Ronald McDonald just shed a big freaky clown tear. His favourite band, multi-platinum Canadian rockers Nickelback, have announced the departure of one of their own. Turns out drummer Ryan Vikedal has up and left, just as his bandmates get down to work on their next LP.
According to a brief press release, Vikedal has not yet been replaced and the remaining members of Nickelback wish him well – of course, they’re also unavailable for comment, apparently because of the album preparations in Vancouver. Now we’ve never phoned anyone at a West Coast recording studio, but we’re pretty sure it’s physically possible. Either way, it will probably a while before we hear if there was any bad blood between the two parties. No reason for his departure has been given.
Vikedal is not only the first member to leave Nickelback, he was the last to join back in 1999. The Edmonton sticks has also played with rocker turned country singer Corb Lund.
Other than the departure, the past six months or so have been relatively quiet on the Nickelback front. They won a Western Canadian Music Award for their last record, and lead singer Chad Kroeger signed a promotional McDeal with a certain fast food chain, but that’s about it.
In November the band released a DVD titled The Videos. Aside from collecting (of course) their music videos, the disc features a behind-the-scenes doc on the making of the last Nickelback LP, The Long Road. It would be interesting to know if the footage shows any Beatles-style studio tension foreshadowing Vikedal’s departure. Again, not interesting to actually see, but interesting to know. Like if someone else told us or something.
