SBM Era Interviews

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SBM Era Interviews

Post by Heather »

ok, until V3 is up, fill this thread with interviews
Sum 41 leader coy about lyrics

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Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley seems to be writing about the end of his marriage to fellow Canadian music star Avril Lavigne on the Ajax, Ont., punk-pop band's new album, Screaming Bloody Murder.

Just listen to the actual lyrics on many of the songs.

"How could you be the better part of me, when we're only half of what we used to be," sings Whibley on What Am I to Say.

Or, on Over Now: "What do I have to do, was supposed to grow old with you, but that ain't gonna happen," he laments.

And finally, on Exit Song: "It's time to let you go and bow out of the game, maybe we will find the answers through the blame," Whibley sings.

But just try to get the 30-year-old singer-songwriter, recently joined by drummer Steve Jocz, 29, and bassist Jason McCaslin, 30, in a Toronto hotel for a chat, to talk about the material.


"I don't really remember writing a lot of them 'cause they came so quick and so fast just over a period of time that there was never really any thought put into them," says Whibley, who lives in L.A. while Jocz is down the road in Long Beach, Calif. McCaslin still lives in Toronto.

"It was just whatever, 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. So it's sort of hard to explain. I don't know what (the album) is about."

So, it's not about the end of your marriage, I ask point blank.

"I never even thought about it -- it's possible," maintains Whibley, who is wearing sunglasses and is hard to read. "They're just like words in my head. There was really no thought, for me anyways, especially about lyrics. This one I just didn't think about anything. Whatever came out, came out. It just came so fast. For the first time ever in my entire life I felt songwriting became really easy, whether it was good or bad, I don't know, but it just was easy all of the sudden. It is a darker, heavier record but we never talked about that."

Moving forward then.

Screaming Bloody Murder, Sum 41's first album in four years (2007's Underclass Hero was the last), is their fifth studio album overall, and began life as a five-song EP.

"Once we did them and recorded them, we actually liked them," said Whibley, who initially wanted to record in a French chateau but it proved to be too expensive.

"So we thought, 'Let's save these and just keep going.' And there was never a deadline so we just said, 'Whenever we feel like it's ready, it'll be ready.' And it took four years."

In the end, they only spent one week in an actual studio.

Night owls Whibley, McCaslin and lead guitarist Tom Thacker, frontman of Gob, holed up in a rented Hollywood Hills house while early bird Jocz went over to Capitol studios to record his drum parts in the morning.

"It's better to do it in the morning and then you sort of burn out after awhile," said Jocz. "These guys are all on different schedules than me anyway. I like to get up at the crack of dawn. I don't have curtains in my house. This happened when I moved to California. The days are nice. I like a nice day."

There were attempts to work with noted British producer Gil Norton (Pixies, Foo Fighters), and others, but in the end Whibley produced SBM as he had done with Underclass Hero.

"We don't play nice with others," said Whibley. "And we really liked Gil. At this point, after this long of playing together, we just kind of know what to do without having to say it."

Added McCaslin: "We tried hard. Like we really wanted a producer on this album but we just have our way of recording."

-----------------

Sum 41's Whibley says new CD came from dark period, but happy times as well

TORONTO - It's been four years since Sum 41 last released an album, and the intervening years saw frontman Deryck Whibley endure a divorce from Avril Lavigne as well as a string of health concerns.

But he says the dark tone of the material on the band's new record, "Screaming Bloody Murder," can't necessarily be traced to his personal life — in fact, he says he can't really trace the origin of any of the words on his latest disc.

"It's really hard to explain what anything's about, because I don't even know what it's about," Whibley said quietly behind a pair of sunglasses during a recent interview in Toronto.

"I was just writing words that were just in my head and it was over such a long period of time that I don't have a lot of recollection of writing a lot of these things — they're just there."

