Don Broco are back with a brand new song “Nightmare Tripping” featuring none other than Nickelback, perhaps the most Don Broco of collaborations they ever could have put together.

From the breakout confidence of Priorities, through the sharp funk-rock snap of Automatic, the glitch-heavy paranoia of Technology, and the arena ambition of Amazing Things, this has always been a band comfortable in genre fluidity. Taking risks isn’t calculated for them, its part of their identity but “Nightmare Tripping” feels different. It feels somewhat claustrophobic, tighter and like the walls are moving inward.

The opening image of, “Stone man on my chest / Can’t speak, can’t move,” is not poetic exaggeration, it is sleep paralysis in its rawest form. As someone who also deals with Sleep Paralysis, that suffocating weight and split-second panic where your body refuses to respond is the absolute worst, the band also explained it plainly:

‘Nightmare Tripping’ is the uncertainty between dreams and reality. When the paralysis demon holding you down forces you to confront what you’ve tried to escape by going to sleep, blurring the boundaries of consciousness.

In total contrast to that terror, collaborating on the song with Nickelback was a dream come true. Chad and Ryan were incredible to team up with, and shooting the video in a burnt out L.A haunted house was an experience we’ll never forget.

That tension between terror and dream collaboration runs through the entire track, as Nickelback have also been very comfortable with risk taking as part of their core identity.

Walking The Razor’s Edge

With Nickelback stepping into the song, the nightmare becomes more relational; “You looked like war” is extremely direct and when the line “You looked like her” surfaces, it feels like a type of projection where a past trauma is replaying itself in a different face.

Musically, the song jumps from metal screams to rock radio ready choruses, something that Nickelback would have been immediately drawn to as guitarist Ryan Peake explained to us in 2022:

I’m a sucker for a pop hook! I mean, I like to write songs and I like to write things that are catchy to me and if I think if I did rock all the time, or pop all the time or folk music, I think I would just get tired of it.

So I like all these kind of things and then that’s been the razor’s edge for us to walk is that we do all these things, and probably take a lot of heat for not being more of one or more of the other, but at this stage of our career I don’t give it much attention, I hope you enjoy what we’ve done and that’s kind of where we’re at with this.

Don Broco – Nightmare Tripping (feat. Nickelback) Lyrics In Full

Confronting The Demon

Outside of the collaboration with Nickelback, what makes “Nightmare Tripping” hit is the idea that the demon at the end of the bed might be anxiety, grief, self-doubt, or something more personal.

The Meaning Behind Don Broco’s “Nightmare Tripping” (feat. Nickelback) is that it’s not simply a heavy single with a high-profile guest. It’s about that moment between dreams and waking, where paralysis will force you to look directly at what you have been avoiding.

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