Lead Singer of Sum 41: Deryck Whibley on Conquering Addiction, Embracing Resilience, and Unlocking Creative Power

How do we navigate all of the changes that come with radical growth, fortune, fame, social challenges, all while staying true to ourselves? Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I AM your host, Dr. Michael Gervais. By trade and training, a high performance psychologist, Today's guest is Derek Whibley, lead singer and guitarist for the iconic punk rock band Sum 41. Over two decades, Sum 41 has sold over 15 million records, earned Grammy nominations, won numerous awards, including a Juno 4, group of the Year, and you might know their music. Fat Lip, In Too Deep, Still Waiting. The awesome music that they have, and.

They really captured a zeitgeist.

Derek and his band have defined punk rock for a generation, selling out arenas across the world. Beyond the stage, Derek's journey has been marked by psychological and emotional battles that include both addiction and the road to recovery, chronicled in his book, Walking My.

Life Through Heaven and Hell.

So with that, let's jump right into this incredible conversation with a legend, Derek Whibley.

Derek, I am really excited to have this conversation with you. I grew up counterculture off access. Really appreciating what you stand for and how you lived your life in so many ways is like, I mean, the title of your book is awesome. It really speaks to it. You've really gone for it in life.

Yeah, I think so.

And that's the part that I hold like in the highest regard is really going for it. So first, before we jump into it, thank you for coming in. And I just want to start like, how are you doing?

I'm doing great. Yeah. You know, we're on a final tour on our final album with some 41 and it's just been going great. This, this year has been the best year of some 41's career. We've had more success with the, the new record at radio than we've ever had. The tours are bigger or the shows are bigger and I mean, just everything's been great. The reaction's been great. To see the emotion in people in the audience has been different than other shows. Like normally our tours are, you know, our shows are high energy, high energy and the kids are going crazy. There's a lot of mosh pits, but. And that's still happening, but you can just see people's face. I see so many more smiles than, than normal. And it's just like the entire show, these people, like the audience is just, they're just filled with so much emotion, but in a good way. And it's a positive emotion and it's just like really enjoyable to be on stage and see that and. And watch people's faces.

There's a law of salience that's probably at play. And so what that means is that, you know, when you buy, like a new car, let's say you got like a Volkswagen VW Bug. Go back. Go back to like, maybe when you were a kid and there was a. That car that you just bought, whatever.

It was, and then all of a.

Sudden you look around, you're like, wow, there's a lot of them. There's a lot of these things out here.

Yeah, yeah.

So when you are in a certain vehicle, then you tend to see that vehicle more often.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

When you're happy, you tend to see smiles more often.

Yeah, yeah, I could see that. I mean, I tend to run positive most of the time. I'm usually pretty optimistic, positive, happy person, and I always have been. And my mom's the same way. We just kind of. And even the rest of my. A lot of people in my family, my grandparents, are the same way. I grew up in a very happy household.

I can't wait to talk about this.

I mean, there's obviously a lot of. There, there is darkness in life, obviously, but I've always tended to focus on the positive, I guess, naturally.

All right, now, you grew up in pretty tough ways. You know, the neighborhood that you described was one of the lower income neighborhoods. Drugs were familiar. Part of your. Your younger youth growing up.

Yes. Yeah.

The way you described it in your book and the way I've understood you is like your narrative on top of the way you lived doesn't quite match. It's not that it doesn't match, it's yours. But you could have another narrative quite easily, which is like, look, life isn't fair. Or like, I grew up in, like, it was hard and like, I struggled and. But you're. You look back and you say. And even during that time, you didn't have the idea that you were being pulled down. Rather, maybe the conditions were just difficult.

Yeah, I mean, there's this. There's two things I. I would think, like, growing up. Like I said, my mom was always really positive, always really close with my mom. I had a stepdad for a while that came into my life when I was about 2 years old and my mom and him got married. And I assumed, and I was told that he was my real dad, but he was a very dark person, abusive and just angry all the time. There was nothing really that great about him. BD Yeah, I never really enjoyed being around him. I Always feared him. And then they got divorced when I was about 7. So once he was gone, I mean, all the darkness was gone. And my mom was such a great, positive person, and we became this little team at that point, you know, I.

Loved that part of your story. Yeah, that was like. It was almost. It's almost like I. There was. What's the right thing here? For me, there was like, a craving for what you were describing. Like, oh, okay, so that heart. I needed the hard thing to better understand how to be really close to Mom.

Yeah.

And I don't know if needing is the right language there, but I know.

What you're saying, though.

Yeah, it was cool the way that you frame that. And I recognize that when, like, after something's difficult or hard, it's like. And then that thing resolves in some way. Oh, this is what it means. Oh, this is. Oh, this is great.

I mean, you have to go through the dark and tough situations to know how great the light and happy situations are, you know?

Is that a first principle for you?

It's just something that I've realized over time. I don't love being in those hard times, but I love having gone through the hard times. My life has always gotten better every time after something difficult. And when I'm in it, I always think, this is the worst thing. I wish this. I wasn't going through this. And then when I'm on the other side of it, I look back and I go, wow, my life is actually better now today than it was before. The hard thing.

Can you illustrate that through a story or an experience that you've had?

Okay, so the hardest thing I ever had to go through was, you know, I had liver and kidney failure from years of alcohol abuse, and I ended up in the hospital. And I was in the hospital for a month, but then I was an outpatient for another few months. But all in all, it was a year and a half of major recovery. And it really felt like, because it was so long of recovery and it was so small, like, the increments of getting better were so small that it felt like I was never really getting better. And I thought that I maybe would never get better. And that whole period, there's a lot in there that was. You know, I came out of the hospital with severe nerve damage in my feet, and it was just so much pain. I couldn't stand for more than a couple seconds. I couldn't put my feet on the ground without feeling like I was stepping on hot coals. And I just. I didn't know if I was ever going to get better. The doctors didn't know what was going to happen. There was just a wait and see. It could be permanent. It may go away. We just didn't know.

How did you manage that?

That, like, in that moment, I. I imagine that my psychology would have been pretty hard on myself. Like, I really myself up here.

Oh, yeah, it was. I was so down on myself and so mad at myself and embarrassed. And it was also very public. I had gone down a really bad path in the public eye and the world.

Sorry to interrupt you. Did the world know that you were strung out?

Well, the world could see that I was in bad shape. You know, it was. It was all just alcohol for me. And, you know, you can really see that in people's faces when you're, you know, I was horribly bloated and puffy. Yeah. Puffy face.

Yeah. So the hard drugs came before that, way before that.

I stopped doing drugs when I was like, early 20s.

