Sum 41: It all adds up to the music
SUNDAY NEWS (Lancaster, PA)
April 14, 2002
By MaryAlice Bitts
It's 2 p.m., and Deryck Whitby says he is still drunk from the night before. He's running an hour late. He also has a cold, and he's riding in a tour bus, on his way to a baseball game that someone else has decided he would attend.
And he hates baseball games.
There are probably many better ways for the lead singer/guitarist and songwriter of chart-topping band Sum 41 to begin his day. Still, he said cheerfully, it could be worse.
"It's hard for things not to be fun in this business," he said with a quick, light laugh. "I don't understand (rock stars) who are miserable all the time. This is a fun profession."
Coming from Whitby, this is an understatement. Sum 41 is almost as well-known for its offstage shenanigans as it is for its music -- a tightly wound, high-octane, hypo-attitude hybrid of pop-punk, skate rock and metal, with just a few subtle twists, turns and time shifts to keep it interesting.
The band will bring that edgy brand of youthful rebellion and melodic punk/metal to Millersville University's Pucillo Gymnasium at 8 p.m. Friday, April 19, with Autopilot Off as opening act for Sum 41's "Sum Like It Loud" tour.
A quartet of young men who still live with their parents when not on tour, the members of Sum 41 have very quickly gone from being an unknown group in Ajax, Ontario, Canada, to Rolling Stone and Spin magazines' Readers' Choice picks for
Band of the Year. And they are taking full advantage of their new rock 'n' roll celebrity status -- in stereotypical rock star/young Spinal Tap style.
"I went with, like, eight girls last night!" said Whitby, speaking very quickly. "We have this new game where we randomly start making out with girls when they're not expecting it. It's amazing!"
How much of this is actual youthful debauchery and how much is egged on by marketing gurus are cause for debate. Throughout the interview, it is hard to tell when Whitby is putting us on. Sum 41 members not only gleefully recount tales of teen pranks, wild, drunken adventures with female groupies and trails of trashed hotel rooms left in their wake, they've actually recorded their pranks with a video camera and transferred the highlights onto a DVD, which was released last month.
"All of the stories, they're all true," Whitby insisted. "Even the really bad stuff!"
IN ANY CASE, while Sum 41's antics draw attention, it's their music that has drawn fans' praise. Often compared to Blink 182 and Green Day, Sum 41's songs feature catchy, melodic lines driven by edgy, crunchy power chords, and the band plays them with crackling energy, both live and on disc. The fact that they work snippets of different musical styles into their songwriting -- drawing from hip-hop, rock and metal -- is notable.
Whitby lists an unlikely mishmash of musical influences. In addition to Guns 'N Roses, Nirvana and the Beatles, he said he likes Stereolab, System of a Down and Frank Sinatra.
"We're big fans of all types of music," Whitby said. "A lot of times we do different kinds of stuff because we hear something and say, "I love that band! Do you think we could do something like that? Maybe we can write a song like that.' And we do. That's how it kind of happens."
This blended sound supports lyrics that extol some of the favorite themes of the young: relationships, rock and raucous rebellion.Sum 41's first hit single, "Fat Lip," produced by Green Day/Blink 182 producer Jerry Finn, put the group squarely on the punk/pop map. Severalsingles and one album later, they've moved into more of a metal direction, tossing in flashy metal-guitar riffs and incorporating heavy-metal gimmicks into their live shows. And their fans have willingly come along for the ride.
Whitby jokes that the band is moving toward more of a heavy-metal sound, "because I hate pop punk; it's so happy. No, I'm kidding. It's just that I'm getting really sick of it, and we've always loved metal. We just wanted to do something different."
The band's transition to a more metal sound was not without parody. The video for their single "Pain for Pleasure" shows Whitby, aka Bizzy D, and bandmates Steveo Jocz (drums), Dave "Brownsound" Baksh (guitar and vocals) and Jay "Cone" McCaslin (bass) in full metal regalia, Spandex, poodle wigs and all.
When asked if the video is a parody or a tribute, he replies: "Both. It's a tribute, more.
"We were all into that music. We love it; we're still looking into it. But we realize that some parts of it are kind of cheesy; I mean, the clothes and stuff like that. But we still love it. We're laughing at ourselves."
Along the same lines, when asked if the Beatles and Nirvana helped him craft his melodic lines, he jokingly replied, "We're not that good. We have everyone fooled so far. There are so many bands out there who are so much better."
AT 22, WHITBY is the oldest of the group. Spiky-haired, fidgety and funny, he is
respectful and friendly. When the interviewer misses a punch line, he politely explains himself without a hint of sarcasm. After his cell phone cuts out, and he is told that the interviewer hadn't heard a word he just said, he man who sometimes performs in front of a huge backdrop image of a devil and a mud flap girl, singing: "I'll never fall in line/ become a victim of your conformity!"
He is also the most group's most popular member, garnering most of the group's fan mail and often inspiring young female band members to throw their underwear his way during live performances, in a modern incarnation of Tom Jones concerts.
But Tom Jones concerts were never quite like this. High-energy, rabble-rousing affairs, the shows are flashy and professional, with many extras for the band members, just out of their teens.
In some performances, Whitby has asked -- again, politely -- "Would any of the chicks in the audience want to come up on stage and make out invariably do.
This is heady stuff for a 22-year-old, who was living in obscurity just a year and a half ago in a suburb of Toronto.
When asked what the biggest change in his life has been over the past year, he responds with startling ebullience: "Money! Everything is sort of for free, now. We get everything for free. That's a big change! Nobody ever just gave me stuff before. You go on trips around the world. We got to go to Japan, and it's all free. It's not costing us anything!"
