New Deryck interview

[Phili]

Sum 41 is Back For Another Round

Last October 17, under the spotlights of Calgary's Saddledome, it was business as usual for Sum 41's Deryck Whibley.

"I jumped in the crowd, I jumped all over the place, and falling down and doing stupid sh-t," he says. "I jumped up on the drum kit and I guess I sat down too hard on the stool and it popped my disc out."

In one rock-and-roll second, Whibley destroyed his back and was "in the most pain [he's] ever been in."

As any Canadian fan who suddenly found themselves cursing Ticketmaster knows, the next day, the band's Strength in Numbers tour - which was to have raged across Canada and then overseas - was scrapped. As for Whibley, he was scooped into a wheelchair and shipped back home to L.A. The guy who'd expected to spend the rest of '07 playing his raucous pop-punk hits and launching himself into stadium crowds around the world, suddenly wasn't capable of doing anything but sit around, visit doctors and occasionally get snapped by paps -- should he feel be feeling peppy enough to join pop-star bride Avril Lavigne for some late-night karaoke or baby-swag shopping (as for the baby-on-the-way rumours those recent photos ignited, Whibley will only give a standoffish "no comment").

And while most dudes could think of a worse fate than getting your sloth on in a $9.5 million Bel Air mansion with a Maxim cover girl to keep you company, a mere week after the tour was chucked, Whibley found himself in the troubling position of watching his career slip away.

The singer says that radio stations who had sponsored Sum 41's (now-cancelled) gigs, began pulling first single, "Underclass Hero" from their playlists.

"All the stations we were supposed to play dropped our single. So when that happened, it was just the downward spiral of the record, and it just ended right there."

Whether or not it was directly related, around the same time in mid October, Sum 41's fifth album, Underclass Hero clung to the final rungs of the U.S. Billboard 200 -- just nine weeks after it debuted on the U.S. charts at No.7, a career high for the band; a peak made even higher by the fact the group had recently averted a near break-up in 2006. They'd ditched their management, parted ways with long-time lead guitarist Dave Baksh and pulled the weary pieces together to hone Underclass. Whibley himself has previously gone on record saying he'd contemplated ditching the band before making the album, but eventually stepped up as producer to ensure the project made it through.

"When this record came out, we were on a super high positive because we did this record on our own and there were all these obstacles in front of us and it came out and started out as our biggest record yet. Our single was taking off, we'd just shot a video, and it'd just come out like that week maybe and everything ended that moment," he says.

"In a way we were cheated out of this record," says Whibley.

Whibley says the time between his injury and now has been "a period of uncertainty."

"I didn't know when I was going to be OK, are we going to be able to go back on tour? Is this record going to be over by that point? Is the record company going to pick up this record again and go for another single?"

By January, Whibley says, life was becoming, if not normal, at least slightly less painful than usual. Finally able to move around like a healthy 27-year-old again, Whibley got bandmates Steve Jocz (drums) and Cone McCaslin (bass) back together for rehearsals so the band could make up for the lost time in Canada and overseas. As for radio, their third single "With Me" is just surfacing here in Canada, with a release elsewhere expected in April.

Four days into their make-up tour in the U.K., Whibley's already jokily grouching about the breakneck (back?) pace. "Of course, since we've been off for so long and because I'm injured they throw us into a four day in a row schedule," he says. The band returns to Canada March 7 with a stop in Moncton. From there, they'll work their way westward until they hit Toronto, March 27.

Though Whibley says the band was dedicated to "going back and playing all the things that we missed," already, their time in the Canadian motherland has been edited. The band is up for a Best Rock Album Juno, but won't be able to make the April 6 ceremony; they catch a flight to Australia the same day. As well, a stop in Hamilton has already been ditched; an official announcement appeared on Sum 41's website the day before this interview. Whibley says nobody informed him of the cancellation, and as of press time, the band's management had not responded to our query as to why the show was chucked from the itinerary. In any case, it had nothing to do with another rock-related injury.

Not that Whibley's now-aching back has changed the way he takes on a world tour. Though he says he's still in constant pain -- "When I get off and the whole day before I get onstage I feel like hell" -- it all changes come showtime. "It's so much adrenaline that you don't really feel," he says, "but there's been so many times on this tour so far I felt like I was going to jump into the crowd again, but I stopped myself."