I thought you were gonna say like 16. So you were in the throes of it, you know, as a teenager.

I never had a drug problem. We dabbled with drugs, all of us.

Yeah, it was fun. But the first, like in. In your book, you. When you talked about the first party you went to, and you were with some older folks and some rock stars, and you and your younger friends were like, well, what do we do? Yeah, I. I want to come back to, like, how you dealt with the. The. The resilient part of your story, like how you work through the. The. The body damage stuff. But go. Go to this thing really quickly about you and your friends saying, what do we do with the. When we go to party? If they say drugs? Because I think this is really cool. This is something. There's a big insight here.

So we were about 16 years old and we had started hanging out with some famous Canadian rock stars who seem to take a liking to us. We were in some 41. Like, I started this band in, you know, the end of 10th grade, basically, and we had met some of our heroes by sneaking backstage and at one of their concerts.

You snuck back.

Yeah, you were the one I snuck backstage and struck up.

Yeah.

A conversation. And it turned into this singer of this band coming to our show to check us out. It was the very first 741 show we ever played. We'd only been some 41 for a couple weeks. And I convinced him to come to our show. I mean, I didn't really have to convince him. I just said, hey, we're playing the show. Would you come? And he was like, yeah, I'll be there. And I thought, yeah, right. And I was like, well, how. You know, he said, yeah, put me on the list. And I was like, what's a list? I don't even know what that means. I mean. And so I said that. I go, what's a list? And he goes, here, here's my number. You know, call me a couple days before the show and I'll come. So I did, and he showed up, and it was. That started a friendship with some of these other rockstar friends of his and the rest of some 41 guys. So we'd been hanging out with him a little bit, mostly just he had let us come to some more shows of his band. And, you know, we weren't, like, friends yet, but we're just kind of in his proximity a little bit. And he invited us to a party, so. Said, do you guys want to come? My drummer's having this loft party. And we were on our way on the train to his house.

You know how you didn't know what a list was?

What.

What's a loft party?

Okay. He was living. He just moved into, like, some big loft.

Okay.

You know, an apartment building. And he was having a housewar.

Exactly what it sounds like. Okay, good.

He invited us down. We're on the train. And we knew that those guys did drugs, like ecstasy and coke and stuff like that. And we didn't do anything like that. We barely drank at that point. In fact, I got my first drink from this guy at one of their shows that he was. He had invited us to. I'd never had alcohol before, and he was just like, you guys want to do a shot? It was before they were going on stage. We're like, a shot of what? And he goes, well, drinking Goldschlager.

And.

Because we always do a shot of Goldschlager before we go on. And we thought, these guys are so rocks. They're literally drinking gold. There's flakes of gold in this.

The young mind. Yeah, yeah.

They literally drink gold before they go on stage. Like, it's crazy. And so we knew that we'd heard that they. You know, he'd mentioned before that they party pretty hard and they do drugs and stuff like that. So we were on the train, and we said to each other, we're making a pact. If they ask us to do any drugs, we're all going to say no, right? It was like, absolutely. We're not doing ecstasy. Ecstasy was rather new. Not Wasn't brand new, but it was like, it wasn't as talked about as, not as common. You know, we were at this party and almost immediately he looked at us, he goes, hey, you guys want to do some ecstasy? And we all looked at each other and we're like remembering the pact that we had with ourselves. And we all looked each other in the eye and just went, yes.

Yes.

We knew, as one does. Yeah, yeah. And the reason I, I really appreciate that story is because you had a plan. And I think that that's pretty remarkable as a young person that you, you rallied the team together. Y' all agreed on something. And there's something about how you work that comes forward in that story for me is that there was a plan, there was a thought about how you wanted to do it. You have the ability to think forward and use your imagination about what could be. And even, even so much as like, well, what's a list? Yeah, how do I navigate that? So you've got this ability to kind of plan in your mind. And then you, you threw it all out. Like, you, you went with a gut, you went with the vibe. You went with something.

Yeah.

Even though that, I mean, you knew that this new drug called ecstasy, you know, to you at least was a big risk.

Yeah.

And you said, screw it, let's go. And that was probably the influence of the rockstar vibe that was happening, you know, at the party or whatever.

Yeah, we're hanging out with our heroes, bands that we listening to. Like, I mean, we were just in awe of this whole scene that we were now all of a sudden being allowed into.

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So, okay, so when you, when we just think about that story and there was a connection to your, your, your friends, there was an agreement on a plan, there was your ability to see the future in the way that you wanted it. Then there was the abandonment of that future for an experience, for connection with other people, a new group of people. And so all of that kind of not knowing you stepped into. And so when, when I think about your life arc, that feels like the first part of it had a plan, had some friends, had a plan, and then abandoned that plan for an experience is. Does that seem accurate?

Yeah. I've never really thought about it like that because I especially back then, you just kind of operate off instinct and to a certain degree, even though we felt like this was not something we should be doing, and I can speak for myself, you know, we, I wanted to be, I wanted to be what those guys were from an earlier age, even before I even heard their Bands like I was. I grew up being obsessed with Nirvana and Guns N Roses and the Doors and the Sex Pistols. And I wanted. I wanted that life. You know, I. I loved that Doors movie. I loved the whole Jim Morrison story. I remember. You know, you romanticize that stuff when you're really young. You think it's so cool. Like, look at all that chaos and all the wildness of. Of all this stuff. So that was. That had already seeped into my subconscious already. So when I'm now stepping into this world, it's almost like, oh, here it is. Like, this is actually happening. And. And you don't have a conscious thought where you say, well, I always wanted to be like Jim Morrison and all those guys. It's just. It's. It's somewhere in your subconscious at this point, so you're instantly. Your instincts just kind of go towards it. You know, you have this thought, like, I know I shouldn't be doing this, but this is the life that I've been dreaming of.

Derek, I. What you're speaking is so rich because you programmed. Yeah, exactly. From all of the little micro thoughts. Like, look at Jim. Oh, my God, Maybe one day. Yeah, that's what I want. Like, I don't know, call it a thousand times a day.

Absolutely.

Since you were a young kid.

Very young. And. Yeah. And. And, you know, I wasn't sure how deep you want to go into all that. You know, how the mind works, the subconscious. And you. You, like you said, you. You know, you program yourself.

Yeah.

And how much we operate from our subconscious. Right.

How do you do that now, purposely? How do you. What are the thoughts that you spend most of your time with now?

Well, I do a lot of meditation.

Okay.

