Warp Tour Interviews

[Emil]

Or they could just skip the whole " we need to release a slow song to attract the teeny boppers" thing. Release the heaviest gnarliest songs as singles instead.

[Jeremy Kill]

I always felt like bands went in a pattern of releasing singles in this order: fast, slow, fast, slow. At least, that was the pattern I noticed with all those boy bands and pop acts of the 90's.

Green Day kind of did it with American Idiot: title track, Boulevard of Broken Dreams, Holiday, Wake Me Up When September Ends, Jesus of Suburbia.

Sum 41 just seem to release whatever, but I'm hoping for more faster songs to be released as singles than slower ones (although it's most likely that piano ballad will be a single eventually. Especially the way it's talked about).

[Emil]

I don't think Boulevard of Broken Dreams is "that" kind of slow song. You know the songs that is about suicide or love or whatever. The only real ballad from that record is Wake Me Up When September ends. Deryck should take note of that, if you feel the need to sing about your daddy issues do it in the right way.

[Jeremy Kill]

I don't think Boulevard of Broken Dreams is "that" kind of slow song. You know the songs that is about suicide or love or whatever. The only real ballad from that record is Wake Me Up When September ends. Deryck should take note of that, if you feel the need to sing about your daddy issues do it in the right way.

True, for some reason when I listen to Wake Me Up When September Ends I relate to it better than Dear Father even though I still have my dad.

[Emil]

I don't think Boulevard of Broken Dreams is "that" kind of slow song. You know the songs that is about suicide or love or whatever. The only real ballad from that record is Wake Me Up When September ends. Deryck should take note of that, if you feel the need to sing about your daddy issues do it in the right way.

True, for some reason when I listen to Wake Me Up When September Ends I relate to it better than Dear Father even though I still have my dad.

You can relate that song to any loss actually. Like when it was released it was rumored to be about 9/11.

[Heather]

I called it "gay" like 4 minutes before you thanked me, or at the same time, so I never saw it. and once I did see it, I thought you followed my link from here.

fair enough, lets just call it a misunderstanding and move on

Yeah I'm pretty excited to hear the "car crash ballad", but I would like the first single to be more aggressive, which it usually is as someone said

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

I called it "gay" like 4 minutes before you thanked me, or at the same time, so I never saw it. and once I did see it, I thought you followed my link from here.

fair enough, lets just call it a misunderstanding and move on

Yeah I'm pretty excited to hear the "car crash ballad", but I would like the first single to be more aggressive, which it usually is as someone said

car crash ballad?

did i miss something in these interviews? did they say they had a car crash ballad on the record? or are we assuming they'll have one like they usually do? :)

[Heather]

yeah, my bad, guess its a heavy song..but steve said "hit ballad" in the studio update, guess we'll just have to see

"He got out of his car and ran over and the person was lying there dead," McCaslin recounts. "That's the one song that jumped out at me. It's a pretty heavy song."

[Jeremy Kill]

yeah, my bad, guess its a heavy song..but steve said "hit ballad" in the studio update, guess we'll just have to see

"He got out of his car and ran over and the person was lying there dead," McCaslin recounts. "That's the one song that jumped out at me. It's a pretty heavy song."

I think they mean "heavy" as in really emotional. It's just Deryck and a piano right? It could be a nice ender to the album I think. I can't wait to hear it.

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

yeah, my bad, guess its a heavy song..but steve said "hit ballad" in the studio update, guess we'll just have to see

"He got out of his car and ran over and the person was lying there dead," McCaslin recounts. "That's the one song that jumped out at me. It's a pretty heavy song."

I think they mean "heavy" as in really emotional. It's just Deryck and a piano right? It could be a nice ender to the album I think. I can't wait to hear it.

HOW DO YOU KNOW ALL OF THIS??

I must of missed a lot, if this is true, its probably a beautiful piece.

[Jake-41]

yeah, my bad, guess its a heavy song..but steve said "hit ballad" in the studio update, guess we'll just have to see

"He got out of his car and ran over and the person was lying there dead," McCaslin recounts. "That's the one song that jumped out at me. It's a pretty heavy song."

I think they mean "heavy" as in really emotional. It's just Deryck and a piano right? It could be a nice ender to the album I think. I can't wait to hear it.

HOW DO YOU KNOW ALL OF THIS??

I must of missed a lot, if this is true, its probably a beautiful piece.

One of them er' interviews, dog.

[Jeremy Kill]

yeah, my bad, guess its a heavy song..but steve said "hit ballad" in the studio update, guess we'll just have to see

"He got out of his car and ran over and the person was lying there dead," McCaslin recounts. "That's the one song that jumped out at me. It's a pretty heavy song."

