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Cone from Sum 41
Congratulations on your new album Underclass Hero, were you nervous?
Thank you, I wasn’t nervous. This album has been done for a while so I was more anxious. It was done 4-5 months ago, so we were waiting for it to come out. We’ve been doing press all over the world and we were telling people about the album for so long that you kind of want to be like, “just listen to it for yourself.”
Can you tell us more about the writing/recording process for this album?
Yeah, I guess the writing process with Deryck. And that started in the first couple months of 2006. I still live in Toronto and he lives in LA now and Steve lives in Long Beach. He would just email me MP3’s of demos and half songs and be like “Hey, what do you think of this? And make some base parts for this” which is how it started and that was a while ago. About halfway through 2006, I started flying down to LA once a month and we’d all get together and practice songs. And they were all very relaxed practices and not anything serious. It was just to get back and play together again, and then it kind of got more serious later into the year and then we started doing pre-production for the album. We were trying to find producers for it this whole time too, and we had maybe a shortlist of 2 or 3 that we like and so we met with them. For whatever reason, the scheduling wasn’t matching up to when we wanted to do the album. So, then we started figuring out that the songs were done and this was the first time that the songs were all actually complete before we went into the studio. And we felt there was nothing we need to change when we went to the studio so we just decided you know, I think Deryck had actually just produced this himself and that’s how that kind of came up. And he had been in previous albums really into the production of it as well. You know, I still feel like he co-produced our last two albums but he never really got the credit. He is always really involved with that kind of stuff, he really likes gear and studio stuff. He knows all about that so it’s just natural for him to do it.
And, is there an overall theme in your new album?
There are a couple of different themes; I mean it’s not really a concept album. There are a few different things. Like it’s a very personal album for Deryck, he wrote all the lyrics, and there is stuff about never needing his father. There are some political songs, and we’ve done political songs in the past but I think these political songs are very direct with what we’re saying. So, there isn’t just one overall theme.
Do you feel your music has changed since the release of your last album?
Yeah, I think with Chuck it was more of a heavier album. We were taking a bunch of heavy metal influences and punk rock influences that we liked and we tried to make them one. And it was like we were trying to make something that we’ve never really heard before and something we’ve never done before. And then on this one, we decided that we’ve done the heavy album and we wanted to go back to our original roots again.
We get a lot of unsigned bands to our site, what advice would you give to them about the music industry?
Chuckles. Well, it’s screwed up a little bit now. For what we did, when we were unsigned and no labels were after us. We would just try to play as much as possible. We would play anywhere; we would play in front of five people every week, we would play in our hometown where we’d have to try and sell our own tickets, I mean it doesn’t matter where you play. Because even if you’re playing in front of three people, it’s just you’re trying to get the experience of playing on a stage or at a bar. And that’s what we did, and then we kept writing songs, and we practiced probably five times a week after school. That’s basically the only thing you can do; you write as many songs as you can and eventually you’ll get better writing songs and play as much as you can because you’ll just get better.
Well, I know you’ll be touring a lot soon. What should people expect when they go out and see a live concert of yours?
Well it’s gonna’ be like the same kind of high energy shows. We’re gonna’ still be playing stuff from our old albums, probably from all albums right back to Half Hour Power. Our thing has always been a high energy concert and I know we’re starting to build our set design stuff right now so I think it’s going to look kinda’ cool too. It’s gonna’ be fun.
Wow, awesome. So, what would you say was your most memorable moment of your career so far?
Ooh, there’s a few, I don’t think there is just one. But there’s a few, I mean we recorded a song with Iggy Pop - which is awesome. We spent two days in the studio with him recording a song called “Little Know It All” for his album Skull Ring. Then there was playing with Tommy Lee and Rob Halford on the MTV 20th Anniversary in 2001. To actually tour with Motley Crue at the end of the Chuck tour, that was pretty awesome too.
So you have a couple of memorable moments.
Yeah, there’s a few.
So what message would you want to give the fans out there listening to this?
Oh, I dunno. Chuckles. Our album’s out. Go get it! You’ll love it I think.
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