This is The Anthem, the place we’re telling tales behind traditional albums and songs by interviewing the individuals who have been actually there. This week, we’re homing in on Sum 41’s everlasting 2002 single “Still Waiting.”
Sum 41 grew up quick. Barely six months after dropping the ultimate single from their goofy, ever-so-catchy debut album, All Killer No Filler, the Canadian quartet reemerged with the lead single from its follow-up, Does This Look Infected? Quite merely, “Still Waiting” signaled their transfer from innocence to expertise. Vocalist Deryck Whibley, bassist Jason “Cone” McCaslin, guitarist Dave Baksh and then-drummer Steve Jocz have been coming into their 20s with 300 or so dwell reveals and far more musical expertise underneath their belts, but in addition with a far better consciousness that the world was greater — and scarier — than it appears to be like exterior the partitions of highschool.
Read extra: The 20 most underrated pop-punk albums from the final twenty years
Does This Look Infected? marked a heavier flip for the band each sonically and lyrically, with their subject material changing into ever extra severe by referring to medicine, insomnia, HIV and the more and more ugly state of the world. The band have been coming of age in a fraught post-9/11 local weather the place concern and jingoism bubbled underneath the floor as George W. Bush launched the War On Terror — and an actual struggle in opposition to Iraq was on its means. It led Sum 41 to show their hand for the primary time to political songwriting, birthing a track whose immortal chorus stays depressingly related in 2023: “So am I still waiting for this world to stop hating?”
How it began
DERYCK WHIBLEY (VOCALS): The report [Does This Look Infected?] was just about written. We have been already within the studio making it, and for some purpose, this little thought got here into my head after I wasn’t even attempting to put in writing songs anymore. I believed I used to be carried out. I awakened with this refrain in my head. I went and sang it and hastily had a riff instantly, which grew to become the verse riff. I knew I needed it to have screamy, shouty verses. I’m screaming as arduous as I can in these verses. It’s a type of songs that got here out precisely the best way I heard it in my head.
JASON “CONE” MCCASLIN (BASS): We have been in Toronto doing pre-production, and we have been wrapping up. It may need even been the final day. “The Hell Song” was going to be [the lead] single. “Over My Head (Better Off Dead)” was in all probability going to be the second single. Deryck got here in with this little cassette tape, and he says: “I got this rough new song.” We all listened to it, and it was so tough and distorted, and we have been like, “This is really good.” It was means completely different from All Killer No Filler due to the screaming, it was in a minor key. It was darker. We all agreed at that time that we needed to try to match that track in, so we took it to New York and completed it within the studio there.
WHIBLEY: There was simply a lot stress in these days, from myself, from the label, from everyone concerned, as a result of we have been following up a report that had offered just a few million [copies]. [We] needed to ship to show that [we] weren’t this one-album band. Right away, everybody agreed that the track, although all I had was a verse and a refrain, was in all probability going to be the primary single. You may inform that there was one thing particular about it, that it was higher than all the things else on the report. In the primary week of recording in New York City, I stayed again on the resort day by day attempting to complete this track. Everybody was asking me, “Is it finished yet?” I stayed within the resort for per week until it was carried out. In retrospect, it was fast, but it surely felt prefer it was taking a yr as a result of everyone was hounding me for it.
[Sum 41 pose for their AP cover in 2002 / Photo by Chapman Baehler]
The lyrics
MCCASLIN: The Iraq War on the time was such an enormous factor. Even although we have been Canadian, we spent quite a lot of time within the U.S. We have been solely like 22 years outdated on the time, however we’d speak amongst ourselves, and we [all thought] it was insane that this struggle was truly going to occur. Even being 22 from Canada, we have been actually affected by it. We lived by means of the Gulf War, and it was following the identical traces.
WHIBLEY: Traveling the world on that tour for the primary time on the All Killer tour (*41*) extra of a way that there is this world on the market. It’s not simply the place we grew up and our pals in highschool and all that stuff. So you are beginning to actually take note of all this stuff which are occurring on the planet and all these atrocities. We thought this struggle was very clearly not about what George [W.] Bush and his administration have been saying it was, and that is what the track grew to become to me. At the identical time, [with] among the lyrics, you virtually needn’t know what the track is about, particularly with the refrain, as a result of it’s simply relatable. It’s simply the only lyric. I remember [producer] Greig Nori saying, “I don’t know about the lyric ‘So am I still waiting for this world to stop hating?’ It’s a little juvenile. It’s a little basic.’ I remember thinking, “I don’t know how to make it anything else other than what it is.” It could also be juvenile and easy, however that is what all this bullshit is on the planet — it’s all juvenile and silly.
The music video
MARC KLASFELD (VIDEO DIRECTOR): Sum 41 exploded in 2001, however then in 2002, the scene shifted, and indie bands just like the Strokes, the Hives and the White Stripes all grew to become standard. The video ended up changing into partly a satire of that entire band motion. We took parts from one of many Strokes’ movies, among the Hives with what they have been carrying, making enjoyable of and commenting on the hip bands of the time. It feedback not solely on that development however developments on the whole and the way developments come and go.
MCCASLIN: We have been in England for Reading and Leeds, and we have been staying on the similar resort because the Strokes. We went as much as Julian [Casablancas’] room, and we had a pair extra drinks. We mentioned, “We have this idea for the video. We want to run it by you.” We advised him the entire thought: “We want to dress up the same and have the set like you guys. You’re the new cool thing, and pop punk is getting pushed out.” He was like, “I love it. You guys have to do it.” We bought his blessing at six within the morning!
KLASFELD: The man at first, Will Sasso, he’s so phenomenally gifted. I simply gave him a briefing of what I needed the scene to be about, and he simply adlibbed the shit out of that scene. He was simply so humorous, and I feel the most important downside for the fellows was attempting to maintain a straight face throughout the entire thing as a result of the dude was so humorous.
MCCASLIN: The different factor that was humorous about it was the trashing factor on the finish. I remember the entire crew was like, “Do not touch the lights!” And I feel the signal was at all times gonna get pushed down, however the lights behind us, the lighting folks didn’t need them damaged. And, after all, we broke them. At that time, we have been simply ingesting so much on a regular basis. So because the day went on, video shoots might be 20 hours lengthy. We have been annihilated by the tip, completely hammered. That entire trashing scene ultimately. I imply, quite a lot of us could not even stroll. That’s how we did it again then.
KLASFELD: The guys have at all times saved a humorousness about their stuff. In my estimation, that’s what folks have at all times appreciated finest. They’re actually good at it.
Discussion about this post