SBM Era Interviews
Posted: Thu Mar 31, 2011 7:33 pm
ok, until V3 is up, fill this thread with interviews
Sum 41 leader coy about lyrics
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."
Sum 41 leader coy about lyrics
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."