Sum 41 has returned with arguably the quintet’s most incendiary, most no-nonsense, most memorable and most raw album in the band’s two decade history.
Order in Decline features some of the most politically strident, most personal and compelling tracks, and is evidence of a band that is unafraid to take bold stands, both lyrically and musically. Comprised of frontman/chief songwriter Deryck Whibley, the guitar tandem of Dave Baksh and Tom Thacker, alongside drummer Frank Zummo [the most recent addition, having joined in 2015] and bassist Jason ‘Cone’ McCaslin, Sum 41’s seventh studio album was set for release on July 19 through Hopeless Records.
A strong portent of things to come from a seemingly revitalized and fired up Canadian quintet came from their first two singles/videos, A Death in the Family and Out For Blood, the former coming out on June 11, the latter in late Spring.
Whibley, as the band’s primary songwriter, had been chipping away at new material starting not long after the release of their previous album, 2016’s 13 Voices, according to McCaslin.
“Last year, 2018, we weren’t supposed to tour all that much. The idea was to focus on a new record; write it, do pre-production and all that stuff. But then we realized This Looks Infected turned 15, and we decided to do an anniversary tour for that, and then some festivals came up in Europe and we decided to do that. All of a sudden we’re sitting there in September and we had toured for most of the year, and that’s when we decided to take the rest of last year and the first part of this year off to focus on the new album,” he explained.
“But even during last year, Deryck was writing and writing and writing on his time off, and even in the back of the bus on tour. So, by the time August and September rolled around, he had enough and was sending us all his demos asking us to chip in. Obviously, I have to write all my bass parts and Dave and Tom like to fool around on some guitar parts and stuff. We ended up flying down to L.A. and did some pre-production in September and just got the songs to a place where we all really liked them and then we all dispersed and recorded in our own home studios.
“Basically, Deryck and Frank went into a studio in LA and did the drums and then they would send me the drum tracks and I would put my bass to it and send them the file. It’s just so easy now with file sharing and ProTools, you don’t have to be together all the time. We don’t have the same budgets as we used to, and we all use the same gear that we would use if we went into a studio anyways. We are constantly in contact. When I am doing bass, I am constantly in contact with Deryck and we’re talking about stuff and the conversations are no different than if we were in the same room.”
Order in Decline sees SUM 41 at their high energy best, highlighted by their trademark insistent and memorable melodies, sing-along choruses and crunching guitars. But there is more. This album is heavier in tone and tenor, with a sound that is boldly raw, hearkening back more to late 1970s punk with a healthy dollop of modern metal, demonstrating the musicians’ willingness to project a more untamed and even usually mature vibe. It is an album that should warm the cockles of long-time fans and bring those who have perhaps been on the fence, well and truly into the fold.
“It was definitely deliberate and especially coming off the last album, 13 Vices, which had a bunch of heavy songs on it. I knew in discussions with Deryck and the rest of the band that we weren’t going to go poppier. Our love for heavy metal and fast punk and all that stuff is even growing more. We’re listening to the stuff that’s coming out from our peers and we’re kind of scratching our heads and it’s like, man, all these band are kind of going in the pop direction and we just did not want to do that,” said McCaslin.
“For us, part of our longevity and the loyalty of our fans is because we’re not interested in staying the same and we’re not interested in chasing stuff, like some bands are chasing the pop sound now. We just stayed the course; we are just being us. We’re not chasing a certain trend. We are writing about what is important to us now, and we are writing the kind of music that we would love to listen to, regardless of what everyone else is doing.
“With our first record it’s not like we said, ‘okay pop punk is huge, it’s massive, we have to do that.’ No, that’s just how we sounded already. Those were the songs we had; we just got lucky that it fell into what was big at the time and we got swooped up in it. But we stayed the course and we worked really hard and we toured a lot and tried to write the best songs we could. I don’t think there is a magic thing that we have done – it’s just us always being true to ourselves.”
Order in Decline is also a ferociously bold album, particularly on the lyrical front, with Whibley and the band fearlessly tearing into the social and political ills of the day, and the personal drama and pain that afflict so many people. It is a revelatory listening experience and eminently cathartic as Sum 41 is saying the kinds of things through their songs that many people are thinking and wish they could say.