A lot of gratitude. Practice. I do. I have an eye on the future, but I'm much more in the present. I don't spend much time in memory lane. I think of the past fondly, but like I said, I don't really live there. I'm very. Like. We just did our last US show about a week ago, and I. I forget that we were just on tour because we're doing this now. You know, like, I'm on a book tour now and.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's. Once that show was done, it was like, okay, where am I tomorrow? You know, I'm not really thinking about. We just play our last show in the US Today. I'm like, what's happening tomorrow? What time's my flight? Like, okay, cool. And where am I? Like, it's all about tomorrow.

And you don't abandon your history.

No.

Or your stories.

No. Like I said, I think of the past fondly, and I can. I remember it vividly.

I think this is another process that you work from, and one of the reasons that you're probably alive today is that the way that you think about your future, you. I'm sorry. The way that you think about your history is that you're able to see it in a way that serves you well. And the fondly is the word here is that you're not looking back like, man, I screwed up. They were screwed up. Why me? You're not doing that type of psychology. You're doing something different, which is like, hey, it was hard, and I am who I am today.

Yeah. I think I'm thankful for all of it. I really am. I think, like I said, when I'm in those moments, when I was in that year and a half of recovery coming out of the hospital of liver failure and nerve damage, and I had so many issues, I couldn't even play guitar. Like, I couldn't form sentences. Like, everything. When I went to pick up a guitar again, because I thought, you know, I can't walk. I can't do anything. I'm gonna. Like, I'm sort of bedridden. Well, at least I have my guitar. And I grabbed it, and I couldn't even form a chord. I was like to just get my hand and then to switch it to another chord. It was literally learning guitar all over again. And that's when I really broke down. I had really just the shame, the embarrassment, the anger, the sadness, the guilt, the blame that I put on myself. All of that, you know, hit so hard and it stuck for so long that no one would enjoy that period. No one's going to. You're never going to, in that moment, say, I'm really glad this is happening. But I can sit here today and say, I'm so thankful that I went through that. Why I would never take that away. I'm glad.

Why? Why are you thankful?

My life is so much better. Like, hard times create stronger people, and I feel so much stronger and better having gone through that. I'm just so glad it's over, and I don't want to go through it again. How are you stronger mentally, physically? It's the. I look at these things as like. And it can be physical or mental, but I look at these things as, like, the gift of injury, where you go through something like. Let's just say you. You know, I have injuries, I have herniated disc And I. It's acted up before and every time it does, it's really painful. And I, or I'll have other injuries in my ankle or my knee or something like that. And I do the physio and what I mean by the gift of injury is, is that you go in and you build up all those muscles stronger than they were before on all the surrounding muscles to be stronger than you ever were. So it's almost like. And if you didn't have those injuries, you wouldn't work on those things. You would just be fine and you wouldn't even think of it. So I've become physically stronger in every way because I have to work on all that stuff. Mentally stronger because I have to work on all that stuff. I don't want to drink again. You know, it's. I'm 10 years sober. It's huge.

Congrats.

You have to just work on this stuff.

And it is day to day. It's a day in, day out, work.

Daily process for sure.

Do you know your triggers?

So I drank for 17 years total of my life. In 15 years of that, I never felt a pull towards it. I never felt an addiction towards it. I was always. We partied hard. Our band was always known as a hard partying band. We grew up, like I said, loving the Doors and Motley Crue and Guns N Roses and we just thought that's what you do when you make it. And that's what we did. And we had a great time and we always just thought it was fun. Now the last two years of my drinking, I started self medicating for this back pain. I was talking in my injuries and we were on tour and it was the beginning of an album coming out and I re injured my back and it was really bad. And I thought, I know what this is. If I go home to recover, it's like a six month recovery and our album is about to come out. And the only way to promote the album is to go out on tour. So what I would notice is we'd always have drinks sort of at the end of the night, maybe a drink or two before the shows. We never really got drunk before the shows, but I'd always notice that after a couple drinks my back pain felt a lot better. Pop a couple Advil, like I don't feel anything. So I started saying, you know what? I can get through this tour if I just kind of ward off the pain with some Advil and some Jack Daniels and I'll be fine. Yeah, and I'll deal With it, you know, at the end.

Right.

Because we were such a. And still are this rolling machine of a band. Right. You just go into. It's just cycle after cycle. You go on tour for 18 months, you come home, you make an album for six to eight months, and then you're back on the road for 18 months. And it just repeats and repeats and repeats. And that's what we've been doing for 20 something years.

Yeah. And just for folks that might not. I'm not sure who these people would be that might not know your music. Who are your people?

What do you mean, my people?

Like, I recognize your music because I grew up in the surf culture, right. From Southern California. Pennywise.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, was kind of a staple here. But who are, like, who is your community? Who are the people that have the connection to what you're saying and how you're presenting, you know, your lyrics and music?

You know, I don't really know. I mean, you know, we have our fan base.

That's what I mean. Like, who. How do you describe why they're attracted to you? Who are they?

I don't know.

That's interesting.

I've never really thought about why people like our band or what they like about it. I don't know. I mean, music. So it's. I've come to realize music is very primal. Like, we think we have these conscious decisions. Well, I like this because of that. I like this band because I like what their lyrics are or whatever it is. But now that I've had two kids and by 6, 8 months old, both of them, I'll watch them react to music that's being played. And sometimes they do react and sometimes they don't. They actually have a taste. But there'll be some music that comes on in the background where they just drop what they're doing. And they could be like, on the couch and they can barely walk and they sort of scurry off the couch and they have to go to the speaker and they start dancing because there's something that's primal about it. And I've come to realize that. And I used to think as a musician, oh, you know, you write a good song and that's why people like it or whatever. But I think music is way deeper than that. And it's. It's something that hits us inside and we can't even explain it.

Very cool. I. It's like a. It's like candy to hear it from you, you know, because you've lived it. You're. You're You're a creator of it. And to hear you point to the primal piece. Is it primal when you're creating or is it more intellectual and technical?

For me, I. I've. I operate better when I just write music and just let it come out. I have tried to game the system and get intellectual about it and try to think about things, and that's when I don't do as well.

Are you talking about lyrics or notes?

Anything.

Both.

Just writing music in general. If I, like, sit down and think about, well, what would be a really great song? What. What's in a great song? And I'm going to try to write a great song, it just. That never works.

So how does it work for you?

It just comes out. It's a lot of times when you're not even thinking about writing a song. Like, oh, man, I got this thing coming to me. I'm like, I got to like, sing it into my phone or grab a guitar. And, you know, if you're at home, great. I got guitars all over the place. Sometimes you're driving, you know, and you got an idea. So they come in the middle of nowhere a lot of times too, for me. And I think a lot of people are different because some people say you should just write all the time. Write something every day and just keep that muscle going. Yeah, I don't work as well when I do that. I've tried doing that. I feel like I start getting stale. Like, everything just kind of. I get bored of it and I'm not enjoying the writing. Whereas I find for me, that I like the album cycle of 18 months or so where I don't write anything. I'm on tour, I'm just playing music for people and I'm enjoying that process. And then I come home and I go, okay, I'm gonna make an album. And I sit down and I just have all this creativity that's just been waiting to come out. And I just write music for weeks to a few months.

