Hide your daughters: Malibu-banned band coming here

Sum 41, whose lyrics and lifestyle were too much for Pepperdine University in Malibu California, is coming to the Sault courtesy of promoter Brendan Fyfe and the municipally-supported website SaultYouth.com.

The Ajax, Ontario-based band was a two-time winner at the 2002 Rolling Stone Magazine Music Awards, for best single (Fat Lip) and best video (In Too Deep).

Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley (he's the altitude-challenged one, second from the left in our photo) has been romantically linked to both Paris Hilton and Avril Lavigne.

Women.com has declared Whibley one of the 12 sexiest men in music.

The band's guitarist, Dave Baksh, has a cameo role in the much-anticipated Playboy: The Mansion video game, with publicity material promising that Baksh "gets drunk, smokes cigars, makes out and has sex with various women."

You'll find Sum 41's music in those free CDs included with cases of Labatt Blue Beer this summer.

Heck, these Canadian rockers even have the ultimate badge of mainstream musical success - their very own free polyphonic ringtones.

'Daughters - hide your mothers,' warns MuchMusic.com

But not everyone is convinced that Sum 41 adds up to anything good.

Last year, Pepperdine University in Malibu, California forced its student government to cancel a planned Sum 41 tour date after a review of lyrics and Rolling Stone articles mentioning the band's lifestyle.

Just last month, Sum 41 reportedly forfeited much of its appearance fee after what the Calgary Sun described as a twenty-minutes-late, drunken, expletive-filled show in Camrose, Alberta.

"Mothers - hide your daughters. Daughters - hide your mothers," cautions MuchMusic.com, which further describes the band as "the devil's four-headed lovechild."

Bondar concert sponsored by SaultYouth.com

On Saturday, September 4, Sum 41 will play the Roberta Bondar Tent Pavilion, brought to you by local concert promoter Brendan Fyfe and SaultYouth.com, the website created by City Council and the local Economic Development Corp. to keep our youth in Sault Ste. Marie.

The venue opens at 7 p.m. with showtime scheduled for 8 p.m.

Tickets are $30 at the door or $25 advance from CD Plus at Cambrian Mall.

Opening acts to be announced. Notwithstanding the band's f-word street cred, it's being promoted by Fyfe's Front Row Events as an all-ages concert.

The Greig Nori connection

There's a Sault connection to Sum 41.

Greig Nori, who fronts the Sault-born band Treble Charger, is listed as producer of Sum 41's newest, as-yet-unreleased CD and has also served as Deryck Whibley's manager.

Sum 41 announced this week that its new release will be named "Chuck" to honour the United Nations representative who got the rockers out of a life-threatening situation earlier this year in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Banned in Malibu

Pepperdine University's Student Government Association made a written, $40,000 offer last year to bring in the Ataris and Sum 41 tours for a joint campus concert.

However, university administrators forced the students to withdraw the offer, arguing that three Sum-41 songs, including the Billboard hit 'Fat Lip,' were objectionable. "The song includes one mild cuss word, a reference to abortion and some to alcohol," the Pepperdine University Graphic reported. "Other songs include other terms derogatory to women, but nowhere near the level of Grammy-award winning artist Eminem, or other popular rock groups."

'A Christian university'

The university's official web site describes Pepperdine as "a Christian university committed to the highest standards of academic excellence and Christian values, where students are strengthened for lives of purpose, service, and leadership."

The band offered to delete the disputed tunes from its playlist, but the university's Office of Student Affairs also had concerns about Sum 41's public persona and no compromise could be reached.

"If Pepperdine won’t allow us to see and hear what we consider appropriate on campus, then how can they expect us to be leaders in the real world where we are exposed to all this?" Jimmy Hutcheson, chair of the university's student concert committee, told the Graphic.

More resources

Official Sum 41 web site Song samples and full lyrics from all three Sum 41 CDs Poster-sized publicity photo of the band MTV audio premiere of track from the new CD

********************** Official band biography

Sum 41 hit worldwide radar in 1996 after tiny Ajax, Ontario, proved unable to fully contain the foursome's blathering mixture of punk-pop riffing, hip-hop poses, and toilet-bowl humor.

Led by guitarist/vocalist Deryck Whibley, who looked like a mashup of the Prodigy's Keith Flint and cartoon land's Calvin, the band also included guitarist/vocalist Dave Baksh, bassist Cone McCaslin, and drummer Steve Jocz.

Wooed by the boys' goofy antics and incendiary live show (and excited about the prospect of promoting their very own blink-182), Island put Sum 41 on the payroll in 1999.

The Half Hour of Power EP followed, and Warped Tour dates got the word out.

They returned in 2000 with the fun-filled full-length All Killer No Filler, and the singles "In Too Deep" and "Fat Lip" became staples of both modern rock radio and Total Request Live.

An extensive tour followed, and Sum 41 enjoyed their boffo success the way all near-teenage boys would, with plenty of towel-snapping, groupie loving, and self-depreciating, low-ball humor.

In 2002, they returned to wax with Does This Look Infected?.

While the album was a bit harder-edged, it found the band just as jazzed as ever to mix punk-pop business with sophomoric pleasure: the video for "Hell Song" featured the fellas acting out a sort of rock star debauchery cage match with the aid of a few celebrity action figures.

Metallica, Jesus Christ, and the Osbournes all made appearances in the hilarious clip.

- Johnny Loftus, All Music Guide

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