THE NICKELBACK STORY...

...since people have asked, here's a quick run-down.

FEBRUARY 2010:
On a Saturday morning, I get tipped off by a friend that Chad Kroeger, lead singer of Nickelback, had been spotted at a bar in Salem, Ohio 2 nights prior. Understand, Salem is a small town (12,000), about 40 mins east of Canton, 20 mins SW of Youngstown.
I'm skeptical right away...sure he was! Pffft. Why is the lead singer of one of the biggest rock bands in the world...at a bar in SALEM, OHIO?!

When I say biggest, I MEAN biggest. 31 singles...21 went top 10, 11 went to #1. They've sold 50 MILLION albums in 10 years.

So I cautiously and skeptically go to the air with it. "Hey, supposedly Chad Kroeger has been around here recently, if you saw him I'd love to hear from you".
Well the phones lit up. People saw him having dinner. "My buddy saw him" at such and such a place. Within the hour, it came out that he was dating someone from the area and he was here to visit her. I let that part get out.

Well, you know how this is gonna go. EVERYONE that knows the girl or knows OF the girl starts to call in...I didn't air many of them. A few. I shy'd away from that angle of the story. I wanted to take the 'rockstar in small town' angle, which was the real story.

Monday afternoon, I took a recorder out to Salem and chatted with the bartenders and owners at Spanky's, the place where Chad had been seen 2 nights prior. That video is on Youtube.

One of the calls I had taken on Saturday afternoon was from someone who claimed to be a friend of the girl. She said the family had been aware that we were talking about it, but Chad had already left town. (I wanted to get him to the station)

Another of those calls that afternoon were from Mo. HE talked about it Monday evening and got MORE of the calls from people who knew the girl. He aired them, including one from her ex-boyfriend, who had a pretty heavy case of jealousy going on, as can be expected.

It went as far as our Program Director (our boss) getting a call from the management and record companies saying basically "You WILL stop talking about this". So, we stopped talking about it.

DECEMBER 2011:
Fast forward to last night, Mo is out at a bar in Canton...The Pub. Chad was in the bar last night with the girlfriend and someone who was there told him that Mo had come in. Chad walked up to Mo and asked to speak with him for a minute.

Chad told Mo that the girlfriend's family was very upset about the things that were said on the radio and were really hurt by them. Long story short, Chad says he's going to come on Mo's show the next night and clear the air. Mo doesn't believe that Chad will actually show, so Chad GAVE MO his personal credit card!
I held it in my hand...it's metal. An American Express Business card.

I heard about it like so many of you did, from The DeLuca Show this morning and via facebook.
I was at the station tonight...we were all kind of wondering if he was actually going to show up.

I was standing in the lobby of Q92 with our owner/GM Donnie, talking about whether he was going to show up or not. He said "well 2 cars just pulled in. Probably some listeners here to see if he shows up, or maybe it's Charlotte"...a few seconds later...Chad Kroeger, lead singer from Nickelback walked right in the front door of the station. Hand to God.

He said "Hi, I'm looking for Mo?"...funny, there were a few people standing around, NO ONE said anything like "omg he's here"...it was just silent. A few people followed Chad into the building. That was the girlfriend, her parents, I believe her brother and sister. I said "yep, he's right in there, I'll take you to him"...meanwhile Mo had seen them walk in and was coming around to meet Chad and his family.

They chatted in the lobby for a minute, Mo apologized to Chad's girlfriend's mom and dad and talked with them for a minute, invited Chad into the studio. If you were listening, you heard it all go down at that point. It all unfolded in a HURRY...

I never got a pic with Chad. They were on their way out to dinner tonight. I wanted to roll video on the interview and also wanted to make sure the news that Chad was about to be on was posted on our Q92 Facebook right away, this was happening in LITERALLY 90 seconds. So while he snapped a few pics with people, I was feverishly making sure everything was set.

If you missed the interview, here is a link.http://dl.dropbox.com/u/53549894/CHAD%20KROEGER%20from%20NICKELBACK%20live%20on%20Q92.mp3

I'm not too worried about the pic. We can get one next time he's in town. Including the "Hey, this is Chad from Nickelback and whenever I'm in town, I listen to Q92" liner....and it'll be 100% true!