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.”
Sum 41 — and Whibley specifically — have been through a lot since they were formed in Ajax, Ont., 41 days into the summer of 1996 (the real origin of their name). Whibley quickly emerged at the centre of the band, working as their singer, chief songwriter and main lightning rod for everything. As the only child of a single mother, growing up was a struggle, so when he was able to make the band a full-time proposition, he and his mates let loose, embracing the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle with pranks and parties and later, booze and drugs. Far too much booze and drugs. But we’ll get to that.
Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 performs at Toronto’s Air Canada Centre in 2013.
Mark Booth
Sum 41 were road dogs, touring constantly. They also rode a pop-punk-metal sound to great success in the early ’00s, earning platinum records with All Killer No Filler, Does This Look Infected? and Chuck. They ended up in a war zone in the Congo while working with WarChild and were nearly wiped out by a rebel militia during an attack on their UN-protected compound. He and a couple of other members of the band had a bad reaction to some funky Japanese drugs, the effects of which lingered a frighteningly long time.
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By this time, Whibley had relocated to Bel Air, where the partying continued. There was a tryst with Paris Hilton, which forced him to learn the art of paparazzi dodging. Then came marriage to pop-punk princess Avril Lavigne, which sucked him deeper into the gossip world. When they got married, the sky over the ceremony and reception was filled with helicopters. That union lasted until 2010.
For a while, Whibley found he could partake without any long-term effects. But in 2007, things started to get difficult. The first issue was a bad back caused by a chronic herniated disc. It had been injured at least 14 times, mostly from the stresses of jumping around on stage with a guitar strapped to his body. An assault by three unknown assailants in a bar in Japan in 2010 made things even worse.
There were problems within the band, too. The gang that had exploded out of Ajax and Scarborough was now fracturing. Infighting was more common. The band barrelled to a series of lineup changes that began with Dave “Brownsound” Baksh leaving in 2006. Things began to simmer with drummer Steve-O until everything exploded, leading to his departure in 2013. (Last I heard, he was working in real estate.)
Deryck Whibley and Sum 41 toured constantly.
Mark Booth
The pain from his back and the anxiety caused by the pressure to keep going led Whibley to self-medicate with a constant intake of alcohol. This time, his body objected, and in the spring of 2014, he was hospitalized for weeks. It was touch-and-go for a long time; his alcoholism had ravaged his liver and kidneys. His mom, a nurse, flew to L.A. to help him get back to health.
It didn’t end there. Late in the summer of 2023, he was again hospitalized with both COVID-19 and pneumonia, which led to heart failure. Once again, though, he was able to rally with prompt and aggressive treatment. Despite physical therapy, yoga and exercise, his back problems, while diminished, kept returning. In 2023, Sum 41 dates in Australia had to be cancelled. He was hospitalized again in December, forcing the group to bail on another series of dates down under. He could handle the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle at age 24. At 44, it’s a different ballgame.
Whibley knew that it was time to get out. In May 2023, a few months after our visit in Vegas, Sum 41 announced their final world tour, aptly called Tour of the Setting Sum. It was designed as both a farewell to a couple of generations of fans and to celebrate 30 years of survival in one of the world’s most vicious games. If you want all the gory details, I highly recommend his memoir, Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell, which spells out everything in a brutally honest way. For maximum impact, get the audiobook, which Whibley reads himself. (The book has resulted in a lawsuit and countersuit between Whibley and former producer and manager Greig Nori over accusations of sexual impropriety, something that will play out in court later this year.)
There are other good reasons to retire from the pop-punk world. In 2015, Whibley married Ariana Cooper and has settled into domestic bliss with two children. And money is no longer an issue, either. Whibley always had a nice royalty income from radio play, record sales, streaming and touring, but to keep all that coming, he had to keep working. Not anymore.
Sum 41 rode a pop-punk-metal sound to great success in the early ’00s.
Mark Booth
In 2022, he accepted an offer from equity fund HarbourView to sell his publishing catalogue for a rumoured US$30 million. (When I asked him about that sale, he just shrugged his shoulders like it wasn’t a big deal. We should all be so lucky!) The album we spoke about on that Sunday morning, now called Heaven:x:Hell, is fact, the band’s last.
Fittingly, the last string of dates has been in Canada, starting in Victoria on Jan. 10 and ending with two hometown shows at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Jan. 28 and 30.
I’ve known the guys in Sum 41 for decades. Like other fans, they were a constant, always there. But every party must end. And the best parties end when everyone can walk out into the sun on their own terms and under their own power.
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