Sum 41's Deryck Whibley: 5 songs that changed my life

For a long time, Deryck Whibley didn't believe it when fans told him that his band's music changed their lives. "It felt like something that people just say because you're there," the Sum 41 frontman explained. And even though the Ajax, Ont., rockers are best known for fun pop-punk anthems including "Fat Lip" and "In Too Deep," their almost 25-year discography — a seminal part of the genre's early 2000s dominance — has inspired lots of music lovers and musicians alike. 

For Whibley, he sees his band's impact most at his concerts when the band performs its 2007 ballad "With Me," which regularly prompts marriage proposals. "That song in particular, I've witnessed it be a song for people," he noted, "which is wild and surprising because we almost didn't even put that song on [2007's Underclass Heroes] because we thought it wasn't that great of a song. 

"But for whatever reason, the second that song starts, people start crying." 

Expect even more tears during Sum 41's upcoming tour, the band's final run before it officially breaks up. It was a decision that Whibley made after finishing the band's eighth studio album, Heaven :x: Hell, realizing that his and the band's work was complete. "I listened to it from front to back, and I was like, 'This is the work I've always wanted to create,'" he reflected. "This is the whole arc of Sum 41 in one album. It sounds like the early days, it sounds like the most current and present day of Sum 41 — it just felt like this is a record that I could probably hang my hat on."  

After all the ups and downs of Sum 41 — and personally for Whibley who has battled injuries and alcoholism throughout his years in the band — leaving things on a high note was of utmost importance.

"Everything's been in a really great place for a long time now," Whibley said. "It's like we've got to the top of the mountain, we've accomplished more than anything we ever expected so let's go out and have a celebration tour. I just hope that people who come to the show realize that we are up there actually having a great time. That's the only reason we're doing it, is because we want to celebrate."   

Ahead of Sum 41's North American leg of the tour, which will culminate with two hometown shows in Toronto on Jan. 28 and 30, 2025, Whibley sat down with CBC Music to look back at the songs that have inspired him and his band the most over the years.  

'Stickin' in My Eye,' NOFX 

"To us [when we were younger], if we could start a band, ['Stickin' in my Eye'] was like the blueprint. That's the sound we wanted to play: the riffs in it, the melody, it had this great chorus — it was kind of everything. And when we started the band, [guitarist Dave Baksh] wasn't in the band yet and [bassist Jason 'Cone' McCaslin] wasn't in the band for another year after that. We were a band for a few years, playing our own songs and playing NOFX songs, looking up to NOFX for years, and when Dave was going to join the band, we had him play that song as the audition. And then the same when Cone joined the band; we were like, 'If you can play 'Stickin' in my Eye,' you can be in the band.' So that was the initiation song for us." 

'Daydream Believer,' the Monkees

"I was obsessed with the Monkees when I was really young, mostly from the TV show. And I also had this collection of tapes. In the '80s, they used to do this thing — I think it was at the Shell gas station — where, if you got a certain dollar amount of gas, you would get a tape out of this collection. I think it was a 10-tape collection, and it was called '50s/'60s Solid Gold Hits, and 'Daydream Believer' was on one of those cassettes.

"I didn't even know that they were an old band, and that was an old show; I thought it was current. And when I was six, they did a reunion tour, which I didn't know what a reunion meant, but they were just coming through Toronto so my parents took me to the show and that was my first show. Weird Al Yankovic was opening, which was interesting. I had never heard of him until then. But yeah, I was six years old and that was my intro to concerts, and I remember sitting there watching the show just thinking back then that that's what I wanted to do. You know, it's not just this music on a tape. It's like people do this, and I wanna do that."  

'Paint it Black,' the Rolling Stones 

"It was the first song I'd ever heard from the Stones. I didn't know who the Stones really were, but I knew I loved that song ... I was probably six or seven, and it was the theme song for a Vietnam show called Tour of Duty. I believe it was only [on] for a couple of years in the '80s, and I really think it was just a Canadian show, but for whatever reason that was the theme song, and my parents used to watch that. It was always around my bedtime — it would probably come on at like eight o'clock or something like that — and that song would start up so it would always feel like the night and it would always feel like it was time for me to go to bed. It spoke to me back then, like what a cool song, what a cool guitar thing and when the drums came in, everything was just so hypnotic, you know? And I never lost that feeling. If I heard that song today, I'd still get that same feeling.

"When I wrote a song on our second record called 'Still Waiting,' to me, I was trying to write my version of 'Paint it Black.' So when I hear 'Still Waiting,' I immediately just think of 'Paint it Black' all the time. Even though they sound nothing alike, to me that was the inspiration." 

'No Action,' Elvis Costello 

"I'd say 'Radio Radio' and 'No Action' are probably two of my all-time favourite Elvis songs. I became obsessed with that whole record, This Year's Model, when I was a teenager — late teens, probably 17 or 18. 'No Action' really inspired a lot of my songwriting around that time for All Killer No Filler, and 'Fat Lip' in general. In the same way that 'Paint it Black' inspired 'Still Waiting,' 'No Action' inspired the chorus for 'Fat Lip.' In my head, I was just trying to do something that I thought could be as good as that. I was just listening to that song on repeat, that whole album on repeat, and I was like, 'Man, I really want us to write a song as good as 'No Action.'' And I just kind of came out with this chorus, the 'I don't wanna waste my time' part, and that was me trying to compete with ['No Action']." 

'Dear Lover,' Social Distortion 

"That song and [Social Distortion's 1996 album, White Light, White Heat, White Trash] was a big influence on me in my late teens, and influenced my songwriting. Those chord progressions on that record specifically and that song inspired a lot of my writing moving past All Killer No Filler. When we started making Does This Look Infected?, I wanted to do something different. And I think I intentionally, but also unintentionally, leaned on influences from bands like Social Distortion and that record, that song. I went from major chords, which sound happier and more fun, to darker minor chords, which is what I was picking up from Social Distortion. A song of ours like 'The Hell Song' I would say was directly inspired by that album and that song.

"I was just always wishing I could get a sound as good as that and I'm always researching, you know, what was that sound and all that. Cut to 20-something years later, all of a sudden I find out that the producer who made [White Light, White Heat, White Trash], who had that guitar, was going to sell his equipment and the guitar that was used for ['Dear Lover'] was up for sale. And now it's sitting right over on that wall over there. So it was very cool. I had to pick ['Dear Lover'] because that guitar, that sound and the songwriting on that record really inspired me a long time ago and is probably a big reason why we're here right now."