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Hey guys. My name is Brian Diaz and I have been one of Sum 41's guitar techs for the past year, since the Eastpak Antidote Tour in Europe. I'd like to post here and clear up any rumors people may be starting about Deryck's health and the status of touring with Sum 41.

As you all may know Deryck's back was injured in an incident in Japan. Since then the band has continued to tour non-stop through Deryck's ongoing back troubles. Before shows I have watched him go through a yoga and stretching routine, and afterwards ice his back and lay on the ground because he can't move. I don't know if any of you have experienced back pains before but they are terrible to deal with and in my experience they are nothing compared to what Deryck goes through. I also don't have to play a show and run around on stage for an hour and a half every night for days on end, so I can't imagine what it feels like. But, we continued pressing on through tours that took us all over the world. Flying every couple of weeks for 10+ hours at a time. Sleeping in tour busses. Playing every night. It starts to take it's toll. Yet through all this he continued to soldier on and bring shows to people around the world.

This summer we went down to South Africa for a couple of shows. After nearly 30 hours of air travel there and back, we arrived back in the U.S. to do a few dates on Warped Tour leading into some Canada shows. As you know by now, at the last Warped show we did Deryck did something to his back (I watched it as it happened) that ultimately led to us having to cancel the rest of the shows and then the rest of the tour. This decision was not made as a snap judgement call. Doctors and others have been telling him to rest and have surgery, etc. for a long time now. But, being the way this industry is, Sum 41 has to continue touring in order to promote their record and continue making money. This isn't an arbitrary "let's just cancel a bunch of shows" decision. This puts EVERYONE'S life on hold... the guys in the band, the people who work for them.. everyone.

I know for a fact that Deryck and the rest of Sum 41 are extremely proud of this record and they were having some of their most successful shows around the world, and we were all looking forward to going to southeast Asia and to South America. They wanted nothing more than to continue bringing this record to their fans around the world. The momentum was building and the songs were sounding amazing live. Until this unfortunate setback there were no plans to stop touring regardless of how well the record was selling, or whether people think the promotion was lacking, whatever.

I can't tell you anymore outside of this because I don't know anymore, but I can assure you that as soon as he is ready the band will be back to business as usual and will continue the rest of the Screaming Bloody Murder world tour.

Please try to listen to facts before jumping to conclusions. It's not fair to the band. I know I'm writing this without the band knowing it, but these are the facts. I was there for all of this happening and there's very logical reasons behind it.

Thanks for listening, and feel free to repost this.

Replied in the other thread, so I won't repeat myself, but thanks for clearing that up !

you know, the conclusions are to be expected when from the videos all the band seems to be proud of is getting drunk and acting like a real not giving a fuck rock n roll band ...
all we've seen from Sum 41 for the past years is getting drunk and destroying stuff, I agree, it was fun at the beginning, but I'm kinda bored of it ...

they need to start doing videos of eating healthy food and visiting theaters, then maybe people won't jump to any conclusions, but under those circumstances it's kinda hard not to

Thanks Diaz!

Thanks for taking the time to clear that up, :)

C'mon... if there were videos of them doing boring monotonous stuff all day you wouldn't be interested either. Keep in mind that these clips are cut from hours and hours of footage into a 3 minute video. There is plenty of down time where the band ISN'T drinking or partying or breaking stuff. But, like ANY rock band in the world, there is drinking and partying as well. A day in the life on tour can get pretty boring.

How unfun would it be to watch a YouTube video of the guys eating steamed vegetables and tofu (which I have watched all of them do), or sit on their laptops in the dressing room talking on Skype to their wives or girlfriends (which I've also watched)? Of course you don't want to see that. You also don't want to see someone who's experiencing back pain go through their daily routine of having to get ready to put on a physically active show on stage. There is plenty of time on our days off when we all do non-drinking activities like visit museums, go to parks, go to the beach, walk around and explore all the beautiful cities we have been to and generally have a good time. Some of that has been documented on YouTube as well, but everyone seems to focus on the drinking stuff, which like it or not has become part of Sum 41's legend as a band. Just because you see them drunk on their updates doesn't mean it's like that 24 hours a day. Same thing applies to me... I don't exclusively eat jars of mayonnaise just because you saw a video of me doing it once on film for 200 euros.

People seem to forget that regardless of whether or not you think he's drinking too much or not, the back trouble is still there. It's not going to magically go away because he decides not to have a few shots of Jack before or after a show.

Thanks for listening guys.

