Music: Sum 41 Interview

A few hours before the Sum 41 show at the Kasbah I was lucky enough to catch up with Steveo (drummer) and Cone (bassist) to have a chat about how the band were doing, why they chose Coventry and er, Japanese girl’s underwear.

Me: It’s been a while for you guys, I know you missed the Kerrang! Tour earlier this year, is Deryck’s back better now?
Steveo (S): Yeah, he’s fine now.
Me: Had you heard of Coventry before you got here?
S: Yeah, we’ve heard of it? We’ve never played here before though.
Cone(C): You’ve got a football (soccer) team right?

Me: So is there anything you look forward when you come back to the UK?
S: The weather’s great.
S: Cold weather and warm drinks. *laughs* No, the shows have always been really good here, we’re doing a festival in Bath, NASS festival, so we wanted to do a warm up show for that. We wanted to pick a place that isn’t super small, but a more intimate kind of show, and it sold out right away. The shows here have always been great in the UK, that’s what we like best about coming here.

Me: Do you like English food?
S: Indian food, our favourite English food is Indian food. Yesterday had some amazing Indian food.
C: See people who live here probably don’t understand, but you have the best Indian food.
S: In Mexico if you go for the food it’s okay, but in like Southern California it’s awesome Mexican food. It’s not like everyone who’s making it is Mexican or of Mexican descent, it’s just f*ckin’ wicked when you find a good Mexican joint. When you go somewhere in Mexico it’s all greasy or too much lard or whatever. The California way man. So maybe the English, Indian food is better.

Me: All Killer, No Filler was such a monumental album, how does it feel knowing you’ve influenced bands out there today?
S: I met a kid, we were at the bar yesterday, it was just me and Tom, he came up to me like “Steveooo I know it’s you Steveo” and he’s like “You guys influenced me, and you’re the reason I’m in a band, can I buy you a drink?” I was like “yes – you can” haha, so it’s good writing a monumental album, you get free drinks from people.

Me: What is your favourite song to play live?
S: I’m not sure if I have one favourite, but the new stuff that we’re playing is fun to play, it goes over really well. One of the songs is the last song on the new record which is ‘Back Where I Belong’ and it’s like the last song on the record. It’s not like a single or anything, it’s a deep, deep cut but the kids love it.
So that was kind of a surprise to see that people have listened to the whole album and know the words and everything, so that’s cool
C: I still like playing ‘Still Waiting’.
S: Yeah ‘Still Waiting’ we like playing the old stuff.
C: ‘Over my head’ is fun to play.
S: We might play some old stuff on this tour, maybe tonight I’m not sure.

Me: Have you got anything special lined up for tonight?
C: We got a new cover that we’re doing
S: You’ll have to watch the show, but I can say it’s an English band.

Me: Do you ever get weird presents from fans?
C: Yeah, actually, when we were in Japan we get presents all the time, Steve got some dirty underwear.
S: It was weird underwear, ya know how girls are supposed to be all clean and tidy and stuff but that sh*t, weird stuff goes on down there, just on a good day and they have soiled underwear that this person gave me but it wasn’t even her underwear. She bought it from a vending machine.
S: You can go to these porno vending machines in the club district and you put in money and there’s like a box with a girl’s face on it and it’s her underwear and you can get the underwear and ssssniff the underwear and feel like a weird creepy Japanese man.
S: IT’S AWESOME! The fact that they have girl underpants in a vending machine for drunk business men to sniff and take home on the train I mean, that’s a bit weird.
C: It’s what they’re used to, they probably think we’re weird for not doing that.

Me: What’s next for Sum 41
S: Well this is the first show of a 5 week European tour, so after this we play the NASS Festival, then France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland all the way to Russia, ya know, that’s five weeks. Lots of shows.

Me: If you could describe yourselves in one word? Yourselves or Sum 41 what would it be?
S: Problematic, hahaha, no I think urm, what’s a good buzz word?
C: I can never think of these things
Me: You could just make up a word, think of two great words and throw them together
S: Shagfroida
C: Sounds like something German
S: It is German, taking pleasure in others misfortune, that’s it!