Sum 41 comes to an end this week. I will miss them.
[This was my weekly column for GlobalNews.ca. – AC]
It’s a Sunday morning and Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley is sitting on the couch in my Las Vegas Airbnb. As usual, he’s dressed in his punk/metal gear: leather jacket, band shirt, spikey hair and a chain or two hanging from his jeans. He’d driven over from his new place a few minutes away.
“I had to get out of L.A.,” he said. “It’s just gotten too crazy. You’d be surprised at how many people — including musicians — have moved to Vegas to get away from what L.A. has become.”
Whibley isn’t a big guy, standing about five feet six inches tall and in situations like this, soft-spoken. But as Sum 41 fans know, give him a guitar and put him onstage and he’s a different beast entirely.
But that onstage beast is on notice. On this day in early 2023, the conversation turns to how he’s ready to wind things down with Sum 41.
“Another album is almost done. It looks like it’ll be a double record, too. We’re independent now, so we can do whatever we want. All the music is complete, so all I have to do is finish my vocals and do the final mix. I have my studio at the house [he calls it Studio Mr. Biz] where I can work at my own pace. And once it’s done, that may be it.”
Keep reading. And here’s a review of the Sum 41 show in Ottawa.
