WATCH: Deryck Whibley explains how Sum 41's '13 Voices' saved him from the brink
He speaks to Kerrang! Radio's Loz Guest
In an extremely candid interview with Kerrang! Radio’s very own Loz Guest, Sum 41 lynchpin Deryck Whibley has revealed how the band’s latest album ’13 Voices’ saved him from the brink.
In May 2014, Deryck was hospitalised for a month after suffering kidney and liver failure due to years of heavy drinking. However, his hospitalisation was only the beginning of a lengthy battle.
Deryck explained to Loz that penning the lyrics to current single ‘War’ proved to be the turning point in a tumultuous battle.
“I’d been on this road to recovery for about a year, which seemed like it was not getting any better,” Deryck said. “I didn’t seem to have any progress, I couldn’t walk, I wasn’t writing songs, it just seemed like I was never getting better or getting close to where I was trying to get to and I could have easily just fallen off the wagon at that point and said ‘this is never going to happen’. The doctors didn’t know if I was ever going to recover.
“I wrote these lyrics (to ‘War’) just randomly, they just sort of came to me. And once I’d written these lyrics I realised it was sort of my battle cry in a way – it was like everything I was trying to do and wanted to do - and when I’d written it all I felt like ‘I’ve got these words now I have to live up to it, I’ve got this song now, it would be silly if I don’t keep pushing and fighting’.
“Every time I had those moments of self doubt I would read those lyrics and it would help push things forward. “
He continued: “The war was a war within myself. I’m glad I stuck with it because it did take about two years to fully recover and at that point (writing the song) it didn’t get any easier it just gave me some more inspiration to keep fighting.”
Explaining how making ‘13 Voices’ was very much a cathartic experience, Deryck said: “Every Sum 41 record is sort of a snapshot of who I am at that period of my life, and this (album) was at a period of my life that was really difficult.
“I was going through a recovery, liver and kidney failure, I’d just gotten out the hospital, I was newly sober, there was all this self doubt and insecurity and finding these new feelings and emotions for the first time and writing songs sober for the first time was new and everything was a learning process, it was a struggle so all that came out in this record.”
Check out Loz’s full interview with Deryck below where he talks about plans to come back to the UK, festivals, how he feels better than ever on stage and much more.
’13 Voices’ is released via ‘Hopeless Records’ on Friday 7th October.