Deryck Whibley on Sum 41 and a Memorable Story About Tommy Lee

Ahead of the October release of his memoir, Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell, Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley has launched a video series full of stories that didn’t make the book.

During a conversation with Chuck Armstrong on Loudwire Nights Thursday (July 11), Whibley recounted a tale that neither made it into his memoir nor will be featured in the new video series.

“I remember being on the Motley tour in 2005 and I used to hang out with Tommy [Lee] on his bus a lot,” Whibley said. “We would end up just partying and I would stay on his bus through the night, even though we weren’t sleeping. We were just staying up and partying all night. We’d roll into the next city around 9AM and we’re still partying.”

Once they arrived at their destination, they’d head to their respective hotel rooms. However, Whibley admitted that Lee’s hotel room was always the nicest, so he’d keep partying with Lee.

“Somewhere in Middle America, it was not a very nice hotel at all and we walked in, and he was just like, ‘What the fuck is this shit,'” Whibley recalled. “He’s like, ‘Get me another hotel,’ to his tour manager. So, we’re about to leave and I said, ‘Wait, Tommy. We have to trash this hotel before we leave. This place sucks already, we can’t leave this hotel in pristine condition.'” That was enough to convince Lee.

“We just start flipping tables and breaking things and I think I took a piss in the corner,” he said, laughing. It took about five minutes for them to properly trash the hotel.

As Chuck told Whibley he was the devil on Lee’s shoulder, the Sum 41 frontman said it didn’t take much pushing to be a bad influence on Lee. “In those times, we were pretty good drinking buddies. I mean, Tommy’s a great drinking buddy for anybody.”

Along with diving into his memoir, Whibley also discussed the decision to end Sum 41, why he’s not too concerned about the future right now and what might be on the horizon for him.

“I’m so hyper-focused on what I’m doing in the moment,” he revealed. “I don’t really sit and reflect too much, but I’m proud of the past.”

Even though he lives in the moment — whether he’s considering the future of Sum 41 or performing onstage — he did open up a little bit about what he might do once Sum 41 is officially over. “I can’t help but write songs all the time,” he said.

“I’ve always written songs that have not sounded like Sum 41 and sometimes I bring those songs and turn them into Sum 41 songs, but I do write a lot of stuff on acoustic that I’ve always thought, well, that would never be anything Sum 41 related. I still continue to do that stuff.”