Sum 41 Biography

Sum 41 is a Canadian Juno Award winning band from Ajax, Ontario. The band was formed from members of several local high school bands, 41 days into the summer of 1996. The band consists of Deryck Whibley (a.k.a. Bizzy D) (lead vocals, guitar, keyboard/piano), Jason McCaslin (a.k.a. Cone) (bass and backing vocals), and Steve Jocz (a.k.a. Stevo32) (drums and backing vocals).

The band is officialy labeled as Sum 41, although in the singles from the Chuck album they were rendered as sum41, also another band's name labeling coming mainly from their common association with blink-182 is written as sum-41. Other renders include SUM41 and SUM*41.

Since signing a record deal with Island Records in 1999, the band has released four full length albums one sometimes considered EP, two live CDs, over ten singles and sold millions of copies worldwide. They have topped the charts on Japan, Canada, USA, Singapore, Brazil, France and the UK.

The band won the 2003 Juno Awards in category "Group Of The Year", they have been three times nominees of the "Best Rock Album" category, winning two times with All Killer No Filler and Chuck in 2001 and 2005 respectively, the 2000 they won the Canadian Radio Award for "Best New Group". Sum 41 have also won the 2002 people's choice award in the MuchMusic Video Awards in category "Favorite Group" with their hit single In Too Deep and the 2001 MuchMusic Video Award for "Best Rock Video" with Fat Lip. Other awards of the band include Rolling Stone's Year End Reader's Poll for "Best Band", "Best Album", "Best Single", "Best Video", "Best Tour". Also they have Spin Magazine's gold medals for "Best Band", "Best New Artist", "Best Song", "Best Video".

As of 2006 the band performed more than 600 times and have become famous for their world tours that are usually more than year-long.

Sum 41 said that their early music (Half Hour Of Power) was heavily influenced by NOFX. Another influence on their music was Beastie Boys, especially in their All Killer No Filler hip-hop persona and their Rapcore music found in the Fat Lip and What We're All About singles. Their later music in the album Does This Look Infected? had heavy influence from The Offspring, as the band itself commented. Also, some metal influence coming from bands like the Iron Maiden is noted. In the song Fat Lip, the quote "Maiden and Priest were the gods that we praised" refers to Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. Although they have said that Green Day was an influence since the band's first record this is more noticeable in their latest music from the Alternative rock album Chuck. In this album, some Nu metal music can be found, with some similarities to the band Linkin Park. Chuck features a series of songs that can be compared with Thrash metal, and they have called Metallica one of their main influences on their metal music.

The band's early musical style is often compared to the blink-182 pop-punk songs because their catchy melodies and their toilet humor. Nowadays the musical genre of the band is in dispute among fans because of the complex combination of different musical styles. The argument is centralized around the punk streak of the band, and they have been labeled as Pop-punk, Punk rock and even Hardcore punk. Their lyrics contains some hardcore influence and the band's later albums are known for their often politically-driven music.

Some recent pop-punk revival bands and post-grunge artists, including SR-71, Simple Plan, New Found Glory, Lit, and Autopilot Off (their producer was the Sum 41 former manager), have cited Sum 41 as one of their influences.