And yet, these pitch-black lyrics — sample line from the wrenching ballad "What am I to Say?": "How could you be the better part of me?/ When we're only half of what we used to be today/ Could you see this isn't what we need/ And I'm leaving all the pieces how they fell/ So goodbye, farewell" — seem to have originated from an especially tough period in Whibley's life.

"Some of it was, for sure, yeah," he replied. "It was over four years. So there's dark periods, happy periods. That's why I think it was so eclectic, because there's so many different moods.

"For me, it's really hard to write in a dark period, but it's easier to write about a dark period. So once you've had those emotions, you've had those feelings, you can describe them in a way that's real and makes sense, but in that period, for me, I can't do it."

Lyrics about broken relationships, searing regrets and difficult departures dominate the release. Behind Whibley, the band kicks up its sludgiest racket since 2004's "Chuck."

"I think it's heavy but it's also heavy in its own way," says drummer Steve Jocz. "We're not a Scandinavian death metal band or something ... (but) there's a heavy, dark sort of vibe about it."

"There's ups and downs. There's soft songs and there's fun rock songs. But it's overall a darker album."

The record moves Sum 41 farther from the band's supposed pop-punk roots ("We never called ourselves that — media has to label you as something," pointed out bassist Jason McCaslin.)

Of course, that transition was well in hand with the release of the Ajax, Ont., band's last album, "Underclass Hero," which dropped in 2007.

The band members acknowledge that their label fretted as time continued to lapse with no new finished record in sight.

"Yeah, people were trying to tell us: 'OK, the record's over. You're done. We're not giving you any more money,'" Whibley said.

"So we paid for the last two songs," Jocz added. "They wouldn't give us any more money. We said, 'These have to go on.' They said no. And we just did it."

"They still haven't thanked us yet," lamented Whibley, who suffered a slipped disc in his back after being attacked at a Japanese bar and more recently had to cancel tour dates due to pneumonia, but says he's doing fine now.

Increasingly, Sum 41 seems like an impenetrably tight-knit group. They tried to work with Pixies producer Gil Norton, but parted ways after finding they had different ideas for what the record should sound like, and Whibley wound up producing the album himself.

The principal group members have been friends since high school, 15-plus years. As the band whisks through a day of press interviews, Whibley's mother even hangs out and chats with reporters — a friendly woman clad in a leather jacket, she points out that it's difficult for her to find time with her son otherwise, given his packed touring schedule.

Like most everyone else in today's splintering music industry, Sum 41 has found diminishing sales returns lately. The gold-selling "Underclass Hero" was the band's first album that failed to go platinum in Canada, but Whibley says he doesn't miss the halcyon days when big sales were a given.

"In a way, the fact that we can't really sell any records anymore makes it a little bit easier," Whibley said. "There's no: 'OK, we need to hit 5 million albums.' It doesn't even exist anymore."

"Because back in those days also, even if you sold that many records, that doesn't mean anything to us," Jocz interjected.

"We never made money off records, ever," Whibley agrees. "It makes it easier, not even throwing that into the equation.

"You know, it doesn't matter anymore. We'd only ever make the record company money, or other people that we don't even know anymore."
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Post by Gregorovich »

What an EPIC WIN for the home team.
fuck this signature nonsense
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Gregorovich wrote:What an EPIC WIN for the home team.
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I'm Mitchell's Noob aka blackhawk1105! Hehe
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MetalMilitant41 wrote:
Gregorovich wrote:What an EPIC WIN for the home team.
:2cool4u:
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"I wish it was raining, 'cause I hate every beautiful day"
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http://top40.about.com/od/s/a/Sum-41-In ... Jocz_2.htm

Interviewed March 2011.

Canadian rock band Sum 41 first broke into the spotlight with the single "Fat Lip" off their debut album All Killer No Filler in 2001. 10 years later they are releasing their fifth studio album Screaming Bloody Murder. I caught up with drummer Steveo Jocz for a few questions via phone from Perth, Australia.

Bill: So where in the world are you today?

