It’s a Sunday morning and Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley is sitting on the sofa in my Las Vegas Airbnb. As common, he’s wearing his punk/metallic gear: leather-based jacket, band shirt, spikey hair and a sequence or two hanging from his denims. He’d pushed over from his new place a couple of minutes away.
“I needed to get out of L.A.,” he mentioned. “It’s simply gotten too loopy. You’d be shocked at how many individuals — together with musicians — have moved to Vegas to get away from what L.A. has change into.”
Whibley isn’t a giant man, standing about 5 ft six inches tall and in conditions like this, soft-spoken. However as Sum 41 followers know, give him a guitar and put him onstage and he’s a distinct beast fully.
However that onstage beast is on discover. On at the present time in early 2023, the dialog turns to how he’s able to wind issues down with Sum 41.
“One other album is nearly finished. It appears prefer it’ll be a double report, too. We’re unbiased now, so we are able to do no matter we would like. All of the music is full, so all I’ve to do is end my vocals and do the ultimate combine. I’ve my studio on the home [he calls it Studio Mr. Biz] the place I can work at my very own tempo. And as soon as it’s finished, that could be it.”
Sum 41 — and Whibley particularly — have been by means of loads since they had been fashioned in Ajax, Ont., 41 days into the summer time of 1996 (the actual origin of their identify). Whibley rapidly emerged on the centre of the band, working as their singer, chief songwriter and essential lightning rod for all the pieces. As the one little one of a single mom, rising up was a battle, so when he was in a position to make the band a full-time proposition, he and his mates let unfastened, embracing the rock ‘n’ roll way of life with pranks and events and later, booze and medicines. Far an excessive amount of booze and medicines. However we’ll get to that.
Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 performs at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre in 2013.
Mark Sales space
Sum 41 had been street canines, touring consistently. Additionally they rode a pop-punk-metal sound to nice success within the early ’00s, incomes platinum data with All Killer No Filler, Does This Look Contaminated? and Chuck. They ended up in a conflict zone within the Congo whereas working with WarChild and had been almost worn out by a insurgent militia throughout an assault on their UN-protected compound. He and a few different members of the band had a nasty response to some funky Japanese medicine, the results of which lingered a frighteningly very long time.
Get breaking Nationwide information
For information impacting Canada and all over the world, join breaking information alerts delivered on to you once they occur.
By this time, Whibley had relocated to Bel Air, the place the partying continued. There was a tryst with Paris Hilton, which pressured him to study the artwork of paparazzi dodging. Then got here marriage to pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne, which sucked him deeper into the gossip world. After they obtained married, the sky over the ceremony and reception was full of helicopters. That union lasted till 2010.
For some time, Whibley discovered he may partake with none long-term results. However in 2007, issues began to get troublesome. The primary challenge was a nasty again attributable to a continual herniated disc. It had been injured at the very least 14 instances, principally from the stresses of leaping round on stage with a guitar strapped to his physique. An assault by three unknown assailants in a bar in Japan in 2010 made issues even worse.
There have been issues throughout the band, too. The gang that had exploded out of Ajax and Scarborough was now fracturing. Infighting was extra widespread. The band barrelled to a collection of lineup modifications that started with Dave “Brownsound” Baksh leaving in 2006. Issues started to simmer with drummer Steve-O till all the pieces exploded, resulting in his departure in 2013. (Final I heard, he was working in actual property.)
Deryck Whibley and Sum 41 toured consistently.
Mark Sales space
The ache from his again and the anxiousness attributable to the stress to maintain going led Whibley to self-medicate with a relentless consumption of alcohol. This time, his physique objected, and within the spring of 2014, he was hospitalized for weeks. It was touch-and-go for a very long time; his alcoholism had ravaged his liver and kidneys. His mother, a nurse, flew to L.A. to assist him get again to well being.
It didn’t finish there. Late in the summertime of 2023, he was once more hospitalized with each COVID-19 and pneumonia, which led to coronary heart failure. As soon as once more, although, he was in a position to rally with immediate and aggressive therapy. Regardless of bodily remedy, yoga and train, his again issues, whereas diminished, stored returning. In 2023, Sum 41 dates in Australia needed to be cancelled. He was hospitalized once more in December, forcing the group to bail on one other collection of dates down beneath. He may deal with the rock ‘n’ roll way of life at age 24. At 44, it’s a distinct ballgame.
Whibley knew that it was time to get out. In Might 2023, just a few months after our go to in Vegas, Sum 41 introduced their ultimate world tour, aptly known as Tour of the Setting Sum. It was designed as each a farewell to a few generations of followers and to have fun 30 years of survival in one of many world’s most vicious video games. If you would like all of the gory particulars, I extremely suggest his memoir, Strolling Catastrophe: My Life By means of Heaven and Hell, which spells out all the pieces in a brutally sincere method. For optimum impression, get the audiobook, which Whibley reads himself. (The e book has resulted in a lawsuit and countersuit between Whibley and former producer and supervisor Greig Nori over accusations of sexual impropriety, one thing that may play out in court docket later this yr.)
There are different good causes to retire from the pop-punk world. In 2015, Whibley married Ariana Cooper and has settled into home bliss with two youngsters. And cash is now not a difficulty, both. Whibley all the time had a pleasant royalty earnings from radio play, report gross sales, streaming and touring, however to maintain all that coming, he needed to maintain working. Not anymore.
Sum 41 rode a pop-punk-metal sound to nice success within the early ’00s.
Mark Sales space
In 2022, he accepted a suggestion from fairness fund HarbourView to promote his publishing catalogue for a rumoured US$30 million. (After I requested him about that sale, he simply shrugged his shoulders prefer it wasn’t a giant deal. We must always all be so fortunate!) The album we spoke about on that Sunday morning, now known as Heaven:x:Hell, is reality, the band’s final.
Fittingly, the final string of dates has been in Canada, beginning in Victoria on Jan. 10 and ending with two hometown reveals at Scotiabank Area in Toronto on Jan. 28 and 30.
I’ve recognized the fellows in Sum 41 for many years. Like different followers, they had been a relentless, all the time there. However each occasion should finish. And the perfect events finish when everybody can stroll out into the solar on their very own phrases and beneath their very own energy.
© 2025 Corus Radio, a division of Corus Leisure Inc.