“During the tour, the news is always on in our bus. CNN is constantly on, all day and all night. So, we’re constantly watching the news. And I know Deryck was absorbing a lot of that. I had a feeling, I didn’t know for sure, because we didn’t really talk about politics and stuff like that, but I had a feeling that if there’s one thing to talk about right now, it is the political climate. And not only in America, but all around the world. We have been lucky enough to tour around the world and see different countries and everywhere has got problems; we have seen it firsthand. I was guessing that there was going to be some political lyrical content on this album. I wasn’t shocked that it was leaning more into politics,” said McCaslin.
“And we were fine with that, because we talked about the fact that it’s not a preachy album. We’re not telling people to agree with what we believe. He wrote all this material on politics and stuff that’s all personal opinion and personal reflections. Luckily within the rest of the band we all agree. It would be weird to have one guy in the band who was like a cutthroat right wing Republican or something like that. Fortunately, we all agree and locked onto the lyrics and stand by what Deryck wrote. It’s more about telling people to do their own research and figure out what you believe in and if you believe in something, don’t be afraid to say it. Songs like 45 and The People Vs… are about the world that we seem to be living in now, the divides that have been created.
“That’s basically what we have been witnessing since the Trump administration has come in. It is a huge divide, even more so than I can ever remember in my lifetime. I know it’s always been there to a certain degree, but I feel it’s more in plain sight now. And part of what the album is about too is that people are all of a sudden coming out and just being super vicious, which is where the title came from for the latest single – Out for Blood – everyone seems like they’re out for blood. Those ideas have always been circulating in our world, but now people are saying it so harshly. You see what happened when Trump got elected where you now have all these white supremacists who feel it’s okay to come out from the shadows. And this whole name calling thing, he has made it okay. I follow him on Twitter just to see what he’s saying. He’s made it okay for people to call each other names. I know he is bashing people daily and I have never seen this before from a President. And he has made it okay for his supporters to do the same.”
Returning to the subject of topicality and writing about subject matter that is more mature, more incendiary and more thoughtful, McCaslin said it gets back to the importance of evolving as a band and writing and playing music that the band members themselves would want to listen to.
“We were only 19 and 20 years old when we recorded out first album [2001’s] All Killer No Filler, and all we knew was high school life. That’s all we could write about; relationships at that level and partying and that whole thing. Once you tour the world a few times and see things you change, and that’s why Does This Look Infected? [2002] was different musically and lyrically. There was a new war happening at the time in the Gulf and that was big for our generation and a lot of people had never seen that before, especially after 9/11 and the invasion into Iraq. Obviously, this whole thing that’s happening in the U.S. and similar stuff around the world is big, big news and really affecting everyone’s lives. That’s why I think Order in Decline is about all that. It’s what’s big now and what we’re all affected by at this point,” he said.
A song that is even more emotionally potent and pointed, one that comes from a far deeper and more personally perspective is Never There, which could be interpreted as sort of an open letter from Whibley to the father he never knew.
“Knowing Deryck since I was 14, I always knew this about him, that he had never met his dad. He would never really speak about it. He had a great relationship with his mom and it never really came up all that much. So, when he sent me the demo for this song I was like, ‘wow, maybe he is ready to talk about it now.’ I have seen clips from recent interviews where he said he didn’t want to write this kind of song, but it just kind of came. Which I think is good; it’s good therapy. Obviously, he wrote it because he needed to write it, and on top of all that, it’s a good song,” said McCaslin.
In anticipation of Order In Decline’s release on July 19, the band began a North American tour on July 16 in Colorado co-headlining the Rockstar Energy Disrupt Festival, which wraps up July 28 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Sum 41 then heads north of the border for an appearance at the Saskatoon Exhibition on Aug. 6, at Echo Beach in Toronto on Aug. 8 and in Victoriaville, Quebec Aug. 10 at the Rock La Cauze Festival, before dipping back into the U.S. for some fall dates.
McCaslin said the band will take a couple of weeks off at the end of the summer in preparation for a full-on headlining world tour.
For more information on Order in Decline and tour dates, visit www.sum41.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for a quarter of a century. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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