Steveo: I'm in Perth, Australia. I'm about to get on the plane to go to Valencia, Spain. This is ridiculous routing to get there. I think I get there sometime next week.

Bill: I've been reading that Deryck (Whibley) has been sick and you've had to cancel shows. How is he doing?

Steveo: He's fine now. We've had a pretty grueling past few weeks. The week before we got to Australia we were in a different country every day. Flights every day to get there, and shows to do and press. Then we had a 30 hour flight to Australia. Then we had a show the next day and a flight and then another show. After that he got sick so we had to cancel two or three shows. Now he's fine, so we're going to go to Valencia and do this one show. Just one show with My Chemical Romance. Then we fly to Toronto. Then we have a couple of days off and then we do a show.

Bill: So keeping up the busy schedule.

Steveo: Yeah. Especially now because the album's coming out. It's a bit intensified. Our schedule is pretty busy...for a little while now. We first started touring again in April (2010) in Europe. Then we took a couple of months off and then we did Warped Tour. We took a month off and then ever since then we have basically been on the road. We've been to Europe three times in the past six months. We've been doing a lot over there.

Bill: What can you tell me about the new album?

Steveo: It's called Screaming Bloody Murder. It comes out on March 29th. As far as how it sounds it's a heavier, darker, more aggressive album. The songwriting, compared to the other records, has improved immensely. It's just night and day with the other stuff. The musicianship is good. On each album I think everything gets better, but this one, for whatever reason, it was a bigger leap.

I think it's a big sounding rock album. Deryck produced it after we tried a couple of other producers and it wasn't working. If you like big sounding rock albums, you'll like this one.

Bill: When you say heavier, is that both sound and lyrics?

Steveo: There is a depth to the lyrics, and they are definitely not throaway, superficial lyrics. There's sort of this honest depth to them that I think comes with maturity. As far as sound it's big riffs and the drums sound big. There is just sort of a heaviness to it.

Bill: In the past you have always included a lot of melodic hooks. Are they still there with the bigger sound?

Steveo: It is very melodic. You know, we love heavy metal, hard rock and everything. Heavy metal, at least now, is sort of devoid of melody. Everybody just screams. Not that this is a heavy metal record. There are hard riffs to it, but it is melodic. That's something we like, the combination of heavy and melody. So there's a lot of hooks, and you can definitely sing along with the whole thing.

Bill: Since the last album you've done a lot on your own. You got married, right?

Steveo: Yeah, Cone (bass player Jason McCaslin) and I both were married...to women, not each other.

Bill: Does that make the touring harder?

Steveo: We had a long break due to sort of being married...to sort of enjoy that. Yeah, it's tough, but I think we are lucky to at least be touring in the era of Skype. So you can have that contact with a person, with your family and friends everywhere. I can't imagine doing it back in the 80s or back in the 60s when there was none of that. You had to write a f**king letter. So it's not as hard as it could be I guess.

Bill: And you've been working in music video? Can you tell me a bit about that.

Steveo: I've always enjoyed that aspect of what we've done. I've sort of been involved in our videos. The guy who directed all the most popular Sum 41 videos, this guy Mark Klasfeld. He just invited me to work at his production company Rockhard Films, so I said sure. I started doing videos there. I've done eight or nine or whatever. I did a 3OH!3 video, an Airbourne video. I've done just a few, and I've kind of had to stop this for awhile, because we are on the road. My schedule is so unpredictable I can't say yes to a video. I'll take it up again. It's fun.

Bill: With the amount of touring you do, I'm sure there are some songs you have played hundreds if not thousands of times. Are there songs that are your personal favorites?

Steveo: I still like playing "Still Waiting." I still like playing "Fat Lip." If there's one song we have played more than any other because it was our first hit, and we have played on every show...I mean we've never played a show where we don't play that song. It's still fun to play, and the same with "Still Waiting." We've played it on a million shows, Conan and Saturday Night Live. We played it every show since it's come out. Even if we were to play a five minute set we would play those songs. Those are still fun to play, but it's mainly because of the reaction. The second we start playing them the crowd goes crazy and it's energetic and fun. It grows. It starts crazy where most people would be satisfied with just that. We're all thankful for the amount of craziness with the first song, but then it grows, and by the last song...it's usually one of those or another one..."Into Deep" is another big one. So even though we play them often, we play those songs the most out of any other songs, they are still fun to play.

Bill: Are there particular songs that are your favorites off the new album?

Steveo: Yeah, the album as a whole...if there is anything we tried to do on this record, even without knowing it, looking back we wanted to make an album, like an actual album. The album is a dying thing. People buy singles and download singles, but we wanted to make an album. There are singles on the record, but if you like albums you can listen to the whole thing. It's not a concept record or anything, it's just the way it's sequenced. It takes you on sort of an emotional journey and stuff like that. It's not a story, but just the way it makes you feel you go up and down. So that as a whole is what I like the best about it.

I like the single "Screaming Bloody Murder." That's one to play live, too. It's nice to be able to play new stuff. We don't play songs until they are released, because the kids don't know 'em. We do get to play that now, though. There is a song called "Blood In My Eyes" that I like. There are a couple of songs with guitar and piano. One of them is called the "Exit Song." It's the last song of the whole record. It's not heavy at all.

Bill: With the new album and the new songs, is there anything new in your live show that long-term fans should watch for?

Steveo: We play stuff from every record. There's nothing really describable. All we do is we put as much effort and time into making our shows the best they can be as possible. We don't take much seriously except for our show and the music. Everything else we're sort of still immature. We take the show seriously, and it doesn't matter if we are playing for 50 people or 50,000 people. We bring the same show. A lot of bands they don't really move around or show any kind of energy, and the audience isn't into it. We project this kind of energy on to the audience and they take it and send it back to us. It's sort of like a machine that goes back and forth. Each side is pumping up the other side. That's what our shows have always been. We're continuing with that.

Bill: If there is someone still out there who is unfamiliar with Sum 41 music, what would you say to them to encourage them to listen to you?

Steveo: If you like hard stuff, energetic, aggressive rock music, then you'll like us. It's fun. It's an amount of fun, even when the songs are serious or heavy and they're not jokey songs, which we don't really have any jokey songs, our personalities sort of seem congruent to the music. Even though it's heavy and aggressive, it's still fun.
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Post by Heather »

Sum 41 screams "Bloody Murder" on new album

By Sean Plummer, March 28, 2011

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They may sometimes be slagged off for injecting pop melodies into punk songs, but the members of Ajax, ON-spawned Sum 41 wield attitudes entirely reminiscent of their safety pin-sporting forebears. Case in point: frontman Deryck Whibley's utter lack of guilt or shame for taking the better part of two years to write the band's new album "Screaming Bloody Murder," out March 29. But when the songs came, Whibley says, they came quickly. Still, they took their time with the album, no matter what the pressure from management or label.

"I had a realization early on, which gave me a lot of freedom, [which] was that I just said f**k everybody. I don't give a s**t because we sell out tours. We don't need anybody. F**k radio, f**k press, f**k the critics. I don't give a s**t about anybody. I'm not mad at them, but we just don't need them. So I said f**k you to everybody. And once I had that freedom I think that's why the songs came so quick. And we just knew we could make a record that we would love and would love to play live and our fans would love, and that's how this record got made."

It's a blustery January day in Toronto, and the members of Sum 41 -- Whibley, bassist Jason "Cone" McCaslin and drummer Steve Jocz -- are hunkered down in a pool hall down the street from MuchMusic's national headquarters. They're at the beginning of seven hours of interviews for "Murder," an ambitious record that evolves their relatively simple sound with complex orchestrations and keyboards while retaining their trademark guitar-drum-bass attack. Talking to them, it becomes obvious that they're proud of what they've accomplished on this, their fifth studio album.

