Sum 41

About Sum 41

The rule of snotty pop-punk goes; one band will grow respectable, and another, brattier band will take their place. So it went for the sneering young rockers in Canada's Sum 41, who inherited the obnoxious punk rock throne from the suddenly-respectable Greenday. Sum 41 exploded onto the music scene with their raucous album All Killer No Filler. The disc dropped in 2001, and it was a start-to-finish house party ready set of spastic, three chord anthems. Sum 41 sing about high school, suburban angst and partying hard all night, and lead singer Deryck Whibley's nasal voice proved perfect for delivering his clever, often scathing lyrics. It also didn't hurt that the Sum 41 boys look like every parent's juvenile delinquent nightmare, complete with unnaturally colored spiky hair, tattoos and ripped jeans. America got a good look at the band when their debut single, "Fat Lip", hit huge and the accompanying video of the boys throwing the best skate park party ever got them even more exposure via constant MTV rotation. Following up All Killer No Filler, Sum 41 embarked on the first of their many year-long world tours. Since then, the band has developed a reputation as one of the hardest touring punk groups on the planet, but don't let that ruin their "who give a f*ck?" slacker image. The group's second album, Does This Look Infected?, saw them setting off on the epic journey towards respectability. Their lead-off single, "Still Waiting", offered a level of musical and lyrical sophistication that had been missing from their debut effort. Lyrical themes on the band's sophomore disc hinted at a degree of social consciousness that just wasn't there on older songs like "Go, Go, Gonorrhea." In 2004, the band traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo to make a documentary about the fighting with the help of the Canadian charity group War Child. Only days after the band arrived, heavy fighting broke out near their hotel and, after several days, they were evacuated by armored transport. The experience was a sobering one for Sum 41 and their most recent album, Chuck (named after the UN Peacekeeper who helped the band escape) is their heaviest and darkest to date.