How long does it take to recover once you're done with tour?

For the longest time and for most of our career, the day that I get home from the tour is the day I start writing. Yeah.

Yeah, that's what it sounded like, what you said. I've been fortunate. Spend some time with some artists and they're. When they get done with tour, they're like, flat out exhausted. It sounds like you're doing something different, that you're managing your energy cycles where you have energy at the end of the tour.

I usually come Home pretty inspired from what we have just done and what I've just witnessed.

Open that up. This is this. I think most people want what you just said, but don't know how to do it.

I get inspired and excited from the work, you know, from doing the work. And that's the accomplishment to me. And of course you want it to do well, but I learned a while ago. And again, this is from experience. I don't necessarily call it age because I think you can have the experience in a short amount of time. You could be younger with a lot of experience. You could be older with. It's just the amount of experience that you have accumulated. For me, I've come to a place where I only focus on the controllables. And I want to focus. Like, you can't control the outcome, but I can control my output. And that's where I put all my focus. And that's the accomplishment to me.

To you.

So output is a controllable. What. When you double click on that, what are the things that are more specific that lead to a high output?

Well, for me, I love what I do, so that makes things easier. But I like to just put all my effort into things, which is why I'm making this record in this tour, the final one, because I have other interests and things I would like to explore. And I don't necessarily know what that is yet, but I know because of the way I work and I'm so all in that I can't do some 41 and something else. So I want to focus on this tour, making this the best tour we've ever done. And. And when it's over, I'm going to find something else that I find fulfilling and throw myself into that.

I am so inspired by that thought. I feel like I'm doing seven things reasonably well, and that's how that usually works. And I. I want to do three exceptionally well. Like I'm really. But I don't know if I have the courage that you're talking about right now, which is to say no to some things that are good. They're really good. I find meaning and purpose and enjoyment in it. But. But spread thin. I know that there's some. There's a different level of art that I can get to that in my life and. And I'm not.

I think there's. There's always good ideas. There's always good things you could be doing right. There's always like a bunch of stuff that is kind of cool. I think if you really want to master Something you have to dive in and focus on it. Yeah, that's my. At least that's how I know I operate.

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What have when you think of the path of mastery or when you think of mastery, I just kind of introduced the idea of a path. But when you think of mastery, where else do you go? What else comes or surrounds that concept for you?

To me, mastery would be hard work and repetition. I think it's about, you know, the more work you do when nobody's watching will lead you to mastery when everybody's watched. Simply put, I would say don't practice until you get it right. Practice until you can't get it wrong.

Yeah, you know, cool idea.

That's how I operate.

Is it more of a destination or a process?

Oh, I think obviously like I said, you want what you do to do well. Right. And, but you can really only focus on what you can control and you can't control Especially when you're in something that deals with public consumption. Right. They're going to choose what they want to choose, and there's other things that they might choose. You can't control other people to like what you put out. Right. So you can really only focus on the process and what you put into it. And you can really only hope for the best.

Okay. So when you're creating, how much in your heart or in your mind are you thinking about the end user versus how to stitch note 1 and 2 together or, you know.

Well, the way I write music has always been about live performance. We've always been such a live band. And in the early days, those first four or five, maybe even the first six records, I hated making the records because I hated being in the studio. I hated writing the songs. I just wanted to be back out on stage performing. So making records was the necessary evil to just get back out on the road.

You could have been a cover band, but that was not.

I don't think that would have really gotten us into arenas, though.

But that's not what, no, that's not what you really wanted. You didn't want to just play music.

No.

You wanted to create and shine.

I do. So I always would say I hated the process of writing music, but I loved having being the guy that wrote the songs.

Oh, that's so interesting.

But I hated the torture of getting them to the finish line. But once they were done, I was like, yeah, I wrote that.

You know, which of the most popular songs do you look back at and be like, that was cool.

I look back at the whole catalog of music for the most part, and I still like it all. I mean, there are some songs obviously, where I can go back and listen and go, man, maybe that, not that one so much, but, and maybe not full albums as much, but the songs that we play live and the songs that everybody knows or the songs that went to radio and, and stuff like that, I, I still love playing all those songs.

I, I, I really appreciate what you just said because I, I did a deep dive into Beethoven to try to understand his psychology. One of the greats. I don't know if you would.

Oh, absolutely agree.

Yeah. And come to find out, he had this radical fear of, of other people's opinions, so much so that he went deaf. I know you've got tinnitus. I have a little bit myself. But he went deaf or was going deaf. And he did two things that I think I would love for you to respond to, to see how you navigate these Types of experiences. So as he was going deaf, he had this. This philosophy that I can't let anyone know somebody like me, somebody as extraordinary in music as me, is losing their sound, their hearing. So he pretended like he was aloof. He pretended like he was in this. What he would call his raptis, his creative genius orbit.

Sure.

And. But actually he couldn't hear what the person was saying to him. So that was part one and then part two when it become. Became so bad he. He had to go away. And so he went and found himself a bit, you know, a recluse. And that is actually in that dark place, if you will, that he had to drop out of society. And he drank more than any human should probably drink. That when he was out there is where he came up with Bum Bum Bum Bum and kind of changed, you know, his legacy, I think, from that point forward. Number five.

Yeah.

And so.

And it's.

It's actually. I don't know if you know this, but that bum bum bum bum was him. Maybe the folklore of it, banging on his piano because he couldn't hear. He couldn't hear the notes that he was making. And he was frustrated and he went, wait, what was that? And then kind of put it into a piece. So what do you do when you feel unsettled about some part of your life? But people are asking to see that he was unsettled about his hearing. And people were asking him to respond, but he couldn't hear it. So he was faking it.

Yeah.

What. How do you navigate that part of your life?

I think for me, I only ever do what I feel comfortable with. Like, so I don't do anything if. For anybody else. If people are expecting something from me. And maybe that's just because I grew up loving punk rock music. And I'm just like, I just do what I want to do. So I.

So there's a lyric that I wanted to just share with you.

Okay.

And I think this highlights exactly what you just said. But I want to get the tone of what you just said. But here's the lyric. I don't want to waste my time do you know where I'm going?

Yeah.

