NOTE: I am writing today’s music post in the middle of a separate series that involves a great many book reviews. This post started off as a result of reading a book, as well but is not part of my other series, which is entitled From the Library of Dr. Oliver Sacks. *(Feel free to click here to check that series out).
The inspiration for today’s post began last spring when my family and I took a day trip to a shopping mall in a nearby city. While there, we visited a large book store. This is never a good idea for me because I rarely leave without an armful of books. That visit was no exception. In my pile I had the following books: Above the Noise: My Story of Chasing Calm by NBA star (and former Raptor) Demar Derozan. This book chronicles his rise to NBA superstardom from deep within gang territory in Los Angeles. A second book was Save Our Souls by Matthew Pearl, which was about a family marooned on Midway Atoll in the South Pacific and possible murder, cannibalism and treasure. The third book or four was called The Knowing by Canadian/Indigenous writer Tanya Talaga. This book revolved around Talaga’s experience with the news of bodies being discovered at the sites of former residential schools and her family connections to this story. The fourth and final book I purchased that day was one that I chose because it seemed to me that it would be a lighter read and would help to counterbalance the themes of the other books I was buying. This book was called Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell by Deryck Whibley. For those who may not know, Deryck Whibley was/is the lead singer of Canadian rock/punk band Sum 41. I bought the book on the assumption that it was going to be one of those gossipy, behind-the-scenes books that talk about groupies and famous people and the stories behind some of Sum 41’s hot songs. I considered it to be light summer reading. Boy was I wrong! This book is extremely heavy and is filled with explosive allegations of sexual abuse, addiction and betrayal. After reading it, I feel as though I owe Mr. Whibley an apology (which I will get into shortly). But, on the brighter side, because of the book, I was introduced to a YouTube channel that has become one of my favourite must-see sites for interesting and intelligent viewing (which I will also get into shortly). There are many facets to the story of how Sum 41 came to be one of Canada’s most successful bands. I will attempt to cover some of the more prominent and/or controversial sides of this story in today’s post. To do so, let me begin by going back to the 1980s in Toronto and a television show called Fashion TV. Let us begin.
In my first year of university, I lived in a residence apartment that housed six of us…three men and three women. One of the girls in my apartment was a fashion student. Because of the fact that we were all just starting to learn about our individual careers, we would often help each other on projects that required an extra set of hands or two. It was through my roommate that I was introduced to the world of fashion. I have always admired creativity and art so the design element inherent in fashion was always a draw. I was also a straight male in an industry in which many men are gay. Being accepted by scantily clad models simply because I was straight and seemed to be a decent human being did a lot for my self-esteem as a nineteen year old, too. As the 1980s rolled along, I maintained my interest in the world of fashion. One of the ways I did this was by watching a new television show produced out of CITY-TV in Toronto called Fashion TV. Each week, host Jeanne Beker would report from the latest fashion shows, profile the hottest and most famous designers and she would also showcase the runway models. That was the era of the supermodels like Cindy Crawford, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista and so on. All of it interested me so I became a regular weekly viewer of each new episode. One other thing that drew me in to Fashion TV was that the producers made a habit of pairing live fashion runway footage with the music of emerging Canadian bands. It was while watching an episode of Fashion TV one week that I was first introduced to a Canadian band called Treble Charger and their big hit called “Red”. This song became one that was used regularly on the show. I came to know it well and even paid my own money to buy the 45 single from Sam the Record Man on Yonge Street so I could own my own copy. Treble Charger was led by a man named Greig Nori. He and his band became one of a growing wave of indie bands that were changing the Canadian music scene as the 1980s became the 90s. I loved that song and always held the band in high esteem. Hold that thought.
Sum 41 was a band that formed in Ajax, Ontario in the mid 1990s. The band consisted of four friends who met while in high school. They were lead singer Deryck Whibley, drummer Steve “Steve-O” Jocz, guitarists Dave “Brownsound” Baksh and Jason “Cone” McCaslin. Sum 41 came into being around the same time as skateboard culture was starting to become a popular thing in North America. Bands such as Blink 182, The Offspring, Jimmy Eat World and so on were gaining traction by releasing fun, energetic, often humourous/juvenile music videos to accompany their songs. MTV and Much Music, here in Canada, jumped on the skate punk bandwagon and soon it became a financially-viable sub genre of popular music. In Ajax, the members of Sum 41 were spending time learning to play their instruments and to write some of their own material. They did this by playing in coffee shops and by attending Battle-of-the-Band competitions in their area. Just before one such competition was set to be staged, the boys attended a concert by none other than Treble Charger. The band had a blast. After the show, Deryck Whibley got brave enough and worked his way backstage. There he encountered the band as they were unwinding. To Deryck Whibley, meeting one of his heroes in Greig Nori was a heady experience. Whibley mentioned that he and his friends were in a band and were playing in a few days and invited Nori and the band to come and check out their show. To everyone’s surprise, Nori showed up a few days later. He liked what he heard and saw enough to offer his services as manager and guru, of sorts. To the high school kids that they were, having a legitimate music star take an interest in their career seemed like impossibly good luck. They agreed to have Greig Nori become their manager. He agreed to do so under the strict condition that they had to follow his advice to the letter. It didn’t seem like a deal with the devil at the time but, according to Whibley (as revealed in his book), the association with Nori was about to leave a lasting impact on Whibley’s life. It would also force the band to fight for its soul as success soon found them and brought the spotlight to bear in ways that none of them could have anticipated.
