Nickelback Frontman Talks Touring, Songwriting And His Brand New Signature Les Paul

New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ RoadRunner Records) - Nickelback just completed their encore tour for Dark Horse this past weekend with a big party in Las Vegas. But before the trek came to it's fitting end, Billboard.com caught up with singer/guitarist Chad Kroeger to discuss the art of crafting a set list that varies from the hard rocking tracks to the slower ballads, as well as what's in store for the band's next album and what some of the special features of his brand new signature Les Paul Blackwater are.

As far as songwriting goes Chad explains, "The rockers tend to come while we're in the studio. Just noodling around, you wind up with rock riffs. It's the other ones that are harder to craft, the ones you sort of pine over a little bit more..."

And how does that feeds into the band's set list? Chad goes on, "We've got so many of the 'How You Remind Mes,' the 'Somedays,' the 'Far Aways.' We've got a couple of the 'Photograph'-type things and a few of the 'Rockstar' and 'This Afternoons.' ...it's always a concern [whether] we have enough rockers in the set when we play live. You've got to save room for the 'Burn It to the Grounds' and that kind of stuff."
For the next album, Billboard reports that, "Kroeger expects to start writing in earnest around February and says he'd like to work with 'Dark Horse' co-producer Mutt Lange again, but most likely 'only in a writing capacity.'"

And when asked about his brand new signature guitar, Kroeger says it "has everything I need there in one guitar. When I've got clean parts in the song I've got this ghost Piezo pickup that makes it sound exactly like an acoustic guitar, and then when we get into the dirty, distorted parts, that's there, too. It's pretty exciting."

Read the full feature right here to see what else he had to say, and if you want some idea of what the band's final show in Vegas may have been like, check out some live photos from the band's stop in NJ HERE and watch the fun video for "This Afternoon" below.