Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley prepares for “next chapter” with ’Walking Disaster’ memoir
While he may have refused to be a casualty of society, Deryck Whibley is now a published author.
The Sum 41 frontman has released a new memoir, Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell. The book, which follows Whibley’s “rise from a punk kid to an international star,” comes amid Sum 41’s ongoing farewell tour supporting their final album, Heaven :x: Hell.
“The idea of doing a book has been around for a little while,” Whibley tells ABC Audio. “I’ve been approached a couple of times over the years, there were some talks with different publishers and different agents over time.”
“[I] just wasn’t taking it too seriously,” he continues. “But as this timeline started to factor in, it kinda made sense to do it all together.”
Whibley feels that he had more to offer in the book as Sum 41 is ending, rather than sometime in the future.
“I felt like it would be weird to end the band, wait however many years, and then have to go revisit it all in a book,” he says.
Whibley, who turned 44 in March, adds that he feels Walking Disaster reflects “the first half of my life.”
“Let’s just put it all out there and, like, now I can just move on,” he says. “Next chapter.”
Whibley launches a book tour Tuesday, making stops in Jersey City, Boston, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Sum 41 will then resume their farewell tour with a trip to Europe before returning home to Canada in 2025. Their last-ever show takes place Jan. 30 in Toronto.
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