Sum 41 joined us for a special performance and interview from the Helpful Honda Sound Space at KROQ in Los Angeles, giving us a taste of their 2024 live set as they continue the second North American leg of their Tour of the Setting Sum -- and speaking with us about how the outing has been going so far.
It truly was a historic night at KROQ, with Sum 41 joining the station that has been with the band for all 23 years of their epic run, now as they give fans one more go before packing things up for good.
Just months ago, the band released their final album Heaven X Hell, with Heaven representing their Pop-punk side and Hell focusing on the heavier side of their songwriting -- two equally tense worlds that the group has brilliantly straddled since the start.
“I don't know if we call it tension,” says frontman Deryk Whibley. “We're fans of that kind of music and other kinds of music as well. I think we just, I don't know, I don't think we ever really talked about it or thought about it, we just did stuff. Even with this record, ‘Heaven and Hell,’ we didn't say, ‘Let's make a double record.’ The music was just there, and we all collectively listened to it separately, but came up with the same idea.”
This year has been feeling like a throwback to 2001 for the band members as they make the press rounds amid their current tour. “I think the funniest thing that I think back to is that it doesn't feel like it was that long ago,” Deryck says. “It really just feels like a couple of years ago.”
Back then he adds, “It was a lot of work and it was a lot of fun -- everything was happening so fast. It's kind of the only difference now with everything happening so fast and so much going on is that we're old enough to recognize it and take it in because back then you're just like, onto the next thing, onto the next thing, and you kind of forget. You don't take those moments in.”
Calling it quits after this record Deryck explains “was never the plan. Nothing was ever thought of this whole record. Like I said, the songs are by accident. The idea was just a thing that the music spoke to us, and then I think once the record was finished and it was mixed and recorded, the whole thing was done is when that hit me. I felt like this to me was the record that we've always been trying to make -- this encapsulates everything that we've always wanted to do.”
“That's the sound of Sum 41 from the beginning to now,” he says. “It just kind of made too much sense for this to be the final one.”
Words by Joe Cingrana Interview by Kevan Kenney
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