HERE’S A COOL STORY YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT SUM 41

Photo sourced from Grammys.com

Editorial By Ben Rispin @benrispin

01/25/2025

After one of the most epic careers punk rock has ever seen, SUM 41 are calling it quits. With thousands of fans flocking to see them one last time, it's hard to avoid the nostalgia. SUM 41 has a story as good as any legendary rock-n-roll band. From hilarity to tragedy to recovery. The tales of the good-ship-SUM are legendary, but here's one you might not have heard..

SUM 41’s career is well documented. Through thousands of articles, tabloids, videos, interviews, award shows, skits and most recently, singer/songwriter Deryck Whibley's best selling memoir Walking Disaster, most fans know and appreciate the story of SUM 41 more than ever.

Having sold millions of records world wide, the tale of SUM 41 is basically ingrained in the zeitgeist of our species.

With that in mind, I’d like to share a cool, real life, rock-n-roll story about SUM 41 that I think a lot of people would be interested in hearing.

I’m roughly the same age as the members of SUM 41. Maybe a couple years older.

With full transparency; over the years, I've become close friends with SUM 41's Dave 'Brownsound" Baksh, and I've had the privilege of getting to know Jason 'Cone" McCaslin a bit too. Dave and Cone are some of the finest people I've ever met in music. Both beyond generous, both beyond sincere.

AS a side note, I also think I might owe Deryck Whibley an apology. Much of my life is blurry, but I think I may have stormed on his bus one time looking for someone who owed me drug money.

I didn't know who's bus it was. It wasn't appropriate or the right bus. I was a lunatic then. I won't dwell on that though.

If you're reading this Deryck, sorry dude.

SUM 41 in the early days. Photo stolen from the internet.

When SUM 41 started blowing up, back in the late 1990's early 2000's, competitive jealousy in the Southern Ontario music community was rampant.

In those times, many of us shit talked SUM 41 because we wanted their success.

However, we shit talkers didn't have a leg to stand on. SUM 41 literally had DMX in their first music video. Thats the coolest shit ever.

I’ve done enough work on myself to know when jealousy heeds its ugly head. I know that beast when I see it.

I'm embarrassed to say, those of us who shit talked, were all full of smelly, jealous, shit.

Plain and simple.

I digress. That shit talk didn't last long.

A COOL STORY YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW ABOUT SUM 41 ON THE VANS WARPED TOUR '01

Back in 2001, I was selling merch for one of my favourite bands ever on the Vans Warped Tour. A band from Burlington, Ontario called Jersey.

Jersey was formed by Greg Taylor who prior to Jersey was a founding member of post-hardcore-screamo-co-inventors, Grade. Jersey had a few line-up changes over the years but at this time, the band was made up of Greg, Sean Mcnab (Who later formed The Creepshow), co-founding member, fisherman, and legendary hockey enforcer Johnny Lubera, and Ian Blackwood (The Artist Life, Always Outnumbered, Great Mistakes ) on drums.

Jersey were a great bunch of guys who were also exemplary people. I learned a lot from those guys. On and off the road.

Picture of a later line up of Jersey featuring Sean McNab, Johnny Lubera, Greg Taylor, and Jordan "Ratbeard" Hastings

That year's Warped Tour was stacked.

Rollins Band, Rancid, D12, AFI, Me First and The Gimme Gimmes, Pennywise, H2O, Kool Keith and so many more huge acts were on the headlining bill.

Jersey, Alien Ant Farm, SUM 41, Belvedere and more were playing primarily on the Maurice Stage. A small, collapsable, flat-bed trailer stage that featured emerging artists.

Being on the Maurice Stage often meant our merch tents were in the same general vicinity as the other artists on that stage, and often within view of the music.

Our crew witnessed WILD shit go down on that Warped Tour. We saw Henry Rollins and Lars Frederikson of Rancid almost fight over a rumour. We saw the damage inflicted to Kool Keith's tour bus by D12 over an old Detroit rap beef.

We saw an inebriated and slurring Tim Armstrong (he’s now sober) of Rancid and Operation Ivy warn the entire post show BBQ food-line by repeatedly saying, “chiiisssgawwnnnbaahhd” - [ Go on and say it in your head. I’ll wait ] “chiiisssgawwnnnbaahhd”.

Tim Armstrong of Rancid was telling us that "the chips had gone bad” and were now soggy. Tim Armstrong fucking rules. I hate soggy chips and I love Rancid so much. Thank you, Tim.

