[M:0]
Post by Heather on Jan 14, 2010 19:11:29 GMT -5
2004 Article, but a good read....
Welcome To Hell
Sum 41 escapes war zone with Chuck
By: Karen Bliss
Everyone is safe and sound at the Toronto headquarters for War Child Canada, a charity to aid children affected by war. “It would seem that all our humanitarian work will now be done from these offices,” laughs Sum 41drummer Steve Jocz, aka Stevo.In May, thousand’s of miles away in Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo, the multi-platinum Toronto-based rock band; management assistant Jeff Marshall; War Child’s Dr. Samantha Nutt and Dr. Eric Hoskins; and producer/directors Adrian Calender and George Vale found themselves trapped in a war zone, where they were filming a documentary, now titled Rocked: Sum 41 In The Congo. Three months later, under happier circumstances, Nutt, Hoskins and three of the band members gather ‘round Marshall’s lap top in War Child’s front office – not for a debriefing, but to hear Sum 41’s new single, “We’re All To Blame,” from the forthcoming album, Chuck, (due Oct. 12), the follow-up to 2002’s Does This Look Infected? While the new disc is named after the Canadian United Nations volunteer who spearheaded the evacuation plan from the group’s hotel to the UN compound, none of the 13 tracks on Chuck are specifically about Sum 41’s life threatening experience there – not even the single. “That song was being written while we were in the Congo, so it doesn’t really have anything to do with the Congo,” says guitarist Dave “Brownsound” Baksh, 24, sitting in the boardroom, his right arm freshly bandaged from a voluntary wound, a new tattoo. “You can relate it to the Congo,” adds bassist Jason “Cone” McCaslin, 24. “You can relate it to lots of things,” says Stevo, 23. Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley, 24, who wrote the lyrics, is absent from the conversation, having just relocated to Los Angeles. “We’re hopelessly blissful and blind to all we are,” goes one line from the song, which juxtaposes an angry forceful vocal in the verse with a softer reflective chorus. “It’s about the state of the world today,” Whibley says on the phone line a few days later from the set of the “We’re All To Blame” video shoot. “Whatever we are as a society and culture, it’s taken a while to get to this point, and we’ve all contributed to it somehow. Everybody’s to blame, somewhat, even if it’s just ignorance or if there’s a direct involvement.”
The band, friends since high school in Ajax, Ont. , just east of Toronto, signed to Island/Def Jam in the U.S. and Aquarius in Canada after the guys showed their true colours, via an electronic press kit, complete with water-gun drive-bys and a pizza grab. Subsequent showcases at the now defunct Ted’s Wrecking Yard in Toronto included a trampoline and Martin Lawrence cut-out. Now, this very same cast of characters wanted to do its part to help children in war-torn countries. Greig Nori, Sum 41’s co-manager and frontman for Toronto rock band treble charger, sent War Child an email in January, inquiring how Sum 41 could get involved – a benefit concert, an album or, particularly, a trip oversees. Given information on the Sudan, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo to peruse, the band chose the Congo. Stevo, in particular, was passionate about going there, after reading historian Adam Hochschild’s 1999 book King Leopold’s Ghost, detailing the 1880s Belgian ruler’s colonization of the Congo and slaughter of millions. However, before Sum 41 could make the trip, it had to make a new album. Nori, who produced the band’s very first demos in 1996, and has produced all “ WELCOME TO BUKAVU, THE TOURIST CAPITAL OF THE CONGO” the recordings since, except for 2001’s All Killer No Filler, would again be behind the board. Matt Hyde (Slayer, Hatebreed, treble charger) was hired as engineer. After preproduction, in March, they went to L.A. to Sound City where Stevo laid down the drums. Then, to be closer to home, and more cost effective, they did the rest in Toronto at Reaction and Umbrella into early April. As usual Whibley wrote his lyrics at the eleventh hour. “He always comes through,” says Nori. The songs include the heavy metal assault of “The Bitter End,” complete with a speedy guitar solo to the acoustic launched “Slipping Away,” which contains cello and piano and beautiful gentle vocals from Whibley that barely sound like him. “Some Say” is almost pop with an Oasistype feel, and the closing track, “88,” goes from pounding rock to orchestral back to rock to menacing metal and dissonant new age/avant-garde. “For me, it’s the most substantial album they’ve done,” says Nori. “It’s got depth and long-lasting qualities. It’s a completely matured and positive indication of where they’re going.”
