When Dimebag, Chad of Nickelback & Kid Rock Made a Song Together. Yes, Really.

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Photo of Dime by April Ashford-Forsythe via Wikipedia. Photo of Chad by Elwedritsch via Wikpedia. Kid Rock photo via YouTube.
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The early 2000’s were a weird time for music. MTV’s Total Request Live was essentially the puppet master of pop culture, cycling through an oddity of music content that featured Backstreet Boys one second, and Fred Durst the next.

Despite the constant confusing juxtaposition of mainstream pop, rock & aggressive music, having Nickelback and Pantera in the same sentence still made no sense back then either. That said, we should predicate the weirdness of this story & song by reminding that the Nickelback bros (Chad and Mike Kroeger) and the Abbott Brothers were actually pretty close friends. So it does kind of make sense that Chad Kroeger tapped Dime to collaborate.

The fact that it was with Kid Rock and was a cover of Elton John’s “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)” for the “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” soundtrack just makes it all the more bizarre, though.

In the wake of Dimebag Darrell’s  tragic passing, Mike and Chad Kroeger reflected a lot on their fond memories of Dimebag, with Mike saying:

“He tried to euthanize us with alcohol, I remember that. I ran away. There was something heroic about that guy, awesome guitar player, great dude — all the things you hear are true. He did like to pour a bunch of booze down people’s necks who couldn’t handle it and just watched it go.

His thing was ‘Watch it go!’ That was his deal. He was going to watch me go but luckily he didn’t get to watch me go because I ran like hell to my bus. But Chad had an entirely different experience.”

Chad Kroeger recalled, “The last time Dime and I were on my bus for a while, we were in Dallas after a gig we had played and Dime and Vinnie [Paul] both came out to the show and afterwards we just got really torn up. Dime gave me this little mini-guitar and I gave him a leather jacket.

Then I opened the door to his — we were in an Escalade at the end of it just listening to some tunes and stuff and I hurled. It was pure straight Jack Daniels, then the first thing he does is, ‘Here, wash it down with a little Jack Daniels,’ and I did. And the next day in Corpus Christi I called him and he left me a message and I left him one and it was just, hurtin’ for certain… He’s just such an amazing guitar player but even a more remarkable human being. Miss him desperately.”

On how Chad roped in Dimebag for the “Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting)” song, he told MTV at the time that him and Dime were hanging out in Dallas one night and he played him the demo of the song: “We were driving and I slipped it in [the CD player] in his vehicle, and he just flipped. So I said, ‘Dude, wanna play the guitar solo on this?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah, I’d love to.’ ”

Strap in and listen to Chad Kroeger, Kid Rock & Dimebag Darrell together below:

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