Nickelback. You love to hate them, and you love to sing along to their songs whenever someone does them at karaoke. They occupy a bizarre pop culture space, but they are still remembered today. They were the most successful rock band of the 2000s, and one of the biggest Canadian acts of all time. Ryan Vikedal was there for all of it, but now he's gone.
Vikedal was the third drummer in Nickelback, after Brandon Kroeger and Mitch Guindon, but he was the one that stuck. He played with the band from 1998 to 2005, which is inarguably their commercial peak. Then, he was fired by singer Chad Kroeger, guitarist Ryan Peake and bassist Mike Kroeger. He was replaced by former 3 Doors Down drummer Daniel Adair.
Ryan Vikedal was fired in 2005
While Nickelback failed to give a specific reason for Vikedal's dismissal, a lawsuit filed by the lead singer following the dismissal filled in the blanks. Chad Kroeger filed a lawsuit demanding the former drummer stop receiving royalties from public performances of Nickelback songs. He asserted that he is the sole "maker" of the songs, and as such, Vikedal should return any royalties he's collected from live performances.
No specific dollar amounts have been publicly divulged, but this was widely accepted as the dispute that led to the two parting ways. Mike Kroeger subsequently weighed in on Vikedal's firing, and told Grammy.com that he was sad to see the drummer go. "It was really, really hard. It's like firing a member of your family," he explained. "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," Kroeger added. "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."
Vikedal made up with the band in 2023
The bassist admitted that things got "personal" toward the end of Vikedal's tenure with the band, and the bad blood lingered in the years that followed. In the 2023 documentary film Hate to Love, however, Ryan Peake claimed that he visited Vikedal and reportedly made up.
Nickelback is a punchline band for many despite their success, but if they were ever to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Vikedal would have to be included. He's the drummer on their biggest and most celebrated songs.