Sum 41 Try Honesty

02/19/09 2:03pm

by Shehzaad Jiwani (CHARTattack)

Platinum-selling punks soldier on after becoming a three-piece

It's been a few years since Sum 41 released Chuck, and a lot of things have happened to the Ajax, Ontario boys in that time. They made a song with Iggy Pop, bassist Cone McCaslin started his side project, The Operation M.D., and, most famously, frontman Deryck Whibley married Canadian pop brand Avril Lavigne.

But the event that brought all eyes back to the band was the departure of guitarist and founding member Dave "Brownsound" Baksh. If you weren't entirely sure the band were ever going to release another album, well, neither were they.

"I didn't want to make another record," Whibley confesses. "When we got off the Chucktour, I didn’t think we were gonna make another record. I didn't see the purpose of being in this band anymore. I thought that was it and that I was gonna go do something else, that we did all we could do and I had no enthusiasm to do anything else."

Following an extensive world tour, the members each went off to do their own thing and the frontman could be excused for not being enthused about a band he just spent a year on the road with. Of course, with a little time away, the creative process started working its magic and the man known as Bizzy D was excited to be a Sum once again.

"After having left the band in my head, I was looking at things from an outside perspective, where I wasn't in that band anymore," he explains. "I realized all these ideas and things that Sum 41 should do. There were all these things that Sum 41 hadn't done yet, and I got excited.

"That became the new thing, to take what we've done and throw it out the window, to do something totally different. I just asked the other guys, 'Are you into doing this new record? I'll do it, but we all have to be equally into this record, because we can't make a great record otherwise.' Everyone said they'd do it, then two weeks later, Dave quit."

Baksh's departure, though not a happy moment for the group, only helped make them a tighter unit.

"That solidified our idea even more," Whibley says. "There was nobody negative, nobody wasn't into this, and the three of us were more into it than anything we'd ever done. Dave even said, 'I know what you guys want to do with this record, and you won't be able to do it if I'm in the band.' We didn't want him to go, but nobody could be half into this record."

The result of their efforts is Underclass Hero, an album that ditches the riffage of Chuck and Does This Look Infected and focuses more on straightforward pop melodies than ever before. The album, produced by Whibley, is what Sum feel is their "most artistic, meaningful record" to date.

"In order for us to make another record, it had to be something like that," the singer explains. "We set our goals before we made the record, and that was the purpose for this record, to do something more creative, more artistic and more meaningful. Then I went home and I asked myself what it means. What is artistic? What is meaningful to me?

"What this record is, in a sentence, is an extremely personal record that reflects the confusion and frustration in modern society. I wrote all these things that I found confusing in modern life. These things that I was coming up with were really personal things that were really deep inside me that I didn't even think about, things I forgot about or things I didn't know about, and things that scared me. That was the most important and original thing I could say."

Though the album may be catchier musically, Whibley feels it's not a safe record, and that he's exposed things about himself he never has before.

"I wanted to make a record that wasn't a safe record, that pushed boundaries for what our music and what punk rock music can be, but not push so far that it goes out of the realm of being musical anymore," he states. "I could have gone way further out and tried to be way more weird, but that's not me. I wanted to be honest.

"To me, the most important thing that I want to believe in is the truth. That's what this record is. It's truly honest. It's as truly honest and
artistic as I can be."

bonus sidebar
The Power Of Three

While dropping down to a trio may be a risk for Sum 41, Canadian bands traditionally do well in the threesome configuration. See:

Rush — Geddy and the gang's technological fantasy math rock has been wooing the dorks for decades.

Triumph — Laugh, but at one point they were to the '80s what Nickelback are to the 2000s.

The Tea Party — Harry Potter's victories over evil may have sent Jeff Martin into hiding, but there was a time when the Party ruled Canuck
teen gothland.

The following feature article is from the September 2007 issue of Chart Magazine. To purchase the issue, go to the Chart Shop.