Back at the War Child offices, an appropriate setting for the interview, the guys say nothing of maturity and depth. The conversation, as usual, is filled with laughter and nutty comments from Baksh joking about pulling out a didgeridu onstage in the band’s newfound quieter moments to Whibley’s apparent adoration of Whoopi Goldberg and her Sister Act films. “The majority of the album is heavy. Some are heavier than others, like ‘Welcome To Hell,’” says Stevo. “But there’s also some of the softest songs we’ve ever done,” points out Cone. The softest, “Slipping Away,” Steve calls a “half-song,” originally intended to be an “intermission” between the album’s heavier material. “It’s only two minutes,” says Stevo. “Deryck played piano on it and there’s cello at the end. There’s acoustic guitars in parts, but it’s not like kumbaya acoustic.” Of “Some Say,” Stevo says, it’s clearly not pop. “No, none of them are pop songs, but that one is slower. There’s an acoustic guitar. It’s softer…” “It’s almost indie rock,” says Cone. “Without the tie-dye,” cracks Baksh. Cone: “It’s in the same vein as ‘Handle This’ from All Killer...” Baksh: “Same sort of idea, but it’s better, more melodic.” “The Bitter End,” Cone calls “a ripper.” Stevo: “That’s infl uenced by Metallica.” Baksh: “Fast and heavy. There’s a solo that goes on for a minute. They said, ‘Hey, make a solo that sounds like Kirk Hammett!’” Did he make faces too? “No, no, but I did get the hair plugs,” Baksh quips. Stevo: “He permed his hair.” “Angels With Dirty Faces” was named after Whibley read an article on Sum 41. “The journalist called us ‘angels with dirty faces,’ and was going off on how we do drugs,” recounts Stevo. Dirty with angel faces seems more accurate. “Yeah, far from angels,” Stevo laughs. “I love the fact that even Christians make fun of us,” says Baksh. “Next thing, it will be Scientologists. and Kabbalists,” deadpans Stevo. The album finale, “88,” is so titled because the tempo is 88 beats per minute – not because it goes in about 88 different directions. “On the last record,” says Cone, “we ended with ‘Hooch,’ which was a fast song, but had a soft sweet-sounding melodic part, but was really slow and unlike anything we had done. Deryck thought it would be cool to end it like that again, but make it longer.” Later on the cell, Whibley talks a little about the lyrics he writes so well under pressure. “There’s No Solution” is a personal song about self-doubt, while “The Bitter End” is about what happens when we die. “Angels With Dirty Faces” is about drugs, and “No Reason,” is about the “state of the world.” Originally, “No Reason” was supposed to be the first single, but the band wanted to insert a different chorus, taken from the song “No Control.” In fact, Sum 41 still had that to do, plus other tweaking to the album, when it took a break in late May to go to the Congo with War Child.
The violence in the Congo (formerly The Belgian Congo, then Zaire) has been on and off since King Leopold’s reign. The civil and regional war broke out again in 1998, partly over pressure attributed to the Rwandan genocide, but also over the country’s rich natural resources: oil, gold, diamonds, timber, and a mineral called coltan, commonly used in cell phones. For the documentary, which will be ready to shop to television networks in October, Sum 41’s agenda entailed visits to refugee camps and child soldier rehabilitation centres in Bukavu. Staying at The Orchid hotel on Lake Kivu, a UN-brokered peace accord deal had been in place for two years and the idyllic town, full of UN peacekeepers, had been calm for three. At the main entrance to the town, a big blue arched sign extends right across the road, declaring, “Welcome to Bukavu, the tourist capital of the Congo.” A week into their 9-day visit, the members of Sum 41 had experienced what Stevo calls “eye-opening” and “sometimes uncomfortable” talks with kids. “There were girls who had been raped. It was difficult to listen to, but I’m sure it was more difficult to tell, so it was important to have it be told. “Other times, it was fun,” says Stevo. “Dave and I met these girls, around (age) 10, accused of witchcraft, who had been kicked out of their houses, but they are normal, great girls, and all had crushes on Dave.” “You know, it turned out that they actually weren’t witches,” adds Baksh. “Then we just played soccer,” says Stevo. When they returned to the hotel, there was little to do, except drink, play dice, and sit in their rooms. The downtime would yield “We’re All To Blame.” Whibley awoke one day at 5 a.m., and, bored, picked up his guitar. “No one was up yet, so I started writing. I was working on the song all morning and then half-way through the day, all the guns and bombs started going off,” says Whibley. The song escaped him as he escaped danger. Dr. Nutt, War Child Canada’s executive director, says UN peacekeepers notified them that the Congolese had detained some senior Rwandan officials who were trying to pass back into Rwanda a kilometre away, and they went back into town and started “an old fashioned shoot ‘em up,” she relays. “We were in a hotel that was inconveniently placed – but conveniently close to the UN.” Cone says they could hear the popping of the mortar rounds and gunfire. “It was really close.” “It was day time,” adds Stevo. “You could see attack helicopters that are the UN’s, and you could hear bullets (fi red). And then, when they started shooting more around the hotel, the hotel shook.”
