Marianas Trench’s Josh Ramsay Reveals Story Behind Collaboration With Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger (Exclusive)

Marianas Trench frontman Josh Ramsey is getting ready to drop his debut solo album, The Josh Ramsay Show, which features a number of incredible collaborations. One of the musical heavyweights that Ramsay teamed up with on the project is Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger, who joins Ramsay on the blues-rock track “Lady Mine.” Recently, during an exclusive interview with PopCulture.com, Ramsay opened up about his new album, and also revealed the story of how the collaboration with Kroeger came to be.

“Chad and I have been friends for a long time,” Ramsay explained. “[He] is the co-owner of 604 Records that signed me when I was still a teenager. So, we’ve known each other for a really long time and we had worked together previously on a Nickelback record that I came in to do just a bit of co-writing. Not that Chad needs any help, but he likes to have a lot of voices in the studio.” Ramsay went on to confess that “Lady Mine” was not “the first time I had asked him to sing on something. I asked him to sing a Marianas Trench song called “Astoria,” just to sing a tiny little line and he was going to do it and then he didn’t have the time with his tour schedule. And so for when I was working on ‘Lady Mine,’ I was sort of getting halfway through it and I wanted my voice to sound a specific way.”

Ramsay then offered some details about the song’s origins, admitting that it was an iconic rock band that drove him to arrange it the way it turned out. “This is funny, but whenever I get pulled on stage with a cover band, for whatever reason, I always end up singing AC/DC. So I knew that in the right register, my voice could have that tone. So I specifically wrote the song in the same key as Highway to Hell, because I knew that if I sat a melody in the same register as that, my voice would go there. And I was working on it, I was like, ‘Who else could I even ask to sing this? Who do I even know?’ And then I was like, ‘Well, I hope Chad says yes because he’s the only other singer I know who could do this.’”

He continued, “Thank God he said yes. And so I did eventually start tailoring the melody, picturing Chad’s voice on it and picturing how he would sound. And then the song was pretty much fully done when I sent it to him because I would never send it, this is something I take from my other career as a songwriter for hire, I never send unfinished songs to people. I never send half sketches or something. I send something fully produced, fully realized so you understand exactly what you are getting. So that’s what I sent to Chad. And thank God, the lovable guy that he is, he said yes, before he even heard it.”

Finally, Ramsay said is was “very kind” of Kroeger to join him on the track, adding, “And you know what, man, when he sent his vocals back, the song, it just took a huge leap up. I mean, in terms of the narrative, it was a lot more interesting having two voices in there. And then I kind of like that when we’re in the same register as that it’s a little bit hard to tell who’s who sometimes. It is a little bit hard to tell who’s who sometimes. And I think that sort of adds to the fun sort of mystique of the song.” The Josh Ramsay Show will be released on April 8 — it’s currently available to pre-save here — but fans can hear “Lady Mine” right now by checking out the official music video above.