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| Sum 41's Deryck Whibley |
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| Interviews - Band/Musician | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Geoff Isaac | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Wednesday, 03 October 2007 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Now several years and a few successful chart-topping CD"s and singles later, they"ve garnered international attention. The time between their new release Underclass Hero, and their last outing Chuck, saw guitarist Dave Baksh leave to explore classic heavy metal while the other members did side projects. The interview began with a passing mention of a famed independent record store that closed down after 50 plus years in business … Deryck Whibley: I’ve been hearing about that lately. The sad thing is that I’m not surprised that it’s closed down. It’s going that way. It’s been going that way for a while. It sucks but it’s not surprising at all. Is that somehow indicative of how the music business is changing?DW: Well definitely the music business is changing. Physical CDs are pretty much dead. Music is branching out in so many directions, there used to be just one or two kinds of punk and now there are dozens. How do you characterize your music? DW: I see us as just rock n’ roll. Our music comes from a wide variety and many different types of music like punk, heavy metal and older rock. I don’t see it as being just one thing. How do you define punk rock? DW: I don’t know. I mean, to me the thing that attracted me to it is the energy and the attitude. A lot of the bands I used to listen to, are actually really good. The melodies are great. I don’t really know how to define what punk rock really is. Is it just a personal thing? DW: It is yeah, but I don’t really think about it too much. When I was young it was all those things that attracted me to it and the fact that nobody really knew about it in my school. It was just me, Dean and a couple of the other guys. You guys grew up in a small town and your music grew out of boredom. DW: Yeah. Now your situation is rather different. Does the success inhibit any of the passion that drives your music? DW: No. Not at all. We’ve just been doing this long enough that this is what we do in our lives. Do you still get bored? DW: Oh yeah we get bored all the time, but it’s not in the same way of being in a small town and the boredom of going to high school every single day knowing that it doesn’t matter. It’s been said that John Lennon wrote what he felt, McCartney wrote what he thought and Harrison wrote what he saw. What do you write?
That’s what this new record seems to be about. You decided to produce it yourself? What led to this? DW: I really didn’t want to. I produced it more out of necessity because we were trying to look for a producer but there were really only a handful of guys that I actually really think are worth anything. We talked to all the people who I thought were really good but by the time we wanted to go to the studio it wouldn’t work out with anybody that we wanted to work with. It was about two weeks before it was supposed to start and we still didn’t have a producer so I just said “f**k It” why didn’t I just do it? Were you able to take more chances? DW: It wasn’t that we were able to take more chances because I would have done the same things I would have done regardless if there was a producer or not. If I have an idea I’m going to say “Hey I have an idea and this is what I want to do.” I don’t think it allowed me to do more things, it was just I was able to do things quicker because I didn’t have to check with anyone or say “Hey what do you think about this” because basically once the drums and the bass were done which we did right away in the first two weeks, then I was just on my own. I mean I play guitars, and everything else, so I was left alone to do whatever I wanted. You found yourself caught in a war zone while filming with War Child of Canada in the Republic of Congo. How has this affected your music? DW: You know people ask me that all the time like “how does that affect my life?”, “how did it affect my music?” I really don’t know how it has. I think anything you ever do in your life, every single thing, from the small to the biggest, every day of your life... I think all of those things end up coming out in defining your view of existence. You don’t really realize how it’s changed you or why it’s changed you. It just does. It just becomes a part of you. So I definitely think all of the experiences like the Congo and everything else in my life have definitely come out in my music somehow. But I can’t say “well I’m different now because of this and I choose this now because of that.” It just becomes a part of you. Is music becoming more political more proactive, and do you see this as a trend? DW: I think it always comes from a personal thing. I don’t think you can say something like that. Like politics or something that is going on in the world is a fad or a bandwagon thing. It’s just real life and either you ignore it or you are knowledgeable about it. You don’t have to be into politics because you’re in a band but if you are in band and you are into politics then there’s nothing wrong with that either. I don’t think it’s a new trend or anything, I just think it’s always going on. It’s just the certain kind of people who are getting into it. Mick Jagger is 64. Do you see yourself doing this when you’re 64? DW: I don’t think much past a couple of weeks. I definitely couldn’t see what I’m doing when I’m 64. I have no idea. What are your plans for music in the future? Do you see a new direction or are you just happy doing what you’re doing? DW: I don’t know what the direction would be, but I do think that every single one of our records always sounds really different from the one previous and this latest record is so different. It sounds like something we haven’t done before so I’m sure our next record will be something different. It will be something evolved from this. I’m sure there will be some kind of evolution for sure. Check out ACED's review of Sum 41's latest endeavor.          
3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved." |
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When it comes to success, Sum 41 followed the durable
workhorse: small town boys make it big.
A four-piece collective of bored high school students from a small town
in Canada
shaped tunes that were catchy and powerful, with brutally honest lyrics that defined
their exuberance and unapologetic youthful naiveté.
DW: I’m definitely all about feeling.
Everything in my life is all about how I feel about something, but I think what I write is what I’ve been through. Something I feel is honest.
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