"We all feel just really happy about this one," says Jocz. "I don't know if it was the break that came before but we all sort of feel rejuvenated, like it was when we first started doing this. We're really excited to go back out on the road and take this on again."

"Screaming Bloody Murder" is still pop and it's still punk, but the trio (augmented by guitarist Tom Thacker live) obviously have ambitions to escape the pop-punk ghetto. Hence the Brechtian playfulness of "Sick of It All," the epic keyboards of "Crash" and the muscular rock sounds of "Jessica Kills." For his part, Jocz is hoping to restore a sense of danger to rock & roll, which he feels has been abandoned by contemporaries more interested in crossing over and getting parties started.

"Right now there are so many f**king rock bands in our genre who have co-opted this disco pop stuff and it's like 'okay, let's put a techno beat in this rock song.' And we're not having it."

Adds Whibley: "Again it was the freedom of not caring if it gets on radio or if critics like it or anything. It's like 'let's make a f**king rock record that we like.' And we just knew that we had this fanbase that we have a connection with."

"And we're really close with our fans because we do a lot of online stuff," says Cone. "We knew our fans wanted this kind of album. We wanted to make this album, but we knew our fans would appreciate our making an album like this; like a heavier, intense, dark album."

That "Screaming Bloody Murder" is heavy, intense and dark should come as little surprise. Whibley, who writes virtually all the band's songs and lyrics, divorced his wife Avril Lavigne in 2009 after just three years of marriage. But he's quick to point out that this is not a divorce album.

"People are going to say what they're going to say," he says. "You can't control it. It's really not a divorce record. You can relate a lot of stuff to it..."

"Which people will," says Cone.

"But a lot of stuff I'm singing about, like that song 'Over Now,' is not about that."

Ah, yes. Whibley wrote that particular piano ballad five years ago, while still happily married to Lavigne, but its lyrics are ripe for justifiable misinterpretation. Example: "It was never supposed to end up this way / What am I supposed to do? / Was I supposed to grow old with you?"

Jocz is quick to jump to his bandmate's defence. "There are a lot of break-up-type songs that are popular on the radio, but they all have that throwaway, cheesy sound to them. But there's a level of depth that Deryck gets into with the lyrics that reveal a bit more personal emotion than your surface 'I'm over you' [sentiment] or whatever bulls**t throwaway pop punk breakup s**t [is on the radio]. It's not what this album is."

Whibley admits that he wrote "Screaming Bloody Murder" during "a very dark period." But by the time the band got around to renting a house in the Hollywood Hills to record the material "it was like fun time." Hence the album's generally upbeat tone.

Adds Steve: "Deryck had already gone through all that s**t and it seemed like a different time and person. So the songs started to seem like this separate thing, and they changed to be the party thing."

"Yeah, by the time we were recording it was like, okay, been through all this s**t, let's have some fun now," says Whibley. "Everything's okay now."

http://entertainment.ca.msn.com/music/f ... d=28164298
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Post by TomiT14 »

^^ Isn't that the same that was posted on the main site for like 2 weeks ago? I mean, why everyone is tweeting about it now? :silly:

Old one from Paris, but posted only recently.
Same old shit, except at the end Deryck talking about SBM the song.

Also, I found a story from the April issue of the UK magazine Big Cheese. Haven't read it yet, but I felt like scanning it for you guys just in case. And sorry, our scanner sucks, so the quality isn't best.

EDIT: Fucking Photobucket made them way too small. If needed, I try to upload them somewhere else.


Click to view the fullsize image.http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/ ... heese1.jpg[/imgwidth]
Their second album without Brownsound, 'Screaming Bloody Murder' sees Sum 41 continue on their path to becoming serious rock band. And, on the strength of the title track, job done.