When many new artists get signed to a major record label or agree to work with an established producer, it is often difficult for them to view the relationship as one of peer equality. What usually happens is that the record label sets the criteria and terms of how the band sound will be, what songs will get produced, which singles will get airplay on local radio, where the band will tour and what their image will be. For many newbies, they happily/willingly do what they are told in the beginning. So when Greig Nori (in his 30s) began inviting Deryck Whibley (In his teens) to his home to party or to write songs together, Whibley went and never gave it a second thought. Nor did his friends in the band or his family. It was all quite the very best of times. According to Whibley from his book, it wasn’t long before Nori started making demands on the younger Whibley that included sexual favours, as well as exercising complete creative control over the band’s music and career direction. Nori made it a point of telling the band, as a whole, and Whibley, in particular, that their career was completely in his hands and that without him, they would be nothing. For Whibley, the impact of Nori’s words and action sent him spinning on an emotional downward spiral. Alcohol and drug use became not only part of the rock n’ roll lifestyle but they became a way for Whibley to repress and disguise what was happening to him at Nori’s hands behind the scenes. ***For the record, Greig Nori denies Whibley’s allegations that Nori groomed him and coerced him into a sexual relationship. Nori claims that it was consensual and that, if anything, it was Whibley who instigated it. At the time of the writing of this post, the matter is before the courts as Nori fights back in order to clear his name and regain his reputation.
Despite what Whibley says was happening off stage, the band roared out of the gate with a series of hit songs such as “In Too Deep”, “Fat Lip”, “Over My Head”, “Still waiting”, “We’re All To Blame” and today’s featured track, “The Hell Song”. This is where my apology comes in. I have to be honest and admit that I was never really all that impressed with Sum 41 in the moment that they were initially hitting it big. I thought that the whole skate-punk movement was rather lightweight and that many of the songs were immature and almost silly. Furthermore, I specifically thought that Deryck Whibley made for a bizarre front person for the band. He was short, not overly handsome (in my judgmental opinion) and I didn’t buy his on stage antics as having come from an authentic place from within his heart. So imagine my surprise when news leaked out that not only did Deryck Whibley have Paris Hilton for a girlfriend for a year or so but, after that relationship broke up, he became married to the super cute skater girl pixie herself, Avril Lavigne! How was this guy getting those girls?! I know that I wasn’t the only guy with those thoughts because Whibley spent much time talking in his book about how hard he had to battle to overcome lazy perceptions borne out of the media’s and my own assumptions as to how things really were. Truth was, until I read his book, I had no idea how hard Whibley and his bandmates were working, how deeply personal most of the songs on all of their albums were, how highly regarded they were in the eyes of other bands, nor the quality of the character that each man in the band possessed. I will give you an example of this by focusing on today’s track called “The Hell Song”.
“The Hell Song” was released in 2003 and came from an album called Does This Look Infected? Not only was this song a real banger (and my favourite song of theirs) but it actually became known for two completely separate things. First of all, the song was written by Whibley in response to learning about a female friend (with benefits?) of his who had been diagnosed H.I.V. Like many young people when they first encounter the fragile nature of our existence, Whibley was thrown for a loop. According to the band, Whibley created the lyrics for the song in less than an hour after hearing his friend’s bad news. Thus, on the one hand, the song is a deeply personal ode to a friend in her time of greatest need. However, “The Hell Song” is also noteworthy for an entirely different reason, too. One of the ways that the band defined itself when it was first hitting the road and touring was to make home videos and send those videos to radio stations, record companies, TV studios, etc., in the belief that they could use humour as a promotional tool. This mindset was quite common as it was the age of self expression through video. MTV was waning but YouTube was just beginning. The early 2000s was a time when social media was just about to explode. So the idea that the band members had of filming themselves doing all sorts of humorous and creative things and setting those videos to music was a great idea. To formalize this habit, the video for “The Hell Song” was made to resemble those homemade videos that the band made with whatever found objects happened to be at hand. The video for “The Hell Song” is made with stop-action animation techniques, coupled with live filming of dolls and toys. The idea is that the band is giving a concert (as dolls with photos of their faces glued on) for an audience that serves as a time capsule of that era. Watching the video is like taking a trip down memory lane and marvelling at all of the cultural and entertainment news that made headlines back then. This video was nominated for the award for Video of the Year at the MTV Video Awards. So, listen to “The Hell Song” for the heartfelt lyrics that were written for a dear friend at the worst of times and/or watch the video and try to pick out all of the pop culture references it contains….there are dozens! Either way, “The Hell Song” is a great tune.
