing. And here we are. [Laughs]”

Kroeger added, “And it’s funny — we went for dinner with AC/DC in Chicago years and years and years ago. And this whole thing came up. And Brian Johnson said when they released ‘Back In Black’, they were the most hated band on the planet. So I feel like we’re in good company. [Laughs]”

Nickelback’s latest album, “Get Rollin'”, was released in November ’22.

I think we can all agree, Nickelback is no longer the most hated band on the planet. So, which band is? Who has that trophy?

 

Written by Todd Hancock