I don't want to waste my time Become another casualty of society I'll never fall in line Become another victim of your conformity and back down yeah. When I read that, I was like, oh, God, that speaks to me. Yeah, a lot. And so can you open up a little bit of your philosophy of punk music about that way of living? And then. And then also Maybe kind of use it in the context of, of this lyric.

There's this age old question, like, what is punk? What is punk to you? The amount of times I've been asked that, you know, and there's elements to it that I think obviously there's like an aesthetic that, that people associate with punk. But I think for me it's always just been an attitude. It's a mindset. That's the way I've looked at it is that I think I was attracted to it because of the. I'm gonna do it on my own. I am my own boss and I don't care about what anyone has to say. I don't even have to be that great at being a musician or anything and still touch people, you know, and still affect people. And it's just like, it's that you can do it too. Like, don't listen to authority that tells you you can't do something or you're not good enough. And that's what that lyric meant to me. I don't want to waste my time, become another casualty of society. To me, it was all about that. It was just like, I want to do what I'm. I want to do. And I'm not going to listen to what people tell me I should do or I'm supposed to do. That just fits in to what they think is acceptable.

So we're reading it kind of cold, right? And it's a little sterile. And you said punk is an attitude. I go, yeah, I hear that, I feel that.

And then when you are about now.

Let'S go right into that moment where a lyric, this lyric, let's just say, is going to come out of you?

Yeah.

And you use the word mindset. Okay, so what is the mindset that precedes you being able to contour the way that, that this sterile lyric on paper is going to come out. Can you talk about mindset? And you can talk about. And can you talk about like what is a mindset first and foremost? And then what is the mindset to help you deliver what you really want to deliver?

That's kind of a tough question, like, how do you define mindset? Because, you know, everyone defines things differently. Like we were talking before about subconscious. Like, I feel like it comes from your subconscious. It comes from your programs. Whether you've. It's the programs you've programmed yourself or things you've grown up with, or however you just get to where you are in your own mindset. And for me, at that time of writing, Fat Lip and those lyrics, my mindset was a couple things. One was, so that was the last song that we wrote for that record. I was under a lot of pressure to write songs at that point because we were putting out a record and we had deadlines, and I was just trying to write stuff quickly. So I wasn't really thinking too much about anything. And especially in those days, I didn't really think about anything. I was just writing music, whatever came out. And I always used to say, whatever a song is about, like, whatever those lyrics are recorded or whatever lyrics that are recorded for that song. That's just what I was thinking in that moment. If I had written that song three hours later or on another day, it might be about something completely different. And that's just where I was at at that moment. And, I mean, I think that that song Fat Lip sums up what Sum 41 was all about in that moment. Fatlib was like our mission statement. It's just, this is who we are. This is what we're all about. We're about fun. We're about not caring about what our parents want us to do, because we were teenagers. We just got out of high school.

Yeah.

And our parents did not want us to go into music. They wanted us to become just. They wanted us to go to college and just get a regular job and just.

You had a 52% in school. So, like, college. There was a great line in your book. You're like, you know, like, I did it. I got 52%.

I just barely passed. That's all I needed to get. Because my mom, she struggled so hard. She had me when she was 17, and she dropped out of school when she was in 10th grade to raise me. And then she married somebody who wasn't great, and then she left him and had to figure out, okay, now I got to take care of this kid and myself. And we. We moved a lot in. Every. Every time we moved was like a step up. But she struggled a lot for a lot of years and had to go back to school in her mid-20s, back to high school, and. And also still have a job. And. And then she eventually went to nursing school and became a nurse and got a good job. And like I said, every. Every step was step up, but she did not want me to quit school and go down that similar path.

Your mom had a spidey sense about Greg.

Yes.

And I don't know if you're comfortable talking about this part of your life, but.

Well, I wrote about it.

Yeah. So I don't mind about it, writing and, and talking might be different.

It is, it is different. I mean all of it's hard, I mean to be honest. But that's why we're here, right? We're, we, we go through the hard things intentionally because you get stronger on the other end.

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Inspired that not only how you wrote it, but the fact that you did write it because you didn't have to pull that forward.

No. And I wasn't sure that I was going to. When I started writing the book, I didn't know what I was going to write about. I didn't even really know what the story was. I actually thought my story was kind of boring. And I thought, why am I going to write a book? I mean, and I sat there the first day and I was like, my story was boring. Yeah, I really thought that because I was like, I didn't have a list of like stories that I was going to hit and moments. And I remember the past, like I said, but I don't live in the past. So yes, I can go recall those memories, but they're not just like top of mind. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm going to talk about this. Oh yeah, I'm going to talk about that. And so I'm thinking I don't know what I'm going to write about. And this thing hit me where I thought, for one, I thought my story was boring because I read a lot of those books either in high school or even while we were on tour. And you know, there a lot of those books are. Those kind of books are even more popular now. You know, I read Motley Cruise, the Dirt, Tommy Lee's book, Nikki Sixx book, you know, Ozzy Osbourne's book, Slash's book, Joe Perry's book, Steven Tyler's book. And I'm just thinking like now those are books, like, those are wild stories. I got nothing on this. My story is so boring compared to this. I'm just A guy who wrote some songs and, you know, had some success. Cool. I guess. But is it a book? I don't know. And then all of a sudden I had this thought of, well, yeah, you know what? Like you don't have a book like those guys, so don't try to make yourself sound cool. Just write the story. And if it's boring, it's boring, but it's your life, so just write your life. Like I said, I had this one rule of like, don't try to make yourself sound cool. And that just freed me up to just write the story honestly. And as I got through the story and I start getting to moments like our ex manager Greg, I pause and I'm like, oh, you know, am I going to really go there? And I thought, I can't tell this stuff. This is something I thought I would bury forever. And just, you know, I don't even think about it because I had buried it for so long. And I thought, well, you know what, it's probably good for me to get it out on the page and if I don't like it, I'll just take it out. But it's probably good for me to just write it out because I've never really dealt with what happened between him and I. And as I wrote it all out and I get on the other end of it, which, you know, he was our manager, he was in my life for nine years. So he's with us through all our first four albums from 16 to 25 years old. He's a huge part of the whole thing. And when I got done writing that section, which is a few chapters, I thought, well, how do I take that out? It's so intertwined with everything, all the good and bad.

Yeah, very cool.

So I thought I'd be lying if I took all that bad stuff out. And I don't. Everything I do, I try to do honestly.

I love that statement. I believe you too. And he was also, just to be clear for the listener, he was the person that gave you his number. You were the little kid, 16 year old, bright eyed, like, what happens backstage?

Yeah.

And he's like, hey kid, get. Here's my number, I'll show up at your show.

Yeah. Which at the time I was like, this guy's the coolest guy on the planet. He's my idol, he's my hero. I love this band, I have his records, he's famous and he's taking an interest in my band.

And at. When did, when did you start to realize that he was actually taking an interest in you.

Well, like I said, we were.

Taking.

A lot of drugs, you know, going to raves and all of us were, you know, we'd start. We went down that path of doing ecstasy and he introduced us to going to raves in the 90s and we're going to more parties and we just started hanging out with that Toronto Canadian rock star scene. We became accepted, you know, all of us, some 41 guys. And you know, as the years went on, we just became closer and closer. And I also was getting to a point where I, around 17 years old, I wasn't really getting along with my parents. My mom had. She wasn't married, but she was living with somebody which was, you know, my sort of pseudo new stepdad. And we weren't getting along very well and I was spending less and less time at home and I was couch surfing a lot and staying at Greg's house quite a bit. And our friendship just grew and grew and grew. And I couldn't deny that we. I'd never met anybody like him. Maybe there was a bit. I was in awe of the whole thing that I'm hanging out so much with this rock star and he's my idol and all that kind of stuff. But we, we had this great connection and he was teaching me how to write songs better and introducing me to everything culturally and just all the things that you would learn from say your, say a father figure, how to shave and how to tie a tie and do all the, you know, just things that you do at those ages. You know, all of a sudden I'm like, hey, well, I'm starting to get facial hair. What do I do? It's like, well, teacher how to shave. You know, so, you know, we just had this bond and over time I started to realize that, you know, he seemed to be interested in me physically and sexually. And it kind of devolved into that, that sort of relationship for I don't know how long, but within a few months of it, I just felt like, you know, okay, it was a little bit of an experiment. I'm not really that interested. But he was more, you know, this. Now that we've started this, this has to continue. Like you. We're not stopping this now. Like, yeah, you don't just start and stop. I will say it is hard to talk about.

Well, how are you navigating this conversation right now?

You're watching somebody try to process this all for the first time. Yeah, because I've. The first step was writing about it. The next step was Putting it out to the public. And now the next step is talking about it for the first time.

Yeah.

So this is all new to me.

And what are the emotions that you're navigating as you're doing it?

Trying to understand it? You know, I don't want to. I don't want to say something. You want to be careful with your words because I don't want to mischaracterize something or. Or, I don't know, just say it the wrong way.

You know, again, your commitment to honesty.

Yeah, exactly right. I want it to be right.

You're not trying to protect your image or protect him?

No, no. If there is anything that I feel like my subconscious goes to protect, it is him for some reason. And I catch myself going in my. Internally going, why you still try to protect him? Because that's what I did for so long.

Do you, in your mind, do you frame him as being an abuser and a child abuser?

I never did. I've never said that. I don't say that in the book. I don't.

I. I know you didn't come to.

A place of labeling it. All I could do in the book was just talk about what happened. I'm going to tell the truth, and the reader can decide for themselves what they think it is. I've never felt like I knew what it was. And in the book, I think the. It's. There's so much there. And I always. I've been saying in a lot of interviews, like I've said, I've said it the best that I can say in the book. That's best to write. Read the book rather than me stumble through it because it's still hard for me to process and put into words.

Yeah.

I'm more interested in how you're navigating it than the actual facts of it.

Sure.

When I read it just for clarity, that clearly looks like a predatorial grooming process. And when you said no, he flexed another tactic to pull you back in. And like, that's really confusing as a kid.

And that's.

That's what the abuse is.

I was going to say it's. It's still confusing.

Yeah, but that's. And that's what abuse is.

Yeah.

And so cool, man. To keep processing it, to keep working through it. You will find it. I think each time you wrestle with it, there's a little more clarity.

So.

Yeah, a little more clarity. But I'm. I'm in awe of your courage and watching you try to find the right way to do it now. I think most of us are so overwhelmed by emotions, overwhelmed by what people think of us. We never get close to the truth. And I'm watching you go. It's really cool.

Yeah, it's difficult for sure. But like we've been talking about, I think I don't like to run away from difficult things. I have those moments where I, I pull back and then I go, you know what? I always come back to this thing. The, the thing that's the hardest thing to do is probably the most important thing you can do. So I always remind myself that whenever I start pulling back, I'm like, no, you're pulling back because this is the most important thing you can do. So just, just do it. You know, it's.

And, and that's a feeling. That's em. That you're talking about an emotion at that point. And I wanted. We had a, a legend on Gabby Reese. So she was in good volleyball player and then world class model. And she said, you will get taken down by the thing that you're willing to do anything for.

Does that make sense to you?

Yeah, I mean, to a certain degree, I guess. You know, I, I don't necessarily know what I like I would say to that, but I don't know.

Let's, let's stay on the. Let's stay on the emotion piece. When you feel an emotion and you're retracting and recoiling from it, how do you, how do you do the gymnastics to come back in to that hard emotion, to that complicated mental thing that you're trying to sort out?

For me, when things are difficult or when I'm having these emotions, I really try to not act from emotion. I always try to take a step back and just say, okay, let's think about this for a second. What am I feeling? Why am I feeling it? And what are my best options to deal with this?

Do you float above and watch it?

Yeah, a little bit. I tried to take like an outside perspective and, and look at myself. You know, another great tactic or trick or whatever you want to call it is, I'm sure I don't know if you. How many people. I don't know how popular this is. It's not something I learned till not that long ago, but like the Solomon paradox, you know, where you can give other people much better advice than you give yourself.

You can see it so clearly. Yeah.

So you. I try to do that. Pull yourself out and give that person advice, not yourself.

Right.

Like, what would you tell somebody who's going through this thing and all of a sudden you're like, oh, I would say this and this and this and you go, well, okay then I just gave myself some pretty good advice there.

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You mentioned earlier. Mindfulness and Gratitude Practice Mindfulness or meditation practices will help you be able to pull and watch and observe without being sucked into the full drama of it. But Not. Not detach, but observe from a different perspective. To also feel, but just to have a different viewpoint.

Yeah, exactly. And I think doing the meditation and gratitude and, you know, just whatever it is. Even just, you know, with yoga or working out and just like, working out those. Just working out your mind, really, it kind of leads you with. Through your subconscious, I find, like, where things will hit you and you can just quickly kind of get through them and you don't even really notice. Like, there's lots of things that will happen or come up. I mean, this stuff coming out, the book coming out and, you know, headlines kind of went everywhere this week about this situation with Greg, Norrie and I. And, you know, this is a really heavy week for me. It's out to the public, and a lot of people are talking about it. And I know he's starting to talk about it, and I think if I hadn't been doing all this meditation and working on myself for the past while, that I would probably be hit really hard this week. But I'm just kind of like, it's going to be fine. You know, it's. It's not cool, but it'll be fine.

