Mike Portnoy's Story Almost Becomes Nickelback Drummer

Mike Portnoy (Instagram @thewinerydogs)

JAKARTA - The progressive metal band drummer Mike Portnoy revealed that he almost appeared with Canadian rock band Nickelback in one show.

In a recent performance on Drumeo's educational drum channel, Portnoy who previously performed with Dream Theater, The Winery Dogs, and Averaged Sevenfold among other bands revealed that he was contacted by Nickelback to fill the drums for the show in 2022 as their drummers could not perform.

For his appearance at Drumeo himself, Portnoy was assigned to perform a song he had never heard of, which turned out to be Nickelback's Burn It To The Ground. He then told where he came from to fill the position of drummer Nickelback.

I think their drummers are undergoing surgery and they asked me to perform with them. And I said, 'Yeah, it's going to be a fun show!' recalls Portnoy.

"I'm ready to play this show with Nickelback this for a festival and the festival was finally canceled. But I almost performed with Nickelback," he continued.

Portnoy later added that he had received a setlist for the show, but 'Burn It To The Ground' was not on it, and that he had never heard most of the songs on the list of shows in question.

Chad [Kroeger] sent me a list set. My daughter and my wife said 'You'll know all these songs' and I'm like 'I've never heard of these songs!' I didn't listen to the radio so I didn't know anything about Nickelback's songs.