Not only did we dodge soggy chips, but that summer also bared witness to Alien Ant Farm's rise to fame with their cover of Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal. A very late 90's feeling rendition of the pop classic.

On Warped Tour 2001, there were so many special, important, and legendary bands playing the main stage. Bands like H2O, Pennywise, and AFI crushed it everyday. The common protocol of that community was nothing but respect. All the bands had respect for each other, respect for the audience, and respect for the music. It was a truly special summer for most on that tour and most were happy to be there.

As Alien Ant Farm's Smooth Criminal gained audience, and as their crowds grew, the band began socializing their frustrations about performing on a side stage. They even began taking their frustrations public. I can confirm this, because they would say it on stage. It started with off the cuff comments like "this looks like the main stage to us." and they got worse.

Meanwhile, As Alien Ant Farm was vocalizing their frustrations, a Canadian punk band overthrew American-boyband-pop-music on MTV for the first time in ages. If my foggy memory serves, power chords had not reigned supreme in mainstream music since maybe Nirvana or Green Day.

The band to overthrow over-produced boyband pop, was none other than SUM 41.

SUM 41 on TRL with Carson Daly - photo stolen from the internet

SUM 41 BECOMES THE BIGGEST BAND IN AMERICA BUT IT GETS COOLER...

For context, long ago, at the dawn of the internet, MTV was still very much involved in music. One of MTV’s biggest shows was called TRL or Total Request Live. TRL was a modern take on traditional top-of-the-charts programs like Dick Clark’s American Band Stand (I seriously couldn’t think of a more current reference.)

Hosted by Carson Daly, the premise of TRL was simple; Young American music lovers would vote or request by phone whichever band they wanted to see the most on MTV and MTV would comply.

For weeks, months and what felt like years, bands like Back Street Boys, N’Sync or Britney Spears topped all the charts.

Then SUM 41 became the biggest band in America.

America.

THE COOLEST PART OF THIS STORY ABOUT SUM 41 YOU MIGHT NOT KNOW

That Warped Tour hosted the closest thing to Beatle-mania I’ve ever seen in real life.

The crowds by the Maurice Stage were getting huge. Screaming fans would flood the festival grounds just to get a glimpse of SUM 41.

By the time we got to New York (I believe) the crowds got so huge that I got pinned behind our Merch table to make room for legions of screaming SUM 41 fans. I was actually scared for my safety. It was wild. WILD I SAY!

On that small stage SUM 41 was confident, tight, fun, and earned their throne. Backstage, you could see the admiration SUM 41 had for everyone on the tour. They almost seemed embarrassed by the attention they were getting. The admiration was reciprocated by almost all of the bands on the festival. It was so cool to witness. It was so cool to see SUM 41 display such humility.

LISTEN TO SUM 41

As I said earlier, Alien Ant Farm didn’t have a great showing that year. As SUM 41 literally became the biggest band in the world, Alien Ant Farm kept pushing for a better stage placement. The band continued to complain publicly and privately. It was getting awkward for everyone.

As the story goes, Alien Ant Farm’s behaviour resulted in them being asked to leave the tour. The exact details vary from who tells the story, but a common version is that Alien Ant Farm weren’t so much asked to leave the tour, as they were threatened to leave the tour by Fletcher Dragge of Pennywise.

I’m not going to push that.

That dude is wild.

SUM 41 WERE ONE OF THE BIGGEST BANDS IN THE WORLD AND TREATED EVERYONE WITH HUMILITY

Alien Ant Farm’s behaviour amplified just how real SUM 41 were as a band and still are as people. In the midst of their own Beatle-mania, SUM 41 were gracious enough to never complain or take for granted what was happening to them.

SUM 41 got up on that flat bed every day and fucking killed it.

I'm proud to say I saw one of the coolest bands Canada has ever produced act with humility, grace, style, and earn the respect of their peers and our heroes alike.

In exchange, SUM 41 gave the fans exactly what they wanted but didn’t know they needed. The same thing SUM 41 has always continued to give us. The thing we all so desperately crave and in retrospect, the thing we were jealous of all those years ago.

Authenticity.

SUM 41 gave us authenticity.

There is no greater compliment or gift an artist can give other than authenticity in what they create. SUM 41 have given it to us the whole time.

This week marks the final shows for SUM 41 here in Toronto and I can't recommend buying tickets enough. For those wondering about the current state of SUM 41, I had the chance to catch up with Dave "Brownsound" Baksh last week and he texted me this: