Dave Baksh and Jason “Cone” McCaslin on Headlining Shows After Personal Battles
Dave Baksh and Jason “Cone” McCaslin reflected on the challenges and triumphs of embarking on massive headline shows after overcoming personal battles. The conversation took place ahead of their huge set at Mad Cool Festival 2024 in Madrid, following the release of Sum 41’s final album ‘Heaven :x: Hell’ and before their farewell tour across Europe and the UK later this year.
During the interview, the band discussed the recent surge in pop-punk’s popularity and how it felt to embark on these significant tour dates as the genre enjoys renewed interest.
“Being lucky enough to have any sort of relevance that allows you to see the rise and fall and the rise again of whatever genre you’ve been placed into… it’s a pretty crazy compliment and a really wild and surreal thing to go through,” guitarist Dave Baksh said.
“Especially because I think we don’t take ourselves too seriously, so as far as watching all this and seeing younger bands saying like: ‘I grew up on your music’, it’s a wild experience. To put it into words is really hard.”
Bassist Jason “Cone” McCaslin added that the resurgence in pop-punk wasn’t something the bands actively caused.
“It’s funny because I don’t think it’s from anything the bands have done to bring the genre back,” he said. “The bands have always been there – we didn’t really go anywhere, Blink [182] has never gone anywhere, Green Day has never gone anywhere. So it’s based on whatever people are into! We just keep doing what we’re doing and for whatever reason it was big, then it [dipped], and now it seems to be popular again…”
Reflecting on the response to ‘Heaven :x: Hell’ and returning to the road after personal struggles, Baksh shared insights on the band’s journey.
“It’s kind of crazy because we had started with a kind of inner-rebuild phase with the current line-up,” Baksh explained. “We took about two years off for Deryck to figure out his health problems, and then when we got back together with Dave it just seemed [right] because he was a part of the whole coming up with Sum 41,” Cone continued. “So when everything got back together it felt really good. It’s been a rollercoaster for our whole career so it feels good to be playing these big festivals and higher up on the bill now.”
The surge in pop-punk’s popularity has been felt across the genre. Earlier this summer, acts like Fall Out Boy, who headlined Download 2024, and Paramore, who joined Taylor Swift on her record-breaking ‘Eras Tour,’ also drew massive crowds. Additionally, the When We Were Young Festival in Las Vegas will run for an extra day in 2024, headlined by My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, and Jimmy Eat World due to “overwhelming demand.”
Sum 41’s final record, ‘Heaven :x: Hell,’ is a double album. The ‘Heaven’ side features pop-punk tracks inspired by earlier releases like ‘All Killer, No Filler’ and ‘Does This Look Infected?’, while ‘Hell’ showcases the heavier style found in recent albums like ‘Order In Decline.’
Discussing the record, Deryck Whibley noted, “There’s more to the album than nostalgia. Even if I tried to write ‘All Killer, No Filler’ again, I wouldn’t be able to. It just doesn’t come out the same. The songs sound like they could be from those eras though.”
Sum 41 will embark on their farewell headline shows across the UK and Europe later this year, including a stop in London on Halloween 2024. Visit their website for any remaining tickets.