Go to the Top
April 14, 2002
By MaryAlice Bitts
It's 2 p.m., and Deryck Whitby says he is still drunk from the night before. He's running an hour late. He also has a cold, and he's riding in a tour bus, on his way to a baseball game that someone else has decided he would attend.
And he hates baseball games.
There are probably many better ways for the lead singer/guitarist and songwriter of chart-topping band Sum 41 to begin his day. Still, he said cheerfully, it could be worse.
"It's hard for things not to be fun in this business," he said with a quick, light laugh. "I don't understand (rock stars) who are miserable all the time. This is a fun profession."
Coming from Whitby, this is an understatement. Sum 41 is almost as well-known for its offstage shenanigans as it is for its music -- a tightly wound, high-octane, hypo-attitude hybrid of pop-punk, skate rock and metal, with just a few subtle twists, turns and time shifts to keep it interesting.
The band will bring that edgy brand of youthful rebellion and melodic punk/metal to Millersville University's Pucillo Gymnasium at 8 p.m. Friday, April 19, with Autopilot Off as opening act for Sum 41's "Sum Like It Loud" tour.
A quartet of young men who still live with their parents when not on tour, the members of Sum 41 have very quickly gone from being an unknown group in Ajax, Ontario, Canada, to Rolling Stone and Spin magazines' Readers' Choice picks for
Band of the Year. And they are taking full advantage of their new rock 'n' roll celebrity status -- in stereotypical rock star/young Spinal Tap style.
"I went with, like, eight girls last night!" said Whitby, speaking very quickly. "We have this new game where we randomly start making out with girls when they're not expecting it. It's amazing!"
How much of this is actual youthful debauchery and how much is egged on by marketing gurus are cause for debate. Throughout the interview, it is hard to tell when Whitby is putting us on. Sum 41 members not only gleefully recount tales of teen pranks, wild, drunken adventures with female groupies and trails of trashed hotel rooms left in their wake, they've actually recorded their pranks with a video camera and transferred the highlights onto a DVD, which was released last month.
"All of the stories, they're all true," Whitby insisted. "Even the really bad stuff!"
IN ANY CASE, while Sum 41's antics draw attention, it's their music that has drawn fans' praise. Often compared to Blink 182 and Green Day, Sum 41's songs feature catchy, melodic lines driven by edgy, crunchy power chords, and the band plays them with crackling energy, both live and on disc. The fact that they work snippets of different musical styles into their songwriting -- drawing from hip-hop, rock and metal -- is notable.
Whitby lists an unlikely mishmash of musical influences. In addition to Guns 'N Roses, Nirvana and the Beatles, he said he likes Stereolab, System of a Down and Frank Sinatra.
"We're big fans of all types of music," Whitby said. "A lot of times we do different kinds of stuff because we hear something and say, "I love that band! Do you think we could do something like that? Maybe we can write a song like that.' And we do. That's how it kind of happens."
This blended sound supports lyrics that extol some of the favorite themes of the young: relationships, rock and raucous rebellion.Sum 41's first hit single, "Fat Lip," produced by Green Day/Blink 182 producer Jerry Finn, put the group squarely on the punk/pop map. Severalsingles and one album later, they've moved into more of a metal direction, tossing in flashy metal-guitar riffs and incorporating heavy-metal gimmicks into their live shows. And their fans have willingly come along for the ride.
Whitby jokes that the band is moving toward more of a heavy-metal sound, "because I hate pop punk; it's so happy. No, I'm kidding. It's just that I'm getting really sick of it, and we've always loved metal. We just wanted to do something different."
The band's transition to a more metal sound was not without parody. The video for their single "Pain for Pleasure" shows Whitby, aka Bizzy D, and bandmates Steveo Jocz (drums), Dave "Brownsound" Baksh (guitar and vocals) and Jay "Cone" McCaslin (bass) in full metal regalia, Spandex, poodle wigs and all.
When asked if the video is a parody or a tribute, he replies: "Both. It's a tribute, more.
"We were all into that music. We love it; we're still looking into it. But we realize that some parts of it are kind of cheesy; I mean, the clothes and stuff like that. But we still love it. We're laughing at ourselves."
Along the same lines, when asked if the Beatles and Nirvana helped him craft his melodic lines, he jokingly replied, "We're not that good. We have everyone fooled so far. There are so many bands out there who are so much better."
AT 22, WHITBY is the oldest of the group. Spiky-haired, fidgety and funny, he is
respectful and friendly. When the interviewer misses a punch line, he politely explains himself without a hint of sarcasm. After his cell phone cuts out, and he is told that the interviewer hadn't heard a word he just said, he man who sometimes performs in front of a huge backdrop image of a devil and a mud flap girl, singing: "I'll never fall in line/ become a victim of your conformity!"
He is also the most group's most popular member, garnering most of the group's fan mail and often inspiring young female band members to throw their underwear his way during live performances, in a modern incarnation of Tom Jones concerts.
But Tom Jones concerts were never quite like this. High-energy, rabble-rousing affairs, the shows are flashy and professional, with many extras for the band members, just out of their teens.
In some performances, Whitby has asked -- again, politely -- "Would any of the chicks in the audience want to come up on stage and make out invariably do.
This is heady stuff for a 22-year-old, who was living in obscurity just a year and a half ago in a suburb of Toronto.
When asked what the biggest change in his life has been over the past year, he responds with startling ebullience: "Money! Everything is sort of for free, now. We get everything for free. That's a big change! Nobody ever just gave me stuff before. You go on trips around the world. We got to go to Japan, and it's all free. It's not costing us anything!"
Go to the Top
Labels: deryck whitby, mary alice bitts, MaryAlice Bitts, sum 41
posted by MaryAlice Bitts at 9:29 AM
<< Home