I think they mean "heavy" as in really emotional. It's just Deryck and a piano right? It could be a nice ender to the album I think. I can't wait to hear it.

HOW DO YOU KNOW ALL OF THIS??

I must of missed a lot, if this is true, its probably a beautiful piece.

I got them from one of the Warped Tour interviews.

Their as-yet-untitled fifth album, which Whibley says should be out in October, is “pretty eclectic, pretty aggressive and more of an album than a collection of songs.” He cites one piano ballad as an artistic high point, “a song that’s just me and a piano that everyone will think is about my breakup, even though it’s been around for five years.”

[soft-punker]

They sold 45 million albums worldwide, thanks to the suburban snark of singles “Fat Lip” and “In Too Deep” off their hit 2001 album, All Killer No Filler.

Lol. It can't be true. They sold about 7 million albums worldwide.

[Heather]

IndyConcerts.com

On paper, it looks like the marketing committee for the Vans Warped Tour decided to aim for younger audiences and book newer bands.
Search a little deeper, and you’ll see that haven’t forgot about the veterans bands. The ones who have graced the stages several times before and probably went to just was many when they were the same age as most of this year’s attendees.
Which now brings us to today’s guest: frontman/guitarist for Sum 41, Deryck Whibley.
It’s been nearly two years since we last saw our favorite Canadian punk band. With a new album due out later this year, Sum 41 will be appearing on the Glamour Kills Stage all summer long. Before they took the stage, Whibley sat down with IndyConcerts.com to discuss being on Warped, writing songs, near-death experiences and more.

How do you feel today?
Pretty good. Just kind, sort of waking up a little bit. (laughs)

Enjoying Indianapolis?
This is the most I’ve seen of it today. Just been in the bus all day, until I woke up. I’m sure it’s great though.

And you perform last today?
Yeah, yeah I guess we are. I don’t know, I didn’t see who else was on after us. We’re on at 7:45 I think?

How has the tour been so far?
Been great. It’s been really fun. All the shows have been awesome. Crowds have been amazing. It’s good.

How many times on Warped will this be for you?
I have no idea. I’ve been going to it and playing it since ‘96. So I’ve probably been to probably five before we even played it and I’ve probably played about five.

How does this one compare to ones in the past?
This one it actually, it feels a little bit different. Just ’cause I don’t really know anybody. I don’t know any bands and not only do I not know them, I’ve never even heard of them. Normally every time I’ve ever been part of it, I usually know a lot of people on it, a lot of bands, but I just don’t know anybody.

Any theories behind that?
No not really. I don’t know.

They’re just booking a bunch of new bands?
Who knows? I don’t know…it’s not my job to really think about that. I show up and play for 30 minutes.

How’s catering?
It’s always the same, you know. We’re used to Warped Tour catering. It’s good sometimes. Sometimes it’s not as good. Sometimes (we) try to go out for food and go to a restaurant just to get a different scenery.

Met anyone cool yet?
No, not yet. No I have not really met anybody yet. I’m interested in meeting some people.

Anything new you’ve been working on?
Yeah we just finished our record. It’s done. It’s being mixed and nit’s sort of out of our hands at that point. It’s up to the record company to figure out how they can put it out, in their schedule…all that s–t. I don’t know anything about that. So it’s done. We’ve done our part. Waiting for everybody else to put the plan together and release it. It should be this year though, I think. In the next few months.

Anyone coming on tour you’re excited about?
Pennywise is coming on pretty soon, so we’re pretty excited about that. We’ve been good friends with them for a long time. It would’ve been cool to have NOFX out here, but that’s just for our own, sort of selfish reasons I guess (laughs).

Any bands out there you just want to tour with in general?
Not really, it’s ’cause it’s not, it has nothing to do with any other bands, or anything against other bands or for any other bands. It’s…touring for me and for us, like our band, is just, it’s just so focused on our own set, you know? What we’re doing and what we’re there to do, but I don’t care really who plays with us or who we play with. It’s kind of irrelevant to me. It’s cool if you get along with everybody, but I don’t ever like really think ‘okay I would like to tour with this band ’cause I like this band.’ That doesn’t mean anything to me. If I like a band, I’d rather just go watch them play. So yeah, I honestly don’t care who we play with or where we play. Throw a stage up, we’ll play on it.

As long as you can play?
It’s more about like the amount of audience that’s gonna be there. It’s not who as (much) who as is on the bill.