Yep. Good point there. I'm translating your post for Sum 41 france, hope you don't mind. It's nice to have the point of view of someone close to the band, hopefully it'll help to stop rumors !

Brian is right!
But the only thing that worries me about Deryck's drinking habits is that he's drunk on stage a lot.
Can't he just party after a show?

It means heavens to me that you Brian has come to this forum to tell us and give us information.
And finally all suspicions about stories regarding the videos and that is getting cleared up.

I hope you decide to stay in touch with us so we can have a further great relation the the band like when Matt was around.

thanks for clears it up Brian! ;)

not gonna lie - its pretty badass that you came on here to clarify and everything. does the band ever read any stuff on here?

The rumors were really stupid : everyone knows how Deryck loves to play in front of his fans. I hope he will come back on stage soon.

briankeithdiaz wrote:I don't exclusively eat jars of mayonnaise just because you saw a video of me doing it once on film for 200 euros.

You don't need to convince us, we know the truth.

Thanks for visiting here! Greetings from Finland!


About Deryck's back, I don't see why it was questioned in the first place. It's been clear that his back has been aching since Japan last year, so without time for a proper treatment this was unfortunate but expectable.

The videos, like Diaz said, who wants to see updates about them doing boring stuff? Seriously?

briankeithdiaz wrote:C'mon... if there were videos of them doing boring monotonous stuff all day you wouldn't be interested either. Keep in mind that these clips are cut from hours and hours of footage into a 3 minute video. There is plenty of down time where the band ISN'T drinking or partying or breaking stuff. But, like ANY rock band in the world, there is drinking and partying as well. A day in the life on tour can get pretty boring.

How unfun would it be to watch a YouTube video of the guys eating steamed vegetables and tofu (which I have watched all of them do), or sit on their laptops in the dressing room talking on Skype to their wives or girlfriends (which I've also watched)? Of course you don't want to see that. You also don't want to see someone who's experiencing back pain go through their daily routine of having to get ready to put on a physically active show on stage. There is plenty of time on our days off when we all do non-drinking activities like visit museums, go to parks, go to the beach, walk around and explore all the beautiful cities we have been to and generally have a good time. Some of that has been documented on YouTube as well, but everyone seems to focus on the drinking stuff, which like it or not has become part of Sum 41's legend as a band. Just because you see them drunk on their updates doesn't mean it's like that 24 hours a day. Same thing applies to me... I don't exclusively eat jars of mayonnaise just because you saw a video of me doing it once on film for 200 euros.

People seem to forget that regardless of whether or not you think he's drinking too much or not, the back trouble is still there. It's not going to magically go away because he decides not to have a few shots of Jack before or after a show.

Thanks for listening guys.

I was just implying that in many people the videos evoke the idea of Sum 41 living a dangerous life, even though it's just pieces of the jigsaw(but in all fairness, you can't be drunk 24/7, no man could pull that off) ...
I couldn't care less about what they do, it's their business and the reason why they don't tour is not important to me, they have their right to do whatever they wanna, so either they're all tired or just Deryck has ran out of good health, no matter what they can end their own tour ...

and if people don't get the joke with the boring stuff in videos, god, wasn't it obvious that I just wanted to point out how much those videos seem to affect fans of Sum 41 ? especially because of what you mentioned, and that is that they pay all their attention to the drinking stuff but don't notice the other stuff, like visiting the grave of Jim Morrison(I think it was his), or simply visiting shit and taking pictures of itlike a middle-class tourist ...

+Karma for Brian. Cheers!

In regards to the studio updates, I agree it would be boring to see a band sit around as opposed to them partaking in drunken debauchery. Though to me, seeing the songs evolve as they were being written and recorded would've been more interesting. That's just me though and I don't mind the odd party video.

I'm glad you cleared this up for the people thinking this was a joke. People don't joke around with serious issues like these. Please tell Deryck I hope he gets better. I know how it is with back pains because I get them with my line of work. You have one of the most amazing jobs, and I hope you guys can get back on the road soon, but for the love of God please do a USA tour. You know, just saying

Sum41Ant27 wrote:for the love of God please do a USA (and Canadian) tour. You know, just saying

Just throwing that in there.

it's good to get things cleared up!

Thanks for clearing things up Brian. I for one never doubted Deryck's health and what he's been going through as I'm not in situation. It's not as if it's a situation the band needs to be in, especially since they should still be promoting SBM. I really do hope things look up in 2012 for D so we can see The Sums back on the road! Appreciate you sharing that with us Brian.

Can you tell us why de SBM video didn't appear? (It was already recorded!)