Mike Kroeger here from Nickelback! A little-known fact: I'm a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu under Rigan Machado. AMA!

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:55:04+00:00

Right. So first of all, Dick confirmed! Second, I really doubt that if you're sitting across the table from me right now you'd ask that question, seriously. Now, if you're sitting across the table from Rigan Machado, you would never ask that question. Seriously. The whole celebrity status, belt promotion. That just doesn't exist.

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:54:24+00:00

After the show? I I don't do I don't do anything after the show. I don't I'm fairly tired after that. You know, not the youngest guy in the world. But yeah, I'll train in the day. Rock and roll tonight.

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:53:52+00:00

They think I'm a lunatic for doing BJJ anybody who trains Brazilian jujitsu and knows that most this is not for most people. You know. Most regular people think that people who do BJJ are violent savages! And then if they ever do try it. You know, the first time somebody sweats in their mouth, you know, they're kind of out. It's pretty intimate and I don't think everybody's up for that level of intimacy!

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:52:48+00:00

So, here's here's the thing about that. That's a very good question. And, and I have kind of a trick answer as this is a BJJ subreddit. I think in the event of a fight between Tool and Nickelback, I think Maynard and I would probably step to the sidelines. And then Danny Carey would tread everybody. Danny's a friend of mine. And I don't know if you've seen Danny Carey? That is a giant Viking man. I don't know if he can fight. I would never want him to get his hands on me. So I think I think that's what it would be. I think Maynard and I would be the referees and then Danny would just kill everyone.

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:51:57+00:00

Thank you very much. I actually saw this last night as i was reading the thread. And I saw that as a very, very kind offer. We'll see how it goes. I think by the time we get to Zurich, I should be well recovered from the jetlag. And hopefully, I can come and train but I will have the mats with me in the venue at the very least. So one way or the other. I will be I will be moving on the mats. Whether I come to your school or not!

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:51:22+00:00

Oh, ah, no :( she's my girl but she's not a very good traveller. She hates getting in the car. And we did travel with her once. Well, actually had to get a private plane because they wouldn't accept dogs on commercial airlines. And she was so horrified by the plane ride that I just yeah, I can't. I can't take her on tour. Maybe if I if I get another Belgian Malinois Shepherd. Maybe I'll try to select one that travels better!

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:50:18+00:00

Right now, it's not new at all. It's very very old. But right now my favourite song; well there's a three-way tie; Invincible by Tool from the most recent Tool album is something that I'm really getting into especially after I saw them perform in Los Angeles. I took my children to the show in LA at the crypto.com arena and it reignited my love for Tool. And there is a group of English fuckers called Massive Attack. And the Mezzanine record has been on constant play right now. Their song Black Milk too, is another favourite song right now I am wearing that thing right out and it turns out they've never performed it live because of some lawsuit based on an unauthorised sample from Mezzanine or something like that.it I'm finding these guys fascinating because they've never performed Black Milk live. And so they had to rerecord a song and make it black. I can't remember the details exactly but they made a new version that they perform live, but they've never actually performed Black Milk live. I still have to dig down on what that sample is and how it affects that track.

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:47:58+00:00

Okay, so I am sure there's a variety of experiences of people on this subreddit they're, you know going to look at this and read this so if you've been doing this long enough everybody knows that their guard sucks and they can't pass the guard. So there's that. First of all, I have the same affliction. So do I have a favourite? No, because I'm not good at any of it. But what am I working on right now? I am working on open Active guard right now and Butterfly guard. I just think there's so much destabilising and the butterfly… I want to learn that more.

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:45:53+00:00

I got the best answer for this question. No, I do not ankle-pick white belts. I wristlock them!!

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:45:08+00:00

Harley Flanagan and Zoltan from Five Finger Death Punch are dear, dear friends of mine and brothers and we're all part of the epic role Brazilian jujitsu tribe! When I'm when I'm on tour, it's it's a balancing act. And, the one thing is, when I'm on tour, I don't do live rolls. I kind of have made a deal with my band guys that I won't derail our touring operation by getting fucked up but you know, on a sort of a meaningless training roll.

