Nickelback’s 10 million-selling 2005 album “All the Right Reasons” yielded the No. 6 hit “Rockstar,” a tongue-in-cheek sendup (and simultaneous celebration) of the rock star lifestyle. It’s something with which the members of Nickelback had grown familiar; the lyrics mention buying fancy cars and houses, hanging out with Playboy Bunnies, and signing autographs while their bodyguards beat up people.
Those are a bunch of well-worn tropes, but even so, the song got Nickelback (and its record label and music publisher) sued. Texas musician Kirk Johnston filed a copyright infringement case in 2020, alleging that when he first heard “Rockstar” in 2018, he thought it sounded strikingly and egregiously similar to “Rock Star,” a song he wrote in 2001 for his band Snowblind Revival. Johnston’s “Rock Star” appeared on a recording sent out to multiple labels, including the parent company of Nickelback’s Roadrunner Records. He accused the label and band of conspiring to steal “Rock Star” to turn it into “Rockstar.”
“The two songs sound nothing alike,” Nickelback asserted in a court filing (via Blabbermouth). “Johnston failed to identify any specific lyrical similarities between the works at issue.” In 2023, a federal judge threw the case out of court, ruling that Johnston’s claim “borders on the absurd” (via Billboard). A judiciary panel upheld the appeal in 2024. “These broad categories are mere clichés of being a rockstar that are not unique to the rock genre,” the trio wrote in its ruling (via Billboard).