What's not cool about it?

It's like I said, it's just really heavy talking about this all the time, everybody asking me stuff about it. I know obviously he's not happy about it, but the truth is I'm not happy about it either. I take no pleasure in coming out with the story and having his whole life turned upside down, his family having to go through this. Like, that was something I wrestled with for a long time. I even went to a therapist about this before I started writing it. Like, when I started realizing I'm going there and I was going to go down this path, I thought, I can't go there because this is going to hurt too many people in his life, in his orbit. That was my first thought.

Your sensibilities about others, it's not something I would have guessed until sitting with you here. Like, you have a sensitivity to you about other people and a kindness about speaking the truth. You are not, like, brash with, like.

Whatever it takes, man.

That's not you. There's a sensitivity about how you conduct and shape your words, to find the most honest way to express what's happening inside of you or to, you know, pull your. Your history forward. I really appreciate how you're doing it. I imagine it's really hard for him too, you know, and so I'm sure it is.

And there's a big Part there's a lot of times we forget some of the bad things, right? You can forget how tough things were in the past. And. And I always go back to and. And sometimes people will say, no, don't go there. When I say, you know, he was a really great guy too. And they'll say, oh, don't say that. Like he was, you know, look at all this other stuff. And I go, yeah, but I can't deny, like, if I'm being honest, some 41 wouldn't be where we are. We wouldn't be this band without him. And he had a lot of great stuff. He taught me the structure of writing songs and. And pointed out how to, you know, he would show me other great songs and say, now your songs, you have these moments that are good, but you just have all these parts and they just kind of go nowhere. And you've got one really great part, and then you just get off and you never repeat it again. Look at this song. Who has a. They've got a great chorus and there's a structure. Follow this kind of thing. And, you know, he just taught me all these things, and I started writing better songs. And he was the one who helped get assigned and just, you know, all these things, right? Like, there was a lot of. He noticed a lot of good things. I'd say, once we. Once this. The relationship turned the way it did, went down more of a sexual path, and then we had success and our band went past his band. I felt like there was. And I was also saying, I don't want to do this. I don't want to have this kind of relationship. I just want to have a professional and friendly relationship. And I was pulling back. That made him angry. And the fact that we had surpassed him, I think, made him jealous of our success.

A lot of layers is to your point.

And. And things just got very dark for a long time. And you still our manager and you're still intertwined in everything, and we still did four records together until it just got to a point where it was just so toxic that we. That we all collectively came to his decision to fire him as their manager.

You know, I just wanted one more time honor the courage to speak truth. And it's something that. This is yesterday. The time of the recording was mental health day. Every day should be a mental health day, you know, but it's celebrated on the calendar once a year, at least in the US It's a real treat to hear how honest you are and the courage that sits right below that to Speak to it. So I want more of that for me. I want more of that for the listener. I want more of that for all of us.

There's a lot you can gain in life when you really look at yourself, honestly. If you can stand figuratively naked in the mirror and. Because I don't like to stand naked actually in the mirror, but figuratively in the mirror and look at all the things that either you're doing well or doing. Or that you could do better. I know I benefit from that. And it's. It's hard when you can get to a place where a lot of the things or everything you do is really your fault, good and bad. There's always a way you could have navigated yourself out of something. Like when you have that victim mentality of like, well, this is bad in my life because of that. I could say things in my past, my upbringing, my abusive stepfather, whatever it is, has made me a certain way, and I'm just like an angry person or something like that. But it comes down to the controllable. So you can really. You can't control what people do or people say or how people act, but you can control how you act and what you do with that. And. And after those situations, what you just.

Said is pointing to the very technical term called agency. So you know that in psychology, it means that you have power to choose no matter what the circumstances.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And one of the most inspiring kind of writers in psychology was, and psychologist was Viktor Frankl, which I'm sure you're familiar with, survived the concentration camps and told how. And he pointed to the same very things that you're talking about, which is like, look, when the conditions are deplorable, you got to figure out a way to understand purpose, to understand how to make choices that line up for something bigger than you.

Yeah.

And so as we round kind of the. The last couple of questions here, like, have you thought deeply about your purpose? Like, why. Why are you here? Why is Derek here?

I don't.

What do you want to do with the rest of your life?

Well, I do think about what I want to do with the rest of my life. I don't really think about what my purpose is and why I'm here. And in some ways, I feel like I naturally don't operate from ego. And I feel like in some ways saying that I have some purpose here on this earth for this, for something feels somewhat that comes from an egotistical point of view of, you know, I just think we're all here I'm just here to. I want to enjoy life. I want to work hard and do things that I think are honest, great for myself, and hopefully that can help others. But I, you know, with music, I've been helped so much with music. I mean, and I hear that from other people and. And I don't know how much music, my music has touched people, you know, because you never know. You can just hope that it has brought some joy to people and people enjoy it.

But you do get the. The adulation. Like, oh, my God. You do get that. Like, you have some sense that I.

Was just talking about this the other day is. I wish that I could get. I still haven't gotten to a place. And maybe this is because we spent so many years opening for other bands and trying to prove ourselves, and we had so many ups and downs, and we've been counted out so many times that I've always felt that we're always trying to prove ourselves. And on this final tour that we're doing, and these are sold out big places, and I'm backstage and I have to remind myself that people came here because they want to be here. I don't have to go out and prove myself that we're a good band. They like us already.

There's this idea in elite sport which is what got you here isn't going to get you there. And so, you know, the vine that you've been swinging on, actually, to get to the next vine, we got to. We got to let go and, you know, take a leap. And it's scary because you operating at a really high level, same with the athletes I'm referring to. And to let go and to do it differently. You don't necessarily know it's going to work out. And I hear you saying that right now that the model that got you here was I'm going to show you. And, like, you didn't believe in me.

Yeah.

Okay, watch. And I got something to say. And I'm going to grind. I'm going to do it better, and I'm going to get it. And so that chip on your shoulder mentality got you here. And the thing that will get you to the next iteration of how you shape your life is probably not going to be that chip on your shoulder. There's something else.

Maybe. I don't know.

No one does it alone. We. We need each other.

Yeah.

And it's a very complicated set of conditions when we're in a relationship where we're really trusting and relying on other people to deliver against The. The vision that we're sharing, the promises that we're making to each other. And so bandmates, teammates, partners in life, you know, there's that intimate connection between people.

Yeah.

And to be in a band for a long time feels hard. It feels really tricky because of marriage.

To a few different people.

Yeah. And you put in. You put all the public attention on it, you put the artistic integrity on it. You pull. Put drugs and rock and roll and complicated relationships all surrounding. So do you have any insights about how to do relationships well with people that you want to partner with? Whether it's a teammate, somebody at home, you know, or if we're speaking to the band member, It's.

It's hard. I mean, with our band.

I think.

We all have a collective goal. We all love what we do. We love the music. We all grew up together. We all went to school together. But that can also make things difficult because we operate a little bit like a family where when you're that close, you're kind of like brothers. I don't know how to put it, but, you know, when you're with your family, you can talk to each other. You can be rude. You can be more rude with each other because it's. You love each other that much and you know that you're going to come back to each other. Right. You're not going to leave each other. So, you know, brothers can fight a lot harder sometimes, and I think that's how we've operated in the past. I mean, at this point in our career, everything's all love and peace and respect and understanding. We've gone through periods where we hated each other and weren't speaking and mad at each other for this and that, or some things were big things, some things were small things, and dynamics have been great and bad. You know, when we started out, out of high school, we only had each other. We didn't have wives or girlfriends and all that kind of stuff. The only thing we had was just this one goal was to succeed and to just, you know, be the best band that we could. So we had this gang mentality, like you couldn't mess with any one of us or we're all gonna jump in. And we all had each other's back for the longest time. And then as you get older and everybody has different needs and different wants in life, your life starts taking you in different directions, and we also start moving to different places, and we're not as connected anymore. And. And with a band like us who constantly toured, never stopped working, we Started to burn. Burn ourselves out. And then tensions grew within the band. So, you know, dynamics got really bad for a good while. And we've done everything that you could. We've done the whole never speaking to each other again, screaming matches, backstage fighting, not fist fighting, but, you know, just screaming at each other, saying all the things that you shouldn't say to each other. Going through group therapy together, you know, all that kind of stuff. Members quitting, members coming back, you know, it's all. All that kind of stuff.

And if there's a through line about how to do it well, how to get to the place that you're at now, what would you want the listener to know?

For me, and this is just. I can only really speak for myself, is that I've always been a committed person. I commit to everything that I do. And I've. I committed to the band. I've commit to my marriage. And it. I just. I ride through the ups and downs. Like I said, I always know that nothing lasts forever. It's. It is always. Life is just a roller coaster. You're always going to go up and down. And I know when things are bad that the bigger picture is better than what the small picture is right now. So I always commit to it and I stick through it. And I think some of the guys in our band have left and come back, and I can't speak to why they did that or what they were going through internally, but, you know, I think at the end of the day, really, for a band, it really comes down to the love of the music.

Very cool. And you snuck in there that you're trying to be your best, not the best is that.

I didn't know I snuck that in there. Sort of how I operate, I guess, you know?

Yeah, definitely. Me too.

I've never tried to be. And I've thought about this. I've never thought about being the biggest or the best. Sometimes I think that I should have. I look back and I go, wow, I've accomplished every single dream I've ever had. Everything that I thought about when I was 13, 14, 15 years old in high school, just dreaming all day, everything. All the bands that I would dream about, all those things. I. I hit all those things. So if I have any regrets, I just go to myself, why don't I dream bigger? Why didn't I dream to be the biggest band on the planet? Because it probably would have come true.

I can't wait to see what you do next.

Yeah, I'm excited for it. I have no idea what it's going to be. But that's the exciting part.

Yeah, yeah. I'm really like. And if you do nothing, that's cool, too. Like, when I say nothing, I mean nothing public. I just really appreciate how you've shaped your history, your current state, and the way you think about the future. And I think that these golden handcuffs that many people would relate to, like, I'm really good at this thing, but I don't know what to do without that thing. And so I really respect that you're examining the golden handcuffs as well. And maybe you don't see them as handcuffs, but this idea that you are. You don't have to do just music. Yeah, right. Like, it's a love. It's a love vein for you, but you don't have to just do that.

I just. I don't know what else is out there for me. I don't know what my other interests are, because some 41 consumes my life. And it's been great, but it's been 30 years. And I feel like if I'm ever going to try to do something, I have to just get rid of that out of my life. So I can just see if the universe offers me anything else. I don't know what it's going to be. And like you said, it may be nothing or nothing public, but it could be something. I do that where nobody's looking, you know, and it's fulfilling. I don't know.

That's cool.

But I'm ready to see what is out there. I think opportunities will just. I don't think they're going to be handed to me, but I think life presents opportunities.

And you're ready. Yeah. I think you're speaking to a lot of people in that. I'm doing this thing. I've made a living paying mortgage, I'm paying rents. Like, it's working out, man. I'm not sure I want to keep doing this.

Well, nothing good. I've realized in life that nothing good comes easy. You and. And the hard thing is the scary thing. And everything's scary, you know, make change is scary. So, you know, it's just. You just gotta. You just have to do it. Because that, I mean, I don't know how to explain to other than that's just the way I operate. You just. It's the things that scare you the most are the most important things you could do.

What a great philosophy. What a great philosophy. What was your first tattoo?

My first Tattoo was this 41 that we got. We all have It.

Yeah. Here.

And I don't have a lot of tattoos like some of the guys in the band do, but, yeah, that was the first tattoo. I think when we got our record deal, we're like, let's go get a tattoo. Well, I'll get a 41 and then.

The most meaningful one.

Oh, I think most of my tattoos are meaningful. My most recent is my son's name, and obviously that's pretty meaningful. But, yeah, I'm not. I'm like somebody who gets tattooed, like, every seven years, you know, Like, I don't have that many.

I was talking to an athlete, he's in the NBA, and he says, yeah, you can't get a tattoo over, you know, the age of 30. That's not allowed. Yeah.

Right.

So. But you broke that rule.

Oh, yeah. Well, that's what I do is break rules.

I appreciate that. And do you have anyone, any tats that you're like.

I'm not sure that this one should.

Make the list necessarily, because, like I said, I don't really have too many tattoos.

Yeah.

Also some hidden ones I forget about. I. I forget about the ones back here a lot of times. No, I don't really have anything that's bad. You know what's funny, though, is sometimes I'm like, you know, I wonder if I would just get them all removed and just start over, like, if that's a thing. Like just. Yeah, clean them all off and then get other ones.

That's cool. Yeah. Blank slate.

Yeah.

All right, man. Thank you for your time, your sensitivity. Thank you for the openness to explore, the courage to be able to find the right way and the right words to speak truth. It's inspiring. Cool.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for your body of work as well.

Oh, thanks.

Yeah. Really appreciate you.

Thank you. This has been cool.

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