"We're the same idiots we've always been."

SUM 41'S CANADIAN TOUR DATES:

March 7, Moncton
March 8, Halifax
March 9, Chicoutimi
March 10, Trois-Rivieres
March 12, Montreal
March 14, Sherbrooke
March 15, Quebec City
March 17, Barrie
March 18, Kingston
March 19, Oshawa
March 21, Windsor
March 22, London
March 25, Kitchener
March 26, North Bay
March 27, Toronto

http://www.dose.ca/music/story.html?id= ... f6&k=15205
----

This interview is proof that Deryck WAS actually injured for anyone (d4rkst4r) who thought that Deryck was faking. Deryck's injury almost ended their career.

[Bass Cone]

That interview scares me. It makes it seem like Sum 41 is going to break up.

[Phili]

How does it scare you? What it sounds like is that they had a scare before, but they're fine now.

[I'm A Cunt [*banned*]]

That interview scares me. It makes it seem like Sum 41 is going to break up.

your avatar match's mine 8)

Good interview. Thanks for posting.

It shouldn't scare you. it should show you the strength of Sum 41. Losing a member, almost breaking a back, AND losing loads of airplay cant stop them!

[Bass Cone]

Yeah I guess. But with all these "scares" it's scary. lol

[Mike]

geez underclass hero would of probably been a good hit if he didnt break his back

[Hentaiman]

Yeah, to be honest it scared me too, like their situation was super bad and they were going downhill...
but i'm glad everything's OK now.

[Gibsum 41]

glad they didnt break up for a silly reason like that

[Phili]

Yeah I guess. But with all these "scares" it's scary. lol

lol, I'd like you to find me a band without regular "scares".

[Bass Cone]

Yeah I guess. But with all these "scares" it's scary. lol

lol, I'd like you to find me a band without regular "scares".

I never said other bands didn't have scares.

[Phili]

I never said that you said that.

[SociallyInept]

Billy Talent doesn't have regular scares.

And wasn't his injury more around the time walking disaster was realeased, not underclass?

AND does that mean that after Japan and Australia, they aren't making up the goddamn Canadian dates they missed in Western Canada? Cause if that's the case I will be mega pissed

[Phili]

Billy Talent has their shares of scares.

And Underclass Hero was actually starting to do OK, but then Deryck injured his back and bad things happened and nothing at all happened with Walking Disaster because of that.

[Bass Cone]

I never said that you said that.

Oh, ok I interpreted that wrong.

[d4rkst4r]

Sucks that the people who sponsored them started pulling Underclass Hero from the radio station.

[HilgaMan]

Sucks that the people who sponsored them started pulling Underclass Hero from the radio station.

[Dylan]

Billy Talent has their shares of scares.

such as?

(don't say that they cancelled a few shows because a family member died, cause thats not really a "scare" so-to -speak)

[SociallyInept]

Well when was walking disater released as a single?

Because wiki says that Underclass was released May 15 and Walking Disaster was released July 23 so it would be more likely that his injury would cause the newer single to be pulled rather then the older one. I've personally never heard either of them on the radio, but I do hear With Me quite a bit. Damn close-minded radio stations...

[Phili]

Billy Talent has their shares of scares.

such as?

(don't say that they cancelled a few shows because a family member died, cause thats not really a "scare" so-to -speak)

I didn't even hear about that one, so chill out.

Um, Ben's been electrocuted, Aaron announced that he has MS, a disease that could prove to eventually be disastrous, Ian's had multiple issues with customs because of his hair...

[Dylan]

Um, Ben's been electrocuted, Aaron announced that he has MS, a disease that could prove to eventually be disastrous, Ian's had multiple issues with customs because of his hair...

never heard of Ben being electrocuted. Aaron has had MS well before they even got signed. they only announced it before they released their 2nd CD. And Ian's is funny. i mean, they can't hold him because his hair is suspicious. and he doesn't even do his hair until like 20 minutes before a public showing, he always wears that hat of his.

even so, these "scares" aren't as big as Sum 41's.