KERRANG! 71DERYCK
WHIBLEY
(VOCALS/GUITAR)How much did the state of the world
impact your songwriting on Order
In Decline?
“It definitely reflects my feelings
about the state of the world.
The reason I’ve said it’s not a
political album is because I’m not
necessarily talking about specific
policies of the U.S. or anything
like that. It’s more my own anger
towards the hatred and chaos
and division I’ve seen around the
world. Almost every country we
went to on the last tour we did
had its own divisions. Everywhere
we went seems to be in decline in
certain ways.”Did the lyrical themes influence the
heaviness of the songs?
“I don’t really think about it so
much in those terms, but people
will probably say it’s the heaviest
thing Sum 41 have ever done. It’s
more of a coincidence really that
the aggression sort of reflects someof those themes. I write all the
music first and then the lyrics come
later. The heaviness was what came
out naturally this time, and then the
lyrics were these ideas that were
just floating around my head when
it came time to write them.”Was it difficult baring yourself on
the album’s more personal songs
like Never There, which is about
your absent father?
“The difficult part is actually
allowing myself to write it. When
I started that song – and also
Catching Fire – I initially felt like
I didn’t want to talk about these
things. I couldn’t really fight it,
though. I tried changing the lyrics
and steering the topics somewhere
else, but that never works for me.
I didn’t feel like I needed to work
through these feelings in my music
in a consciously cathartic kind of
way, but I do think I benefit from it
in the long run. There’s got to be a
reason why these things are kicking
around in my subconscious in the
first place, so it’s good to get them
out in a song.”Q&A
“THE WHOLE
WORLD SEEMS TO
BE IN DECLINE...”
DERYCK WHIBLEYSUM 41
ORDER IN DECLINE
(HOPELESS)KKKK
SUM 41 take a darkly personal view of the
world on their heaviest album to date...
S
um 41’s musical evolution has been
an intriguing one to watch. They
originally emerged as the clown
prince heirs to blink-182’s
pop-punk throne but,
as the years have gone by, they’ve
morphed into something a little
bit darker, a little bit edgier and a
surprising amount heavier. In 2019,
23 years since they formed (albeit
as a covers band working under
the name Kaspir), they’re not
entirely unrecognisable from the
band that brought us the sunny fun
of mega-hits like In Too Deep and
Fat Lip, but they’ve grown up a hell
of a lot in the intervening decades.
2011’s Screaming Bloody Murder
was the band’s sharpest turn
away from their pop-punk starting
blocks, setting them up to do
pretty much anything they wanted.
A line-up collapse and frontman
Deryck Whibley’s hospitalisation
for alcohol-related organ failure threatened to
derail the whole thing but, heroically, the band
rallied, regrouped and came back stronger
with 13 Voices in 2016. Again, it branched
out into the realms of heaviness, ballads and
whatever else they fancied.
Order In Decline picks up exactly where that
album left off, taking a similar approach with
dynamic, punk-tinged rock and metal forming
the base. This time out, though, everything
has been ratcheted up a notch. The punkier
passages are tighter and faster, while the more
metal-edged riffs hit like a hammer. Taken as
a whole, it’s the hardest and heaviest album
they’ve ever made, and across its 10 tracks, it’s
also Sum 41 at their most creative and willing
to explore their frontiers.
A sombre piano starts things off before
Turning Away kicks in proper with a high-
tensile stuttering riff. Add a blazing solo
straight from the band’s heavy metal alter-
egos Pain For Pleasure, and things are off to
a flying start. Out For Blood keeps the energyup with a crashing skate-punk edge and some
downtuned riffing, before The New Sensation
throws the album’s first real curveball. The
pulsing groove and phrasing come across
distinctly Muse-esque, although
Deryck’s voice doesn’t attempt
to emulate Matt Bellamy’s vocal
acrobatics, instead doing his own
thing which adds a rough-edged
balance to the song’s vast sheen.
On the subject of Brit-rock
references, Heads Will Roll comes
in on a gigantic riff similar to the
stomp of Royal Blood’s Figure It
Out, before the boisterous chorus
heads off in its own direction. Eat
You Alive features some seriously
weighty metallic riffs, while 45
(A Matter Of Time) takes Donald
Trump – the 45th president of
the United States – to task via
a rolling punk charge that also
features a surprising hint of
something close to Deftones.
Despite the Trump-baiting, Deryck insists
that this isn’t a political album as such. There’s
an underlying sense of tension and paranoia,
however, and even the album title suggests a
world sliding towards chaos. The frontman and
chief songwriter has, by his own admission,
been influenced by the global state of play,
but it’s represented in a more human manner
than a political one. In fact, two of the stand-
out moments are both the most personal
and most musically restrained on here: the
emotional Never There addresses Deryck’s
relationship with his absent father, while
Catching Fire is a multilayered ballad that
aches with themes of loss and love.
It’s a wonderfully nuanced end to an album
that is otherwise direct and often razor-sharp.
The edges are softened by those pop-punk
melodies that still lurk deep in Sum 41’s DNA,
but this is certainly not a pop-punk album.
The evolution continues, and it remains an
impressive thing indeed. PAUL TRAVERSPOINTS OF
ORDER...