Enter Charles Pelletier, the now infamous Chuck, who hails from Victoria, BC and is camp manager at United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC). “He was a UN volunteer,” says Stevo. “He used to be in the Canadian military. He was staying at our hotel. When everything broke loose, he went into military mode.” Taking refuge in ground-fl oor rooms, Pelletier herded the hotel’s 40 or so occupants into the lobby in small groups, along with two senior South African peacekeepers. Together, they ran with everyone to armored personnel carriers, which took them to the UN compound just a half-kilometer away. There was reportedly no Seinfeld or Almost Famous about-to-die moment, confessions of love, hate, hit and runs, or sleeping with another’s girlfriend. “Everybody was just really quiet. There’s not much to talk about,” says Stevo. “The only thing you’re going to do by getting all vocal and weird is freak everybody else out,” says Baksh. “I did yell at a few people because they were taking so fuckin’ long,” remembers Stevo. “Chuck was like, ‘You can’t bring anything. You’re about to die.’ ‘Well, can I bring my computer or my make-up bag?’ ‘No. Put it down. Let’s leave.’” “When we all got to the UN compound, it was all hugs and kisses,” says Cone. But there was still more danger ahead. Eric Hoskins, War Child Canada’s president who is married to Nutt; information officer Sebastien Lapierre, the group’s Canadian contact at the UN; and Igor Bulgakov, a senior UN military offi cial at the joint operations centre had to get a different set of 40 people (there were about a thousand assembled at the compound) to the Bukavu airport, about a 90-minute bus ride away – which meant driving 10 minutes right through enemy territory heavily occupied by gun-toting rebels – to government-held territory. War Child Canada had chartered a plane and called pilot Lary Strietzel of Ugandabased MAF airline, which was on stand-by. He bravely came to get them in the middle of the turmoil (not 24 hours later, rebels surrounded the airport and killed a number of government troops and civilians). The party of nine took the two-hour fl ight to Uganda, where they decompressed for a few days, before fl ying to the U.K. and eventually home. Whibley visited a friend, then rejoined the guys for shows in the U.K. and U.S., and didn’t get back to Toronto until two weeks later. “The day that I got home, I started playing my guitar and started playing this song,” Whibley recounts of “We’re All To Blame.” “I was really surprised that I remembered it because while we were there, there was no electricity, so I couldn’t record it. It was just in my head. And then the war started. “So when I got home, I remembered it exactly. I thought that was a really good sign, so I made a quick little demo of the part that I remembered and I showed it to Greig and people in my record company, and everyone said, ‘That’s the best song on the album. You have to finish that.’” So they did, finally completing the album.