In 2015, Deryck Whibley and Avril Lavigne officially filed for divorce. At the time, I had dismissively viewed it as Lavigne finally coming to her senses. Sum 41 had stopped having radio-friendly hits and appeared to have dropped out of sight. I stopped caring about them. I assumed they had broken up, like so many bands before them and had quietly ended their career. What I didn’t know until I read his book was that Whibley was in the full throes of addiction and that his health was deteriorating at a rapid pace. His ability to show up for concerts and, if he managed to do so, to perform at his customary high level, became very inconsistent and erratic. Tensions rose within the band. Dave Baksh had left the band early on to be closer to his family. But toward the end, concerns about the financial stability of the band developed into a wedge that had Whibley (as songwriter) on one side and Steve-o Jocz and Cone McCaslin on the other. Eventually, Whibley’s health deteriorated to the point that he was hospitalized and had lapsed into a coma. Needless to say, that put an end to Sum 41 as an active touring band. The guys went their separate ways. Whibley used his time to remarry, to regain his health and to engage in a form of emotional therapy by writing his book. To look at photos of Deryck Whibley today, as compared to when he first started out with Sum 41 in his twenties, it is obvious that he has been to Hell and back again. He is thin and drawn and does not yet have that healthy glow back to his complexion. That will take much time and much love. I wish him nothing but the best. I also apologize to Deryck Whibley and to everyone in Sum 41 for not taking it all more seriously as the heyday was happening. I apologize for my own juvenile behaviour in having called him “Mr. Avril Lavigne” when the two were actively married. I am sure I chuckled at how clever I sounded in my own head back then. Now it just sounds stupid. I am sorry for having said hurtful things. I take it as being a handy lesson for all media types, as well as armchair fans like me. It is easy to make light of public figures and to cast all manner of aspersions in their direction from the comfort of our own homes and keyboards. It is a different thing entirely to be the person experiencing everything in real time, under the paparazzi’s spotlight, on the biggest stages of the world. People are people, even celebrities. It is an easy lesson to forget but a necessary one to remember, at least it is for me. It is a reminder that I happily accept.
One of the best things that has come out of my experience reading Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell by Deryck Whibley involves how algorithms work and what that has meant for me. After reading this book, naturally I went online to find out more about some of the people and events mentioned in the book. In doing so, I helped awaken the algorithm gods that reside in the world of YouTube. One of the things that came to my attention was a YouTube channel run by former Sum 41 drummer Steve-o Jocz. In the book, Whibley always made reference to the respect he had for the drumming skills of Jocz and how gregarious of a personality the man possessed. Toward the end of the book, that gregarious nature became a source of irritation to Whibley who decried Jocz as always having the need to be “the biggest voice in any room he entered”. Well, I have become a huge fan of Steve-o’s YouTube channel. He creates episodes that tell the story behind Sum 41 songs (including “The Hell Song”), he talks about bands/musicians that acted as inspiration for Sum 41 and gives musical history in an informed way and, every so often, he talks about issues in the news that in some way connect to his experiences in Sum 41. I find him funny and informative and I admire the fairness with which he tackles the issues he addresses in each YouTube episode. He has moved into the ranks of YouTubers whose channel I subscribe to. Each new episode has become must-see viewing, at least it is for me.
This brings me back to that day at the mall with my family. I left with an armful of good books and have ended up with a headful of new information and changed perspectives. Whether the subject matter is the tragedy of residential school victims and their descendants, the mental struggles that plague even superstar millionaire athletes, the desperate acts that happen when survival of loved ones is at stake or even the goings on of a famous Canadian band like Sum 41, we learn and we grow when we expose our minds to new information and receive said information with an empathetic heart. I wish the members of Sum 41 all the best in their future endeavours. May Deryck Whibley, in particular, find the peace that he seems to so desperately need.
The link to the official website for Sum 41 can be found here.
The link to the video from Steve-o Jocz and the background of “The Hell Song” as presented from his YouTube channel can be found here.
The link to the video for the song “The Hell Song” by Sum 41 can be found here. ***The lyrics video can be found here.
The link to the closing credits of a typical episode of Fashion TV from back in the day (1985) can be found here.
The link to the official website for Ajax, Ontario, Canada can be found here.
***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2025 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com
May I suggest. long long time to get old, by Ian Tyson’s “Great Speckled Bird” a side project in his more active years. I think that would be a fantastic fit for this series!