Ravinia 2019, Issue 6, Week 11

"It's the beginning of rock making a recovery. I think the days when it's cool to be a dude playing a guitar are coming back. And I guess we'll see where we fit into that new revival." o , you can’t possibly le all that. ere’s so much activity and so much excitement and fun that you just can’t remember ev- erything. Have you ever ridden the bullet train in Japan before? It’s kind of like that. It’s like, you look forward and you can see what’s coming, but if you look like right outside, it’s just a blur. at’s basically what the s were for us. We could see may- be six months ahead, but in the moment, it was just completely utter chaos. But you kept going and never broke up, so you must have been having the time of your lives! It wasn’t without tur- bulence, and we had our moments, but no, we didn’t break up, and there was none of that ridiculous and juvenile public ght- ing, talking shit about each other in the press or whatever that you see from people in bands when they have these spats. We didn’t have any of that stu . I don’t know if it’s be- cause we’re Canadian or what, but we didn’t have any kind of that drama publicly. You’re always going to have your disagreements with partners no matter what you’re doing, whether you’re running a coal mine or a lumber yard or a rock band. [But] you work them out and you get through it or you pack it in and move on. We kept it together. Nickelback continues to stay very active, but it seems like the band has a better work/life balance these days. What led you to get a bit more of a breather between albums and tours? Well, your assertion is correct in one way, that we have an actual work/life balance, whereas before, we just didn’t. It was just work. It was really constant and consistent. I think as you get a little older, you start to just go, “Shit, we don’t have to do everything today, do we? Can we just enjoy it and keep it going for sure, but maybe not kill ourselves for a while? Let’s try that.” It’s not like it’s a hard job like digging a mine by hand, but it does wear you out; it’s a slow grind, and it’s relentless. It’s not like running your average marathon, where a er a number of hours, you’re in a puddle on the ground just destroyed. is is two months of consistent work with no breaks, without a day o . You don’t die in the rst week. You just sort of slowly grind down to a ne dust, and then a er a while, you’re sleeping all day. It wears on your mind more than anything else. So now that we’ve changed up that pacing a little bit, it’s been cool to see our families and dogs and be at home. What does your life outside the band look like? On a normal day, until recently, I’d be driving my kids to school. But now my son just nished college and my daughter is out of high school, so she’s out for the summer. Now that they’re not in school, it’s easy. I just try to get in the gym at every possible chance where I’m learning some ght sports. It’s just really nice to be able to have a meal with the family. e things that the “average” person can do, I appreciate a lot because there are a lot of times I don’t get to do that. I’m doing a FaceTime call from like Singapore to dinner instead of being there, so it is nice to be around. Anything else on your mind before making your way to Ravinia? e real overarching sentiment of our group is “let’s just see what’s next. Let’s see what kind of fun we can have and where we can do it.” Now that we’re coming to Ravinia for the rst time ever, obviously a er this much time doing what we’re doing, there are still things that we haven’t done yet, so let’s nd ’em! Andy Argyrakis is a Chicago-based writer/photographer whose credits include the Chicago Tribune , Chicago Sun-Times , Daily Herald , Illinois Entertainer , Concert Livewire , Chicago Now , Redeye , Metromix , Paste , DownBeat , Pollstar , and Celebrity Access , among many others. He is also the founder of ChicagoConcertReviews.com and the house photographer for the Chicago Theatre. 28 RAVINIA MAGAZINE | AUGUST 12 – AUGUST 25, 2019