Sum 41 doesn’t know yet how Chuck feels about his name gracing the cover of its third full-length album, but, by all accounts, it could’ve been called Sebastien or Igor or Eric or Lary. Getting one of Canada’s top bands safely home, and ready to rock, was a collective effort. And the guys may never wish to repeat the event, but they will undoubtedly repeat the story, perhaps embellishing the danger with every telling, and will be inextricably involved with War Child Canada. As Stevo puts it so well: “All hell broke loose and we almost died, but I didn’t have this religious epiphany. Given what happened to all of us, we’re still pretty grounded. I just look at the world a little differently now. I’d just like to help more. ”
Welcome To Hell
Sum 41 escapes war zone with Chuck
By: Karen Bliss
Everyone is safe and sound at the Toronto headquarters for War Child Canada, a charity to aid children affected by war. “It would seem that all our humanitarian work will now be done from these offices,” laughs Sum 41drummer Steve Jocz, aka Stevo.In May, thousand’s of miles away in Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo, the multi-platinum Toronto-based rock band; management assistant Jeff Marshall; War Child’s Dr. Samantha Nutt and Dr. Eric Hoskins; and producer/directors Adrian Calender and George Vale found themselves trapped in a war zone, where they were filming a documentary, now titled Rocked: Sum 41 In The Congo. Three months later, under happier circumstances, Nutt, Hoskins and three of the band members gather ‘round Marshall’s lap top in War Child’s front office – not for a debriefing, but to hear Sum 41’s new single, “We’re All To Blame,” from the forthcoming album, Chuck, (due Oct. 12), the follow-up to 2002’s Does This Look Infected? While the new disc is named after the Canadian United Nations volunteer who spearheaded the evacuation plan from the group’s hotel to the UN compound, none of the 13 tracks on Chuck are specifically about Sum 41’s life threatening experience there – not even the single. “That song was being written while we were in the Congo, so it doesn’t really have anything to do with the Congo,” says guitarist Dave “Brownsound” Baksh, 24, sitting in the boardroom, his right arm freshly bandaged from a voluntary wound, a new tattoo. “You can relate it to the Congo,” adds bassist Jason “Cone” McCaslin, 24. “You can relate it to lots of things,” says Stevo, 23. Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley, 24, who wrote the lyrics, is absent from the conversation, having just relocated to Los Angeles. “We’re hopelessly blissful and blind to all we are,” goes one line from the song, which juxtaposes an angry forceful vocal in the verse with a softer reflective chorus. “It’s about the state of the world today,” Whibley says on the phone line a few days later from the set of the “We’re All To Blame” video shoot. “Whatever we are as a society and culture, it’s taken a while to get to this point, and we’ve all contributed to it somehow. Everybody’s to blame, somewhat, even if it’s just ignorance or if there’s a direct involvement.”
The band, friends since high school in Ajax, Ont. , just east of Toronto, signed to Island/Def Jam in the U.S. and Aquarius in Canada after the guys showed their true colours, via an electronic press kit, complete with water-gun drive-bys and a pizza grab. Subsequent showcases at the now defunct Ted’s Wrecking Yard in Toronto included a trampoline and Martin Lawrence cut-out. Now, this very same cast of characters wanted to do its part to help children in war-torn countries. Greig Nori, Sum 41’s co-manager and frontman for Toronto rock band treble charger, sent War Child an email in January, inquiring how Sum 41 could get involved – a benefit concert, an album or, particularly, a trip oversees. Given information on the Sudan, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo to peruse, the band chose the Congo. Stevo, in particular, was passionate about going there, after reading historian Adam Hochschild’s 1999 book King Leopold’s Ghost, detailing the 1880s Belgian ruler’s colonization of the Congo and slaughter of millions. However, before Sum 41 could make the trip, it had to make a new album. Nori, who produced the band’s very first demos in 1996, and has produced all “ WELCOME TO BUKAVU, THE TOURIST CAPITAL OF THE CONGO” the recordings since, except for 2001’s All Killer No Filler, would again be behind the board. Matt Hyde (Slayer, Hatebreed, treble charger) was hired as engineer. After preproduction, in March, they went to L.A. to Sound City where Stevo laid down the drums. Then, to be closer to home, and more cost effective, they did the rest in Toronto at Reaction and Umbrella into early April. As usual Whibley wrote his lyrics at the eleventh hour. “He always comes through,” says Nori. The songs include the heavy metal assault of “The Bitter End,” complete with a speedy guitar solo to the acoustic launched “Slipping Away,” which contains cello and piano and beautiful gentle vocals from Whibley that barely sound like him. “Some Say” is almost pop with an Oasistype feel, and the closing track, “88,” goes from pounding rock to orchestral back to rock to menacing metal and dissonant new age/avant-garde. “For me, it’s the most substantial album they’ve done,” says Nori. “It’s got depth and long-lasting qualities. It’s a completely matured and positive indication of where they’re going.”
