San Quentin (song)

"San Quentin" is described as a hard rock and heavy metal song^[4][5][6] with elements of metalcore.^[7]

During an interview with WRAT radio station, lead vocalist Chad Kroeger spoke about the lyrical inspiration for "San Quentin", saying: "I met the San Quentin prison warden at a party. And I couldn't believe how young he was. I was, like, 'There's just no way that you're the warden of San Quentin', and everyone was, like, 'Yup. He is'. Guy Fieri's a buddy of mine, and I was at his birthday party a few years back. And the entire time we were talking, I'm speaking to this guy, but in my head all I could think about was, 'I'm gonna write a song called 'San Quentin'. That's it'. And I stuck it in my notes in my phone. And then once the riff was down, I think I screamed out this line, 'Can somebody please keep me the hell out of San Quentin?' And we just took it from there".^[8][9]

On August 26, 2022, students attending school at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia received a newsletter stating they were invited to attend and participate in a video shoot Nickelback will be hosting on August 30, 2022 for their forthcoming single, outside the Convocation Mall on campus.^{[10][11][12][13]}

In August 2022, Nickelback began posting small snippets and teasers of new music via their official social media accounts with the date "09.07.2022" being branded on the posts.^{[14][15][16][17]} "San Quentin" was officially released to radio and digital music retailers along with the official lyric video via YouTube on September 7, 2022.^[18][19][20] On September 14, 2022, a music video for the song was released.^[21]