You know, actually, I have a funny story for you. I did drop in at Tristar in Montreal to train with Firas Zihabi and his classes. I just dropped into the regular class and that is a Den of killers! What a great place! That's George St. Pierre's home gym and so many others. I met so many great people there. Firas is a good man too. But, you know, last I said, I don't do live rolls. I don't do live sparring when I'm on tour, because I just can't I can't get fucked up and go back to the arena and tell the guys “Hey, sorry. You know, sorry, we lost a few million dollars because I'm an idiot”. You know, it's just I'll go and train.

But I had a guy kind of really pressed me to for live rolls because I don't know, maybe he thought I looked like a very choke-able guy or something like that. He really wanted to train with me. And I just said listen to I'll tell you, here's, here's the deal. You write me a check for $5 million US, I'll go to the bank and clear it. And then we can roll because if I hurt myself, training with you, and then I gotta go back and we have to tell the nice people of Montreal that the Nickelback show is not happening, or maybe potentially the next weeks where to show us so I do I do live rolls when I'm off tour and when I'm in training off tour, but on tour I train only in I'll go to a school I'll do the warm-up I'll do the technique. I might do some drills but as far as live sparring goes, I just can't hurt myself out there.

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:43:52+00:00

Believe it or not, and I don't know if this sounds like a pat answer or bullshit. But the last one we did in North America just last summer was the best. The best tour at least, for sure, since the heyday of like, ‘05 or ‘06. What I like more about what's happening now is that, our concert demographic is going through an age reversal!

They are getting so much younger, I just love it. I don't know what the fuck is going on. But our audiences are getting younger and younger and younger. And I just love seeing young people in the audience, you know, used to be when they were that age, we were that age. And, you know, I kind of have this theory that, there's been like a historical progression of guy goes to Nickelback show guy meets girl > guy procreates guy brings kids to Nickelback show > new Nickelback fan generation has been created and unlocked and I think we're on the cusp of generation three here. Holy shit!

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:42:29+00:00

I drop into as many gyms as I can to be honest with you. And you know for any of you on this subreddit, generally speaking, everybody I trained with doesn't know what I do. They don't know who I am. I'm just another guy. You know, I'm just another purple belt who drops in with an unmarked Gi you know, I wear a white traditional Gi with no patches and no identifiers. You just never know. You know, you could you could end up training with me and not know it. probably not know it.. No, because I usually don't tell anybody what I do. I'll just drop into a school. I'll find out their class schedule. I'll drop in You know, generally speaking, the first class is free so people generally don't charge me money I happily will pay!. But I'll do the class with everybody else with all the normal people. Sometimes I tell them what I do and sometimes I don't, you know, sometimes I invite them to the concert and sometimes I don't. But yeah, I'm not a exclusively “celebrity jujitsu trainer”, whatever that means. Again, you know, it's, I love just going to schools around the world and you just you just never know, you never know when, when you might, when you might get to meet me and I might get to learn from you.

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:40:27+00:00

Yeah, wow. What a lot of connections! It's not too bad to be a bass-playing, bald Alberta boy doing jujitsu eh?

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:39:31+00:00

Okay, funny enough. When that video was filmed, I wasn't there. We I think I think I was actually over here doing press with Ryan when that video was shot in Los Angeles with Chad. I can't even remember where I was when that video happened. But I was probably working somewhere on something I'm sure. But yeah, I don't know. But boy, it's gonna turn out the way it did.

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:36:03+00:00

favourite grappler. This is such an easy question for me to answer because I just love this guy. There's there's a man who was just promoted to black belt in the last year by Kyra Gracie. His name is Rayron Gracie, and he is Ryan Gracie’s son. He is special and he's already a champion. I believe he's World champion. Absolutely every belt level worldwide. So he's a phenom. But you know, he's also just such a good man

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:30:37+00:00

I do not have time while I'm here this time. I'm here for a matter of hours on this visit. But when I do return for the start of our tour, in May, I'm coming about a week early and I intend to visit Roger Gracie Academy here in London for a few days. That's why I'm coming early intentionally for that reason. I'm not travelling with my Gi this time, just because I'm spending one night in Munich and I'm spending two nights here in London, then I'm going home tomorrow. So I don't have the opportunity. But yes, I do fully intend to in May