Back at the War Child offices, an appropriate setting for the interview, the guys say nothing of maturity and depth. The conversation, as usual, is filled with laughter and nutty comments from Baksh joking about pulling out a didgeridu onstage in the band’s newfound quieter moments to Whibley’s apparent adoration of Whoopi Goldberg and her Sister Act films. “The majority of the album is heavy. Some are heavier than others, like ‘Welcome To Hell,’” says Stevo. “But there’s also some of the softest songs we’ve ever done,” points out Cone. The softest, “Slipping Away,” Steve calls a “half-song,” originally intended to be an “intermission” between the album’s heavier material. “It’s only two minutes,” says Stevo. “Deryck played piano on it and there’s cello at the end. There’s acoustic guitars in parts, but it’s not like kumbaya acoustic.” Of “Some Say,” Stevo says, it’s clearly not pop. “No, none of them are pop songs, but that one is slower. There’s an acoustic guitar. It’s softer…” “It’s almost indie rock,” says Cone. “Without the tie-dye,” cracks Baksh. Cone: “It’s in the same vein as ‘Handle This’ from All Killer...” Baksh: “Same sort of idea, but it’s better, more melodic.” “The Bitter End,” Cone calls “a ripper.” Stevo: “That’s infl uenced by Metallica.” Baksh: “Fast and heavy. There’s a solo that goes on for a minute. They said, ‘Hey, make a solo that sounds like Kirk Hammett!’” Did he make faces too? “No, no, but I did get the hair plugs,” Baksh quips. Stevo: “He permed his hair.” “Angels With Dirty Faces” was named after Whibley read an article on Sum 41. “The journalist called us ‘angels with dirty faces,’ and was going off on how we do drugs,” recounts Stevo. Dirty with angel faces seems more accurate. “Yeah, far from angels,” Stevo laughs. “I love the fact that even Christians make fun of us,” says Baksh. “Next thing, it will be Scientologists. and Kabbalists,” deadpans Stevo. The album finale, “88,” is so titled because the tempo is 88 beats per minute – not because it goes in about 88 different directions. “On the last record,” says Cone, “we ended with ‘Hooch,’ which was a fast song, but had a soft sweet-sounding melodic part, but was really slow and unlike anything we had done. Deryck thought it would be cool to end it like that again, but make it longer.” Later on the cell, Whibley talks a little about the lyrics he writes so well under pressure. “There’s No Solution” is a personal song about self-doubt, while “The Bitter End” is about what happens when we die. “Angels With Dirty Faces” is about drugs, and “No Reason,” is about the “state of the world.” Originally, “No Reason” was supposed to be the first single, but the band wanted to insert a different chorus, taken from the song “No Control.” In fact, Sum 41 still had that to do, plus other tweaking to the album, when it took a break in late May to go to the Congo with War Child.
The violence in the Congo (formerly The Belgian Congo, then Zaire) has been on and off since King Leopold’s reign. The civil and regional war broke out again in 1998, partly over pressure attributed to the Rwandan genocide, but also over the country’s rich natural resources: oil, gold, diamonds, timber, and a mineral called coltan, commonly used in cell phones. For the documentary, which will be ready to shop to television networks in October, Sum 41’s agenda entailed visits to refugee camps and child soldier rehabilitation centres in Bukavu. Staying at The Orchid hotel on Lake Kivu, a UN-brokered peace accord deal had been in place for two years and the idyllic town, full of UN peacekeepers, had been calm for three. At the main entrance to the town, a big blue arched sign extends right across the road, declaring, “Welcome to Bukavu, the tourist capital of the Congo.” A week into their 9-day visit, the members of Sum 41 had experienced what Stevo calls “eye-opening” and “sometimes uncomfortable” talks with kids. “There were girls who had been raped. It was difficult to listen to, but I’m sure it was more difficult to tell, so it was important to have it be told. “Other times, it was fun,” says Stevo. “Dave and I met these girls, around (age) 10, accused of witchcraft, who had been kicked out of their houses, but they are normal, great girls, and all had crushes on Dave.” “You know, it turned out that they actually weren’t witches,” adds Baksh. “Then we just played soccer,” says Stevo. When they returned to the hotel, there was little to do, except drink, play dice, and sit in their rooms. The downtime would yield “We’re All To Blame.” Whibley awoke one day at 5 a.m., and, bored, picked up his guitar. “No one was up yet, so I started writing. I was working on the song all morning and then half-way through the day, all the guns and bombs started going off,” says Whibley. The song escaped him as he escaped danger. Dr. Nutt, War Child Canada’s executive director, says UN peacekeepers notified them that the Congolese had detained some senior Rwandan officials who were trying to pass back into Rwanda a kilometre away, and they went back into town and started “an old fashioned shoot ‘em up,” she relays. “We were in a hotel that was inconveniently placed – but conveniently close to the UN.” Cone says they could hear the popping of the mortar rounds and gunfire. “It was really close.” “It was day time,” adds Stevo. “You could see attack helicopters that are the UN’s, and you could hear bullets (fi red). And then, when they started shooting more around the hotel, the hotel shook.”
