Windsor Star

Sum 41 frontman sober, and loving it

Sum 41’s Whibley finds life is so much better without booze

- SANDRA SPEROUNES ssperounes@postmedia.com twitter.com/Sperounes

“I’ll take my last breath,” Deryck Whibley sings on Fake My Own Death, one of Sum 41’s latest angry punk anthems.

Two years ago, he didn’t have to fake his near-death experience. After years of alcohol abuse, the Ajax, Ont., native was hospitaliz­ed with liver and kidney failure in 2014. Doctors put him into a coma to ease the effects of withdrawal, but then he suffered from muscle atrophy and nerve damage as a result of months of bed rest and medication.

“My motor skills were all messed up. I could barely form a sentence,” he says. “I couldn’t play guitar, I couldn’t walk. It was like starting from zero. It was like I was an infant — I was learning how to walk again, I was learning how to talk again . ... that first year and a half was weird, sketchy and kind of uncertain.”

Whibley, 36, talked to Postmedia about his battle with the bottle, reuniting with guitarist Dave Baksh and making 13 Voices.

Q How are you?

A I’m pretty good, just hanging in Chicago.

Q What’s it like to be touring sober?

A It’s really cool. It’s actually better, to be honest. We’ve been touring this whole year, so it’s not really new to me. At first, I was really nervous because I was kind of thinking it was going to be really boring, but it’s actually not. I guess you sort of take it in more, you feel everything more, you feel the energy more. The shows are a little more exciting for me now and I can only think it’s because I couldn’t notice it before. When you’re drinking and you’re onstage, everything feels really cool, no matter what you do, but it sort of stays one level — nothing gets better, nothing gets worse. Whereas you can be taken to a higher place if you’re sober.

Q How are you coping with your nerve damage? Do you still experience a lot of pain?

A There’s still permanent nerve damage in my feet, but it doesn’t hurt anymore, so it’s manageable now. There are still numb patches, which makes my balance a little off sometimes, but it’s not so bad anymore. It used to be awful. It used to be like walking around with vertigo. You can’t stand straight; you feel like you’re falling over with every step.

Q After relearning guitar, are you a better player than before?

A No, probably not. I just learned enough to get back to the beginner level that I always was. I didn’t really try to get any better. I only ever learned to play guitar just enough so I could write songs.

Q Speaking of, what did it take for guitarist Dave Baksh to reunite with the band?

A We became friends again. It’s not that we weren’t friends, but we just didn’t speak. When he left the band (in 2006), he wanted to do his own thing (Brown Brigade) and we kept doing our thing. He lived in Canada, I lived in Los Angeles, I was always on tour. We just didn’t have any reason to stay in contact and I can admit there was a little bitterness. I was pissed that he left.

Over time, we just started chatting on the phone a lot and becoming friends again .... We didn’t really talk about the band; we were just friends. Then it got to the point where it was like: “Why are we not playing together?” and “I’d be into it if you’re into it.” So that’s that.

Q A Murder of Crows was the first song you wrote for 13 Voices. What inspired it?

A I had just got out of the hospital and that one just came right out. There was a certain amount of “Holy s---, I survived! I have a second chance at life.” But there was also that realizatio­n that certain things were negative in my life. I had this sort of Entourages­tyle lifestyle. I had these friends who were with me through my whole career, right from the very beginning. They say you’re supposed to stick with the people you grew up with because they’ll never screw you. Well, those are the people that only screwed me. I realized that they had been screwing me for so long, stealing money from me, basically just using me — and when things got really difficult for me and I went into the hospital, they were the ones that bailed on me.

That’s what the song is about — those few individual­s that I was just like: “You’re all dead to me at this point.” I haven’t spoken to any of those people since.

Q Is it difficult to trust people?

A At the beginning, I went through this phase of “Holy s---, I can’t trust anybody.” I was really so guarded and kind of not a very pleasant person to be around. I know it wasn’t pleasant for myself. To go through life trusting nobody, you’ll end up pretty miserable, so you have to let that go.

 ?? CRAIG ROBERTSON ?? After recovering from the effects of a coma that was medically induced to ease withdrawal from alcohol, Sum 41 singer Deryck Whibley is back with the new album 13 Voices.
CRAIG ROBERTSON After recovering from the effects of a coma that was medically induced to ease withdrawal from alcohol, Sum 41 singer Deryck Whibley is back with the new album 13 Voices.

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