Click to view the fullsize image.http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/ ... heese2.jpg[/imgwidth]

Click to view the fullsize image.http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/ ... heese3.jpg[/imgwidth]

Click to view the fullsize image.http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/ ... heese4.jpg[/imgwidth]

Click to view the fullsize image.http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e399/ ... heese5.jpg[/imgwidth]
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Post by Heather »

^^Thanks Tomi, I don't know the date on the one I posted, they all blend together, lol
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Post by SumGeek »

great interview!
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Post by TomiT14 »

Found a Japanese interview at Vibe-Net.

This is the first time (I think?) Deryck has explained the album title, although not by many words. Too bad Google Translate isn't the best help here.
Deryck wrote:There are implications of two, one is about as gory, hell trying to kind of way. Another, much more is called impossible, kind of way I'm shouting out loud for.
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Post by Heather »

Scans of Deryck's interview with Kerrang Magazine thanks to @Albaexodus : http://bit.ly/fcPX3v
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fenderrocks wrote:Scans of Deryck's interview with Kerrang Magazine thanks to @Albaexodus : http://bit.ly/fcPX3v
Deryck is Vincent Chase from Entourage?! Vincent Chase... has lots of sex. :2cool4u:
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Post by Mitchell »

Jeremy Kill wrote:
fenderrocks wrote:Scans of Deryck's interview with Kerrang Magazine thanks to @Albaexodus : http://bit.ly/fcPX3v
Deryck is Vincent Chase from Entourage?! Vincent Chase... has lots of sex. :2cool4u:
Well, he is friends with Jeremy Piven (Ari Gold)
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Post by stevo32 »

Deryck interview for myMag

http://www.myyearbook.com/?mysession=bW ... Q9NDMxNjY=

Sum 41: An Interview with Deryck Whibley
The frontman discusses the band’s new album, Screaming Bloody Murder.

April 28, 2011 — For Sum 41 fans, waiting four years for the follow-up album to 2007’s Underclass Hero was torture. But now that Screaming Bloody Murder is out, the Canadian rockers’ fifth album to date, they couldn’t be happier. Below, myMag speaks with frontman Deryck Whibley about the unique making of the album, his friendship with Tommy Lee and why The Doors changed his life forever…

Become a fan of Sum 41 at myYearbook.com/sum41

You just wrapped some touring in Europe, and later this year you’re headed to Australia and Japan. How have your shows been going so far?
Everything has been really good actually. The cool thing about touring, and we haven’t been on the road for a long time, is that when we started back up we were really excited that our tours were selling out so fast. It was quicker than ever before. We weren’t really expecting it because we don’t really ever expect anything. You never know what to expect. We were just really happy and lucky that everything has been going so much better than it’s ever gone.

Do you have any qualms about returning to Japan after your attack last year?
No, I’ve been back to Japan since then. I even went to the same bar that I got attacked at. You can’t really expect anything. You never know what’s going to happen. You just have to hope for the best.

While on tour abroad, are there food dishes you absolutely have to have when you visit a certain country?
No, I’m vegan, so it’s really hard for me to eat actually around the world. The whole vegan thing hasn’t really hit the rest of the world yet. People don’t even understand it.

So do you bring your own food then?
No, not really. The only thing I do is… Well, see I eat fish. It’s the only thing I eat outside of being vegan. So I carry cans of tuna with me. [Editor’s note: A pescatarian is someone who abstains from all meat products but fish, often including dairy and eggs. Vegans do not eat any animal products, and generally do not use or wear items with animal byproducts.]

Your new album, Screaming Bloody Murder, came out on March 29th. What was the most exciting thing for you about its release?
That it was finally out; I just wanted people to hear it. It’s weird because the best part of having an album that’s finished is right before it comes out because you still own it. Once it comes out it’s not yours anymore. It turns into whatever it’s going to turn into and you have no control over it. Whether it’s valid or not, people will say it’s something – it’s this or it’s that: ‘It sounds like this,’ ‘I hate it’ or ‘I love it.’ You have no control over it. So the best part is before it comes out when you and your friends have it, and you and your friends have your own opinion. It’s a weird thing. I hate when it comes out. I want everyone to hear it, but you lose all control over what it is.

