'Nother new Cone interview
Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2007 3:12 am
SUM 41 CHUCKS METAL IN FAVOUR OF UNDERCLASS HERO
CAROLYN NIKODYM / [email protected]
Although Sum 41 took well over a year off from touring, you could hardly say that the group fell off the radar screen.
Not only did frontman Deryck Whibley marry his pop punk princess, Avril Lavigne, but each of Sum’s parts started to create their own wholes. Whibley worked on his producing career, and lent his talents to the likes of Tommy Lee and Iggy Pop. Steve Jocz has been having fun both in front of and behind the camera and drum kit, while Jason “Cone†McCaslin was finally able to record and release an album with The Operation MDâ€â€a side project with Todd Morse (H2O and Juliette and the Licks). Oh yeah, and McCaslin also played the stay-at-home husband to his girlfriendâ€â€Ã¢â‚¬ÂI was, like, the cook and the maid.â€Â
Why the time off? Well, as McCaslin explains it, after recording and touring (playing in the neighbourhood of 200 to 300 shows a year) for almost a decade, it was time to slow things down a bit.
“It was being burnt out. I guess it’s hard for people to understand if they’re not in a band, or if they’re not touring as much as we do. People are always kind of, like, ‘Oh, you guys are so tired ... how can you not like what you’re doing right now?’ Everyone’s, like, ‘I would die to be doing what you are doing right now,’†McCaslin says. “But the fact is, until you actually do what we do, and you tour for 300 days a year, for eight years in a row ... you just get really burnt out.â€Â
“It did just become like we were a song machine,†he adds. “The label was, like, ‘Alright, we need a new album,’ and we were, ‘Alright, fuck, write some more songs, record them and go on tour again.’â€Â
The hiatus afforded the band the luxury to practice like it hadn’t since its beginnings in Ajax, Ontario, since high school. For Sum 41’s last album, July’s Underclass Hero, the boys got to play around with the songs for something like eight months before heading to the studio.
“We wanted to take time on this one, really step back and evaluate our band and choose what we want to do. We don’t want to spit songs out again,†he explains. “We just wanted to be a grass-roots bandâ€â€like, play in a room, just the three of us, for months and months. It felt like starting over again. Like, there’s no one around, just the three of us in a room for eight months. It felt like we were in high school again, like we were a small band starting out.â€Â
McCaslin is quick to set me straight, however, about how last year’s departure of guitarist Dave Baksh may or may not have affected the band’s sound. Underclass Hero brings fans back to All Killer No Filler and away from the heavier metal sound of Chuck.
“It was actually one of the reasons Dave left, because we weren’t going in the metal direction anymore,†McCaslin says unequivocally. “It just has to do with having time off and re-evaluating what we did best. We did Chuck and it was a heavy and a hard album and we liked that album, but it’s time to move on. We’re not going to keep on going in that direction, or else we’d make a Slayer album. And that’s not Sum 41.
“We didn’t want to make All Killer No Filler all over again. We wanted to make it in that same fun, same energy, but still evolve as a band as well.†V
Mon, Oct 15 (6:15 pm)
Sum 41
With Finger Eleven
Shaw Conference Centre, $44.50
http://www.vueweekly.com/articles/default.aspx?i=7280
CAROLYN NIKODYM / [email protected]
Although Sum 41 took well over a year off from touring, you could hardly say that the group fell off the radar screen.
Not only did frontman Deryck Whibley marry his pop punk princess, Avril Lavigne, but each of Sum’s parts started to create their own wholes. Whibley worked on his producing career, and lent his talents to the likes of Tommy Lee and Iggy Pop. Steve Jocz has been having fun both in front of and behind the camera and drum kit, while Jason “Cone†McCaslin was finally able to record and release an album with The Operation MDâ€â€a side project with Todd Morse (H2O and Juliette and the Licks). Oh yeah, and McCaslin also played the stay-at-home husband to his girlfriendâ€â€Ã¢â‚¬ÂI was, like, the cook and the maid.â€Â
Why the time off? Well, as McCaslin explains it, after recording and touring (playing in the neighbourhood of 200 to 300 shows a year) for almost a decade, it was time to slow things down a bit.
“It was being burnt out. I guess it’s hard for people to understand if they’re not in a band, or if they’re not touring as much as we do. People are always kind of, like, ‘Oh, you guys are so tired ... how can you not like what you’re doing right now?’ Everyone’s, like, ‘I would die to be doing what you are doing right now,’†McCaslin says. “But the fact is, until you actually do what we do, and you tour for 300 days a year, for eight years in a row ... you just get really burnt out.â€Â
“It did just become like we were a song machine,†he adds. “The label was, like, ‘Alright, we need a new album,’ and we were, ‘Alright, fuck, write some more songs, record them and go on tour again.’â€Â
The hiatus afforded the band the luxury to practice like it hadn’t since its beginnings in Ajax, Ontario, since high school. For Sum 41’s last album, July’s Underclass Hero, the boys got to play around with the songs for something like eight months before heading to the studio.
“We wanted to take time on this one, really step back and evaluate our band and choose what we want to do. We don’t want to spit songs out again,†he explains. “We just wanted to be a grass-roots bandâ€â€like, play in a room, just the three of us, for months and months. It felt like starting over again. Like, there’s no one around, just the three of us in a room for eight months. It felt like we were in high school again, like we were a small band starting out.â€Â
McCaslin is quick to set me straight, however, about how last year’s departure of guitarist Dave Baksh may or may not have affected the band’s sound. Underclass Hero brings fans back to All Killer No Filler and away from the heavier metal sound of Chuck.
“It was actually one of the reasons Dave left, because we weren’t going in the metal direction anymore,†McCaslin says unequivocally. “It just has to do with having time off and re-evaluating what we did best. We did Chuck and it was a heavy and a hard album and we liked that album, but it’s time to move on. We’re not going to keep on going in that direction, or else we’d make a Slayer album. And that’s not Sum 41.
“We didn’t want to make All Killer No Filler all over again. We wanted to make it in that same fun, same energy, but still evolve as a band as well.†V
Mon, Oct 15 (6:15 pm)
Sum 41
With Finger Eleven
Shaw Conference Centre, $44.50
http://www.vueweekly.com/articles/default.aspx?i=7280