Enter Charles Pelletier, the now infamous Chuck, who hails from Victoria, BC and is camp manager at United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC). “He was a UN volunteer,” says Stevo. “He used to be in the Canadian military. He was staying at our hotel. When everything broke loose, he went into military mode.” Taking refuge in ground-fl oor rooms, Pelletier herded the hotel’s 40 or so occupants into the lobby in small groups, along with two senior South African peacekeepers. Together, they ran with everyone to armored personnel carriers, which took them to the UN compound just a half-kilometer away. There was reportedly no Seinfeld or Almost Famous about-to-die moment, confessions of love, hate, hit and runs, or sleeping with another’s girlfriend. “Everybody was just really quiet. There’s not much to talk about,” says Stevo. “The only thing you’re going to do by getting all vocal and weird is freak everybody else out,” says Baksh. “I did yell at a few people because they were taking so fuckin’ long,” remembers Stevo. “Chuck was like, ‘You can’t bring anything. You’re about to die.’ ‘Well, can I bring my computer or my make-up bag?’ ‘No. Put it down. Let’s leave.’” “When we all got to the UN compound, it was all hugs and kisses,” says Cone. But there was still more danger ahead. Eric Hoskins, War Child Canada’s president who is married to Nutt; information officer Sebastien Lapierre, the group’s Canadian contact at the UN; and Igor Bulgakov, a senior UN military offi cial at the joint operations centre had to get a different set of 40 people (there were about a thousand assembled at the compound) to the Bukavu airport, about a 90-minute bus ride away – which meant driving 10 minutes right through enemy territory heavily occupied by gun-toting rebels – to government-held territory. War Child Canada had chartered a plane and called pilot Lary Strietzel of Ugandabased MAF airline, which was on stand-by. He bravely came to get them in the middle of the turmoil (not 24 hours later, rebels surrounded the airport and killed a number of government troops and civilians). The party of nine took the two-hour fl ight to Uganda, where they decompressed for a few days, before fl ying to the U.K. and eventually home. Whibley visited a friend, then rejoined the guys for shows in the U.K. and U.S., and didn’t get back to Toronto until two weeks later. “The day that I got home, I started playing my guitar and started playing this song,” Whibley recounts of “We’re All To Blame.” “I was really surprised that I remembered it because while we were there, there was no electricity, so I couldn’t record it. It was just in my head. And then the war started. “So when I got home, I remembered it exactly. I thought that was a really good sign, so I made a quick little demo of the part that I remembered and I showed it to Greig and people in my record company, and everyone said, ‘That’s the best song on the album. You have to finish that.’” So they did, finally completing the album.
Sum 41 doesn’t know yet how Chuck feels about his name gracing the cover of its third full-length album, but, by all accounts, it could’ve been called Sebastien or Igor or Eric or Lary. Getting one of Canada’s top bands safely home, and ready to rock, was a collective effort. And the guys may never wish to repeat the event, but they will undoubtedly repeat the story, perhaps embellishing the danger with every telling, and will be inextricably involved with War Child Canada. As Stevo puts it so well: “All hell broke loose and we almost died, but I didn’t have this religious epiphany. Given what happened to all of us, we’re still pretty grounded. I just look at the world a little differently now. I’d just like to help more. ”
