Sum 41 Calls it Quits
Just like my Geo Prizm Did
In May, 2023, the world was informed that the late nineteen hundreds, early two thousands Pop-Punk band Sum 41 were throwing in the sweat drenched towel and calling it quits.
My initial reaction was one of surprise.
“Sum 41 is still around? In this, the year two thousand and twenty three?”
The retirement notice stated that after 27 years it was time for the band to bow out.
“Wait… 27 years? That means…” I quickly did the math.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuck me.”
It’s true. I was indeed an old fucker, but at least I could take solace in the fact that so were the members of Sum 41.
After wallowing for a moment in my own rapidly depleting mortality I thought “well, fucking good for them!” 27 years in a punk band is no small fucking feat and worthy of respect. I’m in awe of any kind of artist that makes a career out of their art, playing by their own fucking rules. Mad fucking respect.
As I mentioned above, I think Sum 41 poked their faces into my space, and the larger musical world in the late, late, nineteen hundred and nineties amidst a sea of baggy-panted, angry man-boys rapping along to down-tuned metal, and smooth, straight-laced, shiny boy bands. I remember Sum 41 as being part of a wave, or pack, or pod, of youthful, up-start, Pop Punk bands ushered in by the sudden omnipresence of Blink-182, the happy-go-lucky, PG-13, suburban punk rockers. Their brand of saccharine-sweet punk was radio friendly, humorous, catchy, and enjoyed by girls.
I hated it instantly.
Their pop-friendly demeanor and boyish good looks was a threat to my more serious, scowling, studs, spikes, and denim punk lifestyle. Never mind that I was also from a cozy, middle class, suburban environment. I listened to Discharge! The Exploited told me to “beat the bastards!” What the fuck were these kids doing smiling and carrying on and having a good time? Didn’t they know about “the man?”
Blink-182, Good Charlotte, New Found Glory, and Sum 41 represented nonsense and I wanted nothing to do with it. I only had room in my metal-studded heart for serious punk rock, like the totally non-ridiculousness of The Misfits, NOFX, and Pennywise. Poppycock! Flimshaw!
So I ignored it, probably not quietly, until about two thousand and four-ish, my senior year of art college, when I heard on the automobile radio, a device that played music you had no control over except the volume, if your radio had a volume button, a song that sounded punk but also sounded kind of fucking metal.
“That was the new Sum 41 song! HEEEE-YA,” the local radio disc jockey, not known for their subtle on-air personas, screamed wildly in my face.
“Sum 41? That goofy-ass, rapping, pool-party-having, Pop Punk band from high school?”
I didn’t believe it. This song, which I would later come to determine was called “We’re All to Blame,” was fucking good. Really damn good.
Given my then close proximity to a Tower Records at the time I drove to the store, an overpriced physical media emporium nestled in the bosom of the highly affluent and fancy-shmancy Cherry Creek shopping district. I needed to hear more. How could this be the same band?
I procured the album for what was, even in two thousand and four, a ridiculous sum of money for a compact disc containing music, Tower Records specialty price-gauging sale, from what I’m sure was an eye-rolling, too-cool-for-school employee, and plopped the CD into my car’s music player.
The album was “Chuck,” titled so after a UN Peacekeeper who helped the band flee the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo when uprising and gunfire broke out, the band being there to film a documentary for War Child Canada.
Ok, that’s pretty fucking legit.
Back to me in my used, maroon, Geo Prizm, sitting in the parking lot of a Tower Records in safe, shiny, Cherry Creek, just having hit the play button on my car’s dashboard stereo.
My suspicions were confirmed. Sum 41 had indeed made a banger of an album. Half Pop Punk catchiness, half heavy metal, thrashing aggression. The perfect combination amount, like a Reeses chocolate peanut butter cup.
“Chuck” quickly became the soundtrack to my senior year of college, along with The Distillers “Coral Fang,” (which is a story for a different time) and eventually became an all-time favorite album of mine. To this day when I hear it I’m instantly whisked back to my last days in art school, endlessly working in to the nights on my portfolio and animation demo reel, the albums metallic vibrations bouncing off the walls in my “office” that I had painted a deep, Prince-like purple, sustaining myself on Rockstar Energy drinks, late-night Taco Bell “Fourth Meal” runs, and punk rock.
I never listened to another Sum 41 album after that but I’m glad to have heard they had made it twenty seven years as a band. Congrats to you, fellows. Enjoy the fucking rest.