After the success of your last album, 2007’s Underclass Hero, were you intimidated at all about writing an album that would top it?
No, not at all. It was actually the complete opposite. This is the first record where I’ve never felt any pressure. I think I just didn’t care. I liked the songs that I was writing and I felt like they were good. It gave me a freedom to just write. I knew that I was going to like it. I didn’t know if it was going to be good or if other people were going to like it, but I knew that I was going to be happy with it.

Since Underclass Hero, a lot has happened. You’ve been through a divorce, had two herniated disks, and there was the attack in Japan. Can you name some of the specific events that had a great influence on particular songs on the album?
I always think that anything that goes on in your life, whether it’s big or small, will have some impact on who you are and what you do, especially creatively. Everything you go through in your life makes you who you are. It changes you and you evolve. If you’re a creative person, it will come out in your creativity. I’m not the kind of person to analyze it and say, ‘Oh, this is why I’m writing this song’ or ‘This moment means this…’ I don’t care about that. I don’t think about that. I just let whatever comes out come out. It has some effect, but not in specifics. I’m sure if I sat down with a therapist and went over my lyrics they could say, ‘Oh, this is because of this.’ But that’s not my job.

So when people ask you what inspired a particular song, is it hard to answer that question?
Now that we’re doing interviews because the record is out, I get asked so many questions that I don’t have answers for. I feel like an idiot. I just don’t know and I don’t think about those things.

Do you have an answer to why you thought Screaming Bloody Murder was an appropriate title for the album?
Everything is done very randomly on this record. No thought was put into anything. All the songs were written within 10 minutes, so I never really put a lot of effort into anything. The same with the album title; it just popped into my head. I remember when I came up with that album title. I wasn’t thinking of an album title. I wasn’t even working. I was just in my bedroom, and then Screaming Bloody Murder just popped into my head. I don’t know why, I don’t know where it came from. I just thought, oh that’s a cool song title. I’ll save that. Three years later I thought, maybe this is an album title.

Was your writing process, or lack of one, unique for this album or have you worked that way in the past?
It’s been like that in the past, but mostly this album. Every album has an element of that where I’ll have a couple of songs like that but never a full album. Every album we’ve done before we’ve always said, ‘Okay, we’re making an album from this date to the next date, so we need 12 songs and it has to be done by this date.’ So I sit there and I write every day. I try to write songs. Sometimes nothing comes and sometimes there’s progress.

With this record, none of us ever said when we were going to make a record. We fired our manager, so there’s nobody to tell us that we need to get on the road by this point or that we needed to do this. So I only wrote when it would hit me, and it hit me in weird places. Sometimes I’d be in a restaurant and I’d be like, ‘Oh, fuck! I’ve got to go home! I’ve got an idea!’ I would just split and write a song. It was just whenever it would hit I would write.

Do you think your new writing process is something you’ll stick with on future albums?
Every album changes because there are always different situations that you’re in. The other thing about me is that I don’t think about the future. I don’t even think about what I’m going to do tonight. I like this way of writing, but if it doesn’t work next time then I’ll have to figure something new out.

Is there one song on the album that stands out to you?
I like them all equally. It took three and a half years, but I wasn’t working every day. Like I said, I was waiting for it to come. The reason why it took that long was because it never felt complete. I like it as a whole. It’s hard to explain. I knew it was never ready and I wanted it to be one complete thing. When I listen to this album, I like to hear it from beginning to end. I don’t like to play songs in the middle first. I don’t have favorites.

Have you been performing the album in whole on tour?
No, we haven’t really performed any new songs yet except for “Screaming Bloody Murder.”

You’ve worked with Tommy Lee many times over the years. What have you learned while working with him as an artist?
How to drink.

What do you guys drink?
Jagermeister. He really likes Jagermeister for some reason. Well, I don’t know if he does anymore because he’s sober.

