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Nickelback: back with new album Dark Horse

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7. Chad is six years from death…
… according to his calculations, anyway. "I will die on my 40th birthday," he told Playboy. "I dreamed it – I'll be onstage and have a heart attack, and the crowd will think it's part of the show. It's been foretold."

8. Their name has a rubbish story behind it
'The Beatles' came to John Lennon in a dream. 'The Doors' was inspired by a William Blake poem. The origins of Nickelback were more prosaic, with the name occuring to bassist Mike Kroeger as he toiled in Starbucks, repeating the same mantra as he handed customers their change: "here's your nickel back".

"I think they're great." Chris Martin of Coldplay

9. Chris Martin is a fan
Jaws dropped when it emerged that Nickelback's red-blooded odes to sex, cars and having sex in cars had struck a chord with Coldplay's fair trade frontman. "They take a lot of flak from people who've never done f*ck-all in their lives," he says. "I think they're great."

10. They murder axes
When Ryan comes offstage from a night of abusing guitars, he likes to… abuse more guitars. "Gibson send me unfinished guitars and I go to work on them," he explains. "We're from cattle country, so I've burned a horseshoe shape on one. I tried to make one look like a tree trunk, and another one – a Flying V – I beat the absolute shit out of. I'd never do it to a vintage guitar, but with new ones it doesn't matter."

11. They brought Dimebag back from the dead
Side Of A Bullet features a posthumous Dimebag Darrell solo assembled from outtakes from Pantera's Vulgar Display Of Power and Far Beyond Driven. The tribute to Nickelback's murdered drinking buddy remains the band's most personal moment.

"The last time I saw Dimebag, it was the end of a night out," Chad remembers. "I'm sitting in his car, he hands me a bottle of JD, I take a huge pull, open the door, throw up and send it back over. Then he got on the bus and that was the last time I saw him."

Check out Chad Kroeger's onstage Dimebag tribute.

12. They weren't always minted…
Nickelback's financial trajectory is practically a vertical line. Debut Curb was financed by a $4000 loan from Chad's stepfather. Follow-up The State was recorded for $30,000. This year, the band signed a management deal worth $70 million. "When we were kids in a garage, we were never thinking 'God, I can't wait to be rich'," counters Chad. "More like, 'I can't wait to see all the chicks in the front row!'"

"My hair was terrible. I was 26 and looked 37." Chad Kroeger hates his hair too