Post by Heather on Jul 6, 2010 17:20:12 GMT -5
[url=http://www.thestar.com/article/832705--after-the-hurricane-deryck-whibley-ready-for-another-grueling-year
]The Star[/url]
After the hurricane: Deryck Whibley ready for another grueling year
Following some near disasters, including breakup with Avril Lavigne, Sum 41 frontman returns to the road
Usually the first week of touring is a breeze, compared to the eventual burnout that life on the road can cause a year later. But Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley is in the midst of a natural disaster.
“Yeah, we’re kind of in the middle of a hurricane right now,” says the singer, calling from Houston during the band’s first week of playing the Vans Warped Tour. “There’s a lot of stuff going on and we’re not sure if we’re going to be able to play today or not.”
The hurricane is the least of the band’s problems. A week ago, Whibley was forced to pull their bus driver off the wheel after their bus crash-landed in an open field en route to Ventura, Calif. The driver had been driving drunk and has since been replaced.
“But we’ve been close to death many times,” remarks Whibley casually, who wrote the single “We’re All to Blame” after gunshots rang out at his hotel during a promotional tour with War Child Canada in May 2004 to build awareness about the violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “We’re used to getting shot and bombed at. That’s kind of the way this band works.”
One week into a grueling schedule that will have the band on the road for the next year — including a Vans Warped stop at Arrow Hall Friday — Whibley says that “the Warped Tour crowds have been amazing.”
Relics of the pop-punk heyday of the early 2000s that saw bands like Good Charlotte and Blink 182 sell millions thanks to a hooky, propulsive style of punk that matched infectious energy with youthful narcissism, Sum 41, who formed as teenagers in Ajax, Ont., charted No. 1 on the Billboard charts and were certified platinum. 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.
Four albums later, Whibley is the first to admit their Canadian success story couldn’t happen today.
“The amount of support we got from our record company to let us tour and build a fan base for two years . . . they could never spend that money now. We were lucky enough that we had early success when you still could make a lot of money, enough to build a fan base around the entire world. We’re playing Vans . . . and we haven’t put out a record in three years.”
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.”
Whibley divorced from his wife, singer Avril Lavigne, in late 2009, citing “irreconcilable differences.” He had produced and played guitar on her album The Best Damn Thing. The union had made the two a pop-punk power couple — and upset Sum 41 fans greatly.
“A lot of our fans are really excited about us breaking up. Maybe because she’s pop and I’m punk,” remarks Whibley.
But does it really matter what his fans think?
“I don’t care what they think. That’s why I married her.”
No stranger to celebrity dating, Whibley famously entered a high-profile relationship with hotel heiress Paris Hilton during the midst of her newfound celebrity in 2003, thanks to the leak of her sex tape. Though fans remember the celebutante sporting Sum 41 T-shirts during the first season of her reality show The Simple Life, Whibley says that their relationship was veritably non-existent.
“The thing is, she was never my girlfriend; we were just hanging out a little bit. It was so weird to see someone who wasn’t famous suddenly become the biggest person in the world. And I got pulled in with that, too . . .
“If you added up all the time we saw each other it was probably two weeks, but 10 years later, people still ask me what it is was like. And to be honest, I don’t really remember. It was kinda, like . . . nothing.”
The musician is currently single.
]The Star[/url]
After the hurricane: Deryck Whibley ready for another grueling year
Following some near disasters, including breakup with Avril Lavigne, Sum 41 frontman returns to the road
Usually the first week of touring is a breeze, compared to the eventual burnout that life on the road can cause a year later. But Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley is in the midst of a natural disaster.
“Yeah, we’re kind of in the middle of a hurricane right now,” says the singer, calling from Houston during the band’s first week of playing the Vans Warped Tour. “There’s a lot of stuff going on and we’re not sure if we’re going to be able to play today or not.”
The hurricane is the least of the band’s problems. A week ago, Whibley was forced to pull their bus driver off the wheel after their bus crash-landed in an open field en route to Ventura, Calif. The driver had been driving drunk and has since been replaced.
“But we’ve been close to death many times,” remarks Whibley casually, who wrote the single “We’re All to Blame” after gunshots rang out at his hotel during a promotional tour with War Child Canada in May 2004 to build awareness about the violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “We’re used to getting shot and bombed at. That’s kind of the way this band works.”
One week into a grueling schedule that will have the band on the road for the next year — including a Vans Warped stop at Arrow Hall Friday — Whibley says that “the Warped Tour crowds have been amazing.”
Relics of the pop-punk heyday of the early 2000s that saw bands like Good Charlotte and Blink 182 sell millions thanks to a hooky, propulsive style of punk that matched infectious energy with youthful narcissism, Sum 41, who formed as teenagers in Ajax, Ont., charted No. 1 on the Billboard charts and were certified platinum. 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.
Four albums later, Whibley is the first to admit their Canadian success story couldn’t happen today.
“The amount of support we got from our record company to let us tour and build a fan base for two years . . . they could never spend that money now. We were lucky enough that we had early success when you still could make a lot of money, enough to build a fan base around the entire world. We’re playing Vans . . . and we haven’t put out a record in three years.”
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.”
Whibley divorced from his wife, singer Avril Lavigne, in late 2009, citing “irreconcilable differences.” He had produced and played guitar on her album The Best Damn Thing. The union had made the two a pop-punk power couple — and upset Sum 41 fans greatly.
“A lot of our fans are really excited about us breaking up. Maybe because she’s pop and I’m punk,” remarks Whibley.
But does it really matter what his fans think?
“I don’t care what they think. That’s why I married her.”
No stranger to celebrity dating, Whibley famously entered a high-profile relationship with hotel heiress Paris Hilton during the midst of her newfound celebrity in 2003, thanks to the leak of her sex tape. Though fans remember the celebutante sporting Sum 41 T-shirts during the first season of her reality show The Simple Life, Whibley says that their relationship was veritably non-existent.
“The thing is, she was never my girlfriend; we were just hanging out a little bit. It was so weird to see someone who wasn’t famous suddenly become the biggest person in the world. And I got pulled in with that, too . . .
“If you added up all the time we saw each other it was probably two weeks, but 10 years later, people still ask me what it is was like. And to be honest, I don’t really remember. It was kinda, like . . . nothing.”
The musician is currently single.