Canadian officer apologizes to Nickelback after an insulting drunk-driving joke
A couple of days ago, Nickelback made the headlines in quite a peculiar way after they became the subject of a supposed joke from a Canadian town about punishing drunk drivers by forcing them to listen to the band's song. This led to a backlash prompting the police officer who made the remark take the joke back and apologize.
Police in the Canadian town of Kensington retracted the statement by publishing a lengthy post that explained what happened, which is penned by Const. Robb Hartlen who also wrote the controversial note earlier. "Our little post became an international story. And somewhere in the noise, the message of Don't Drink and Drive was overshadowed by negativity towards the band I said I would play if you did," the post reads referring to the not-deleted Facebook post that warns drivers under the influence of alcohol to be subjected to sit through Nickelback's 2001 album titled "Silver Side Up."
"The more successful the post became the less the Don't Drink and Drive message was mentioned and the fact we love or love to hate Nickelback took centre stage. And that prompted me to think less about Nickelback as the 'Entity' and more about the 4 guys, 4 human beings from Alberta who were dragged into this international story. And the more I thought about that, the less funny the humor seemed," the post continued.
A couple of reports over the course of the debacle noted that Nickelback was actually not happy about the shots fired at them and understandably so. But the band has yet to officially publish a statement regarding what happened. Despite being a native group with hit songs such as "How You Remind Me" and "Rockstar," they were actually usually the target of some Canadian jokes. But this particular situation suddenly blew up that it has garnered so much attention from all over the globe.
Hartlen adds in a separate talk with the CBC News that he has also reached out to the band members Chad, Ryan, Mike and Daniel as well as their families to offer his sincere apologies. He also admitted that he even likes a couple of songs from the band. Still, he reiterates that he stands by the original intent of his post that warns everyone of the dangers of drunk driving.