Any crazy stuff happen on the bus yet?
Yeah actually. Second show I think it was. Third show. Our bus driver was completely f—ing hammered and I didn’t realize this at first. Like we were all on the bus just having drinks and playing dice and s–t. Things are flying, like he’s just all over the road. The whole bus just keeps swaying, we’re all like ‘what the f–k is going on?,’ and then things are flying out of cupboards and s–t like that. Like what the hell is going on with this guy? Anyway, this goes on for hours. I don’t really sleep that much, so everyone else had gone to bed. It’s about 6 in the morning. I’m the last one up just watching a movie and he’s so out of control. I’m like ‘okay, I gotta see what’s going on.’ So I start looking at the front, I’m watching the road from behind him. He doesn’t even know I’m there and he’s just all over the f—ing place. I’m starting to think ‘I think this guy is drunk,’ and so anyway we see a stop sign about 40 feed ahead and it’s a dead end, we’re on a straight road, it’s like a dead end, you have to go right or left…and then it’s just a big field and all these signs and s–t. We’re doing like 60 coming at this stop sign. I’m like ‘wow, this is gonna be a hard stop,’ like I’m starting to brace myself ’cause we’re coming to a stop sign and then we get closer and closer and I realize, he’s not stopping at that stop sign (laughs). He blows right through it into the field and then he slams on the brakes and we kind of skid a bit and that’s when I freaked out and ripped him out of the seat and sort him out a bit. Got the tour manager and fired him on the spot and…then some other bus driver showed up for the rescue. Good thing it was 6 in the morning and there wasn’t, like anybody else on that intersection, or it wasn’t a f—ing wall we were hitting.

Anything else like that happen since then?
No that’s about it so far.

What’s been playing on your iPod lately?
It’s always been the same for the past, I don’t know how many years. It’s Stones, The Faces, Beatles, Elvis Costello, Dylan, Top Petty. That’s about it really.

Any concerts you’re hoping to catch this summer?
I was gonna say Petty. I wanna see Petty, but we’re gonna be on tour.

A lot of work for you ahead.
We’re just starting up, so. We’ve been off the road almost three years. Two years.

Does it feel good to be back?
Yeah totally.

Did you miss it a little bit?
Yeah you always miss it. Once you’ve been away form it for a while. Then you start to miss home. Back and forth.

Anything you’re looking forward to for future shows?
Honestly just the performance really. I mean, that’s the whole reason we’re here. Every show has been great so far, so I imagine it will continue that way.

Braving the heat?
We hang out in the bus the majority of the time. The shows can be a little hot, but we’re used to it.
What do you like to do on the bus?
I think we just kind of sit around, drink and play dice.

What influences you the most when you’re writing songs?

You know what? I think that when you’re writing, at least for me. There’s two ways I’ve noticed that you can write and I’ve done both ways. Where you can sit and think about something and stick with that thing. I’m gonna write a song about this and I want it to be like that and it’s gonna be like this and structure it. Or there’s the you kind of sit around and you play and the first thing that kind of comes in your head, you know, the first line that comes to your head. You kind of run with that. It makes you think of something. Sort of like, almost like word association. Like the first thing that just comes to you when you think of something and you kind of go with that and that’s more of just sort of feeling it instead of thinking about it and both ways are fine but I go with the more feeling it so I don’t really know where it comes from. It’s like that moment of something makes me think of something and that line just made me think of the next line. I don’t know what it means yet. You know what I mean?

Drink of choice?
Well there’s not really one. It’s more about what time of day it is. It usually starts with white wine. Dinner time, if there’s food there, it could be red wine. Vodka, Jack. I usually drink vodka but do shots of Jack in between. That’s my kind of thing. Anything else? I don’t drink at all. Those are the four things.

You get one last show. Who do you play with and where?
Like what other bands? Hmm, I don’t know. I think it’s a tough question ’cause you can’t really answer it. there’s so many different places. There’s so many different artists.

Favorite venue?
I’ve had that question before, like ‘favorite city’ or something like that. It’s pretty much impossible to answer because there’s no favorite. There’s some that are equally as good. You know there’s like the five that are amazing. I love going to Japan, but I love going to the UK just as much. Never played South America so I don;t’ know what that would be like. Then touring North America, the convenience is the best…anywhere. You can get whatever you want, anytime you want. Everyone speaks the language. Every place is good. I think my favorite place to play is the world.

Want more Sum 41? Check out their brand new album “Screaming Bloody Murder,” in stores August 31.

[Heather]

BlareMagazine

They’ve had hit singles upon hit singles and after a well-deserved break, the Ajax group are back with the same attitude that propelled them to stardom. As drummer Steve Jocz and bassist Jason “Cone” McCaslin assured us at Vans Warped Tour in Toronto, their career in music isn’t close to being over.

You’re on Warped Tour and you’ve hit the Canadian stretch of the festival. How does it feel to be back in Toronto yet again?