I’ve been friends with Tommy for a really long time, probably for about 11 or 12 years now. We’ve worked together a bunch of times on different things. Surprisingly, we have really similar personalities. We get along really well. I feel like he’s my big brother.

Anton asks: The music industry is in a period of flux where bands are starting to realize that they do not need record labels to sustain themselves as a band. Do you have any plans to break free from the traditional label mold at any point?
We have no plans, but you never know. It’s possible. We have no plan to. Things are going that way in the music business. The only thing you need a record company for is money. They’re just a bank, basically.

You were just 15 when you formed Sum 41. What advice would you offer to young aspiring musicians out there who dream of having the same long and rewarding career you’ve had to date?
Always wear a condom. The only thing I can say is that I have no advice for making it. There are so many different factors, and luck is usually the biggest one. Only ever do what you love because if you don’t do what you love it won’t be great.
If you could recommend one album, one film and one book that have had a major influence on your life to your fans, what would they be?
I can think of three that had the biggest impact on my life, but they’re all about the same thing. There’s a book, movie and an album about it. It’s The Doors. It’s the first Doors’ record, it’s The Doors movie and then there’s a book called No One Here Gets Out Alive. When I was 13 I really got into The Doors. Those three things made me want to get into music. Those three things changed the entire course of my life at that moment.
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samueeL
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Re: SBM Era Interviews

Post by samueeL »

Excellent interview.

THANKS4POSTING
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Re: SBM Era Interviews

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Very good interview, some really nice facts.
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Re: SBM Era Interviews

Post by Heather »

nice interview, crappy comments, but guess they don't know what real music is

I'll post this on the twitter and fb


btw all, I've sent them a reminder like 6 times about the interview, I dunno if I'll ever get it back. Matt keeps telling me to remind them but D just hasn't answered it yet.
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Re: SBM Era Interviews

Post by SumGeek »

Great Interview! It wasn't like we were reading the same thing over again because there are some new things that had been brought up that made reading it interesting! I think it's one of Deryck's best in the SBM era.
Is there one song on the album that stands out to you?
I like them all equally. It took three and a half years, but I wasn’t working every day. Like I said, I was waiting for it to come. The reason why it took that long was because it never felt complete. I like it as a whole. It’s hard to explain. I knew it was never ready and I wanted it to be one complete thing. When I listen to this album, I like to hear it from beginning to end. I don’t like to play songs in the middle first. I don’t have favorites.
This is how I feel about SBM. I do have favourites though but I feel like it's more enjoyable if you listen to this album in it's entirety.
fenderrocks wrote:Scans of Deryck's interview with Kerrang Magazine thanks to @Albaexodus : http://bit.ly/fcPX3v
I like the way this interview was written. I want a copy of this Kerrang issue! Reading that Deryck was the happiest he's ever been made me smile.
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Re: SBM Era Interviews

Post by Jables »

SumGeek wrote:Great Interview! It wasn't like we were reading the same thing over again because there are some new things that had been brought up that made reading it interesting! I think it's one of Deryck's best in the SBM era.
Is there one song on the album that stands out to you?
I like them all equally. It took three and a half years, but I wasn’t working every day. Like I said, I was waiting for it to come. The reason why it took that long was because it never felt complete. I like it as a whole. It’s hard to explain. I knew it was never ready and I wanted it to be one complete thing. When I listen to this album, I like to hear it from beginning to end. I don’t like to play songs in the middle first. I don’t have favorites.
This is how I feel about SBM. I do have favourites though but I feel like it's more enjoyable if you listen to this album in it's entirety.
Yeah, especially on my first full listen, it was a great experience and at the end I just thought 'WOW' :glad:
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Re: SBM Era Interviews

Post by TomiT14 »

fenderrocks wrote:Scans of Deryck's interview with Kerrang Magazine thanks to @Albaexodus : http://bit.ly/fcPX3v
Do you know which issue this is from?
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