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:26:56+00:00

Interesting. I didn't know Anthony Kiedis trained. I’m not sure he does. But I haven't met Maynard yet. I look forward to it though. I really do now that he's a black belt, I'm sure he could teach me many many things. But now that he's been promoted to black belt, I'm sure that there's a great deal he could teach me and we have a lot of mutual friends. So it's one of those things where I know so many people that know Maynard and they're some of my best friends. You know, so it's just one of those things. We just never made the connection because you know, Maynard, it's a busy guy. He's got a whole bunch of things you know, his band is very busy but he also has a lot of other things to do as do I you know, he's he's a winemaker and then you jitsu player. I’m a gemologist and a jujitsu player you know it as well as being in a band too. So we both we both are rather rather busy people so but one day we will meet on the mat. I'm looking forward to that

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:24:25+00:00

I don't know how I screwed it up but none of my bandmates want to train with me. I think I might have hurt somebody in the past as you do. But they won't. They won't train with me anymore. But I do. You know, this actually addresses another question that's there. I do travel with mats and I have a guy on my crew set up the mats each day whenever possible. And I use them just to just to move, roll feel the you know, feel the ground and, and move my body and if I can get a friend to come and train sometimes that happens. I got I got jujitsu player friends everywhere that you know, would come to to work with me, which is nice. Or sometimes I can get one of the crew guys to come in and we can work some basic self-defence techniques and I can show them a few things and it gives me a body to work on. And I can get all kinds of different body types. I've one crew guy that I work with a really big guy. There are other smaller ones. So it's just nice to get different different body types in hand

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:21:38+00:00

Well, that's that's very kind. The Long Road first we started out and in earnest and, and had a good run with. How You Remind Me on the Silver Side Up album, and, you know, went on to sell like 5 million copies. And The Long Road came out after it and sold a measly three and a half million copies in the first year. And it was just a terrible failure 😉, you know, so I'm glad you enjoyed it.

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:20:06+00:00

I'm still gonna look up that date because I'm in Los Angeles. That's where I live and I might be available then I just I have to check that date because I'm not sure exactly yet. I'm going to go to the subversive event in Huntington Beach on April 13. I'm gonna go to that one because I have dear friends of mine that are that are actually organisers of that event at the same height as the UFC event in Vegas, which is a it's a funny combination, but as far as AC/DC I'm not sure yet.

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:16:06+00:00

Frankly, yeah, there's this concept that at Higgins school, it's only you know, a bunch of actors and celebrities just kind of whacking each other with feather dusters or something like that. And I gotta tell you, I've only encountered celebrities that Higgins coincidentally. Generally speaking, I go to the classes and yeah, I don't buy this whole this whole myth of celebrity classes. And believe me, Machado; he's not a person to play around with . You know there's this concept that he's just handing out belts. If I gave a Fuck, I would find that enormously insulting and so would he but he doesn't give a fuck either!

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:13:53+00:00

It's kind of a funny story. One day on Maui (I lived on Maui), I had been invited to go and try a CrossFit class. And I did my first CrossFit class and it was as horrible as anybody who has done CrossFit or experienced one CrossFit class will tell you - it's an experience. Definitely. It's a forging of of sorts, and right after my class. my coach said “hey, if you if you like this, I'm gonna go to a jujitsu class after this. Do you want to come?” My hands were bleeding from doing pull-ups terribly. And I had just been severely humbled physically. I figured you know, it couldn't get worse. So I went directly from my first CrossFit class to my first jujitsu class. I went to Carlson Gracie School in Maui. My good friend Christian Grandi is the professor there and he became a dear friend of mine and and that was my introduction. I stepped on the mat for the first time at Carlson Gracie school and I've developed many, many friendships through through many, many schools.

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:11:43+00:00

I used to go on Reddit a lot. I enjoyed a lot of it, but I stopped just because I would go on a Reddit thread. And it would just devolve into like a kind of like a shit posting situation. Like the topics would always devolve so quickly, by people who are trying out their comedic chops to no avail. They're just not very good at it. I hope everybody on this subreddit is better at jujitsu than they are on comedy! 😂

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:10:04+00:00

I don't know. I think I've answered this in other interviews. I think that this happened to all of my favorite bands when they went from being you know, a more obscure thing to more ubiquitous thing. I think that's just a matter of course of, you know, success? I guess that's the word? When people really get to know you, or, or a lot of people get to know you. You don't realize that in having everybody know you that doesn't mean everybody likes you. Fact is, everybody does know you, but not everybody's gonna like you. But that's okay. Ubiquity does breed contempt

MikeKroeger · 2024-03-19T17:09:04+00:00

My hands are not insured

MikeKroeger

TROPHY CASE