The Operation M.D.: Cone Dishes On His Side Project And Sum 41

Sum 41 took a lengthy break after their last album, but that doesn't mean that the band's members haven't been working hard. Bass player Cone McCaslin and H2O/Juliette And The Licks guitarist Todd Morse are releasing the fruits of their five-year labour of love: We Have An Emergency, the debut album from their side project, The Operation M.D.

The thing is, they've got the bulk of their second album done, too. "We overwrote for this one," explains Morse.

"We purposely left all the good songs off this record. I figured that's how you make it these days. So, yeah, we've got the sophomore slump beat. We have more lush, big chorus-type, better-written songs that we didn't put on there. Maybe it'll be another five years before it comes out. We just wanted to represent the beginning of where we started."

The genesis of the project is represented on the album, which mixes influences that draw from everything but the straightforward punk you'd expect, given the members' track records. One thing the duo couldn't excise is their sense of humour, as evident in the video for the first single, "Sayonara," which was directed by Sum 41 drummer Steve Jocz.

"I'll just sum it up," Morse says with a laugh. "We're our characters, Dr. Rocco and Dr. Dynamite. In the course of two minutes, Cone and I have sex with the same woman, we deliver a baby, Cone gets punched in the face, the baby spits at him, and that's about it."

Steve-O also drummed on many of the demos for We Have An Emergency, but was also busy working on the new Sum 41 record, which McCaslin says will be in fans' hands soon.

"The new album is pretty much done," he states. "Deryck [Whibley] is singing his last song.

"It's being mixed by Chris Lord-Alge, and I think it will come out in July. Deryck is doing all the guitars and it's pretty smooth. This album isn't as heavy as the last one. There isn't really that much metal influence involved. It's not heavy, but it's still hard and fast. It's still aggressive, just not as heavy, I don't think. There's nothing like 'Bitter End' off Chuck or anything."

Here are the dates for The Operation M.D.'s promotional tour:

Feb. 2 Montreal, QC @ CHOM FM and MusiquePlus
Feb. 5 Calgary, AB @ X92.9
Feb. 6 Edmonton, AB @ Sonic 102.9
Feb. 7 Vancouver, BC @ CFOX
Feb. 8 Victoria, BC @ The Zone