Steve Jocz: Well it’s nice to see my lovely mother over there and my dad is..

Jason McCaslin: Getting drunk.

Jocz: Yes he’s getting drunk on our bus and probably stealing our beer with his buddy.

McCaslin: He’s probably going to have a couple, don’t you think?

Jocz: Oh, he’ll have a couple. Mom, are you driving? Well, there you go, driving drunk! No, we do not condone that. Our bus driver drove drunk at the beginning of the tour and we fired his ass! True story.

Kevin Lyman said you guys have been re-connecting with fans on the tour. Do you agree?

Jocz: Well it has been an awesome tour. We’ve only been off for like a year but it is good to be back. This is a great tour for us to be on, especially since we’re about to start things again. The crowds have been big, the reaction has been awesome and its been fun.

McCaslin: The reason we are doing this tour is so we can re-connect with fans since we haven’t done a big tour in the U.S. for a long time.

Jocz: But we will be doing one soon. After this we’re headed to Europe in September and then after a break for the holidays, we’ll probably come back to Canada in January or February. It’s not in stone but it will be happening.

Does the smaller stage play a major role in helping the band re-establish that connection?

Jocz: No, not really. There’s over five thousand kids everyday.

McCaslin: It doesn’t feel like a side stage to us when we play. Like it isn’t an arena, but it doesn’t matter what stage you’re on when you’re strictly playing for the fans.

You guys recently unveiled news about your upcoming fifth album Screaming Bloody Murder. What was it like heading back into the studio?

Jocz: Well we had only thought about doing a demo or an EP when we went into the studio so we didn’t have any expectations. Then we realized we had more than five songs to work with so it turned into a record. It kind of happened by accident.

McCaslin: It was a different process though because we rented out this house and we all kind of lived there..

Jocz: I didn’t live there. I was done in five days. You guys had your fancy princess palace to yourselves.

McCaslin: We kind of lived in this house which also had a recording studio in it. It was kind of cool because you’d wake up in the morning, walk across the hall in your pajamas and go into the studio to record. It was definitely a cool experience even though it was different. I’d do it again.

Since the process was different, what side of you does the new album show?

Jocz: I don’t know really. I think it is a very personal record and it relates to the last one as it was very honest. Like how do I say this…there is going to be stuff about “the relationship” and really how we all perceive the world.

McCaslin: I think that every album we’ve ever done from the beginning of time has been about what’s happened at the time. A lot of people are going to think that this is the divorce album for Deryck, it’s not.

Jocz: There’s like two songs.

McCaslin: Yeah, there’s two songs that relate to the whole break-up and the rest are just about other stuff we’ve been through.

Do you think your followers will become fans of the new material?

McCaslin: I think if they like Does This Look Infected? and Chuck then they’re going to love this.

Jocz: It’s the same sort of stuff we’ve played. Everything’s sophisticated and the melodies are great and it’s almost better than those two albums as we’ve grown since then but have kept the same vibe.

How much creativity do you think you have left in you as a group?

Jocz: Plenty! Like it seems like we’re old but we’re not. I’m only 28 and he’s 29.

McCaslin: The thing is with all these new inventions like YouTube and Twitter it’s hard not to be creative. Like we put up tour videos every two days and we do other social things like that everyday.

Jocz: I don’t think we plan on stopping anytime soon. Will that change when I’m in my 40s’? I don’t think I’ll be alive at that age (laughs). If so, probably.

McCaslin: Yeah, you’ll just have arthritis (laughs).

[Jake-41]

^ Thanks, I liked reading that one.

[Jeremy Kill]

McCaslin: I think that every album we’ve ever done from the beginning of time has been about what’s happened at the time. A lot of people are going to think that this is the divorce album for Deryck, it’s not.

Jocz: There’s like two songs.

McCaslin: Yeah, there’s two songs that relate to the whole break-up and the rest are just about other stuff we’ve been through.

"Without Me" and "Worst of Me."

Jocz: It’s the same sort of stuff we’ve played. Everything’s sophisticated and the melodies are great and it’s almost better than those two albums as we’ve grown since then but have kept the same vibe.

That's a word that describes exactly what I'd imagine this new album to be. Kind of like what Does This Look Infected? would sound like if it had pianos, vocal harmonies and all that or what Chuck would sound like if it had more upbeat melodies.

[DeryckW]

I would love an album that sounds like DTLI? if it have a track like Thanks for Nothing on it ; )

[Heather]

Album NOT coming out August 31st

[Jesus Christ Supermarket]

I knew it. The 12 minute song will definitely tell me if the new record is going to be worth the wait.