Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Deryck Whibley of Sum 41

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is joined by Deryck Whibley of Sum 41. Sum 41 defined an entire generation of skate punk before they played their last show in January 2025. Their final LP, Heaven :x: Hell, was a feat, showing off their signature styles. The Heaven side called back to their snotty pop-punk days, whereas Hell channeled their metallic side that ramped up with 2004’s Chuck. In the time since, Whibley has released a potent memoir, Walking Disaster, and a clothing brand with the same name, debuting at Warped Tour Orlando last year. Stopping by the Artist Friendly studio, they get into a raw, reflective conversation where Deryck opens up about his near-death experience, burnout, and what’s next.  ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠Spotify. ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I look at going to the hospital as the best day of my life. Wow. You know, like, again, that goes to the meaning you give something or, you know, searching for the reason in something, right? So, yes, it was brutal. I never want to go through it ever again. And it took a long time and it was painful and torturous and awful. But my life has been exponentially better since that day.

You feel like liberated? In so many ways. Yeah, because, again, like I shed that identity. there just wasn't serving me. Yeah. And I decided I was going to create a new life for myself. And I just started going down the path. And that was slow.

And it didn't feel like it was exciting or inspirational or motivated. I wasn't motivated. It was very difficult. And everything felt like it wasn't working for so long. But this goes back to what you were talking about of just this thing in life, which is somewhat of the unknown of just having faith in something. Totally. Like I just had this faith.

If I put in the work, it will eventually work. I injured myself playing golf and it's really it's really like slowed me down would you do? Do you hurt your back? My rib muscles, they're called the intercostal muscle. So it's on your ribs. And I just like pulled it or strained it or something

and it's really painful. But I hear, I guess if you tear it, it's like debilitating. Okay. Like, I've heard of that muscle, so it must be important. I didn't even know it existed until, I guess it's a very like tennis, golf, baseball type sports with that rotation. Mm-hmm. And it's just like a strain or something, but man, it's slowed me.

It's slowing me down. Yeah, yeah. I think we take health for granted until we lose it in some way. And then we take it for granted until we realize, like, how fragile. sometimes we are, right? But the thing is, like, I love injuries. I think injuries are a gift because now you have the opportunity

to build that back up and everything's surrounding it and you now have focus on an area that you were not paying attention to. No idea it even existed. And now you'll probably work on that it'll get better, it'll get stronger. And so I always look at it as like the gift of injury.

Like, you just, you build that up and you're now stronger because of it. Yeah. I think that's a very, very optimistic stance. Yeah. And I think that I feel like I know you, so I feel like I have a good idea of how you probably evolved to that conclusion.

But I do think that like- Lots of injuries. Lots of injuries. Messing up and screwing up in life for sure. But think about it. I don't know if you were aware of yourself when you were injuring yourself. Do you know what I mean? Not at all.

No, it takes all that stuff. That's what I mean. That's the gift of injuries. Like it wakes you up and you realize. Okay, all these behaviors or things that I've been doing, the way I've been doing things has led me here. So clearly I need to change something to be stronger or to be better or it depends on what it is. I mean, you have an injury. So like you have the opportunity to make that stronger as a muscle.

Yeah, like train it. When I, when I heal, I can get back and start actually focusing on making it stronger. Whereas like things that I've gone through have been like I had to work on that mentally to or change just like actual behaviors in life, right, to get better. But there's also been injuries that I've had to work on, like, with my back and some legs and stuff like that. Yeah, you had, like, some back trouble. And it's permanent, but I work on it so much that to try to prevent, you know, it's a herniated disc. And they don't, it doesn't go back. How do you get a herniated disc?

That was on stage in 2007. So it was 20, maybe I was already 27 by that point, but. Actually, I got injured on stage as crazy as it sounds, everyone listening. You get injured on stage. Yeah, yeah. I jumped off of something really high. Yeah. And I guess when I landed, I braced myself and I got a hernia.

And then I left it for 10 years. And it got worse and worse. And then I had to get surgery. Yeah. I'm not surprised. I mean, think about the amount of pressure that is too, right? Like coming down, especially if you're jumping off something high, it's like hundreds of pounds of pressure coming down on something.

Yeah. You know, I mean, we used to have, I'm sure I'm positive that the herniated disc came from the early days of us jumping on trampolines on stage. I don't know if you remember. Yeah, I remember. Early, early days, we had these mini trampolines so we could get higher than everybody else jumping. You guys did do the jumping better than anyone. I swear, that's why I've heard you just because you think about all that pressure with a heavy less paw coming down every night, you know.

Do you feel like you guys are like a rock and roll metal rock and roll band that got thrown into like a pop punk category because it was the easiest thing to market at the time? Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you. I said at the time, I don't remember hearing the term pop punk. That came later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I think we got thrown into that, like all of us did, because it wasn't really the term at the time. What are these kids? Pop punk, slap a sticker on it, ship it, sell it, right?

Yeah, because, I mean, at the time, I remember when we were coming out, we always tried to say, no, we're a rock band. We're not a punk band. We're a rock band. Because we do all this other kind of stuff, and we didn't really want to be, I don't know, we just didn't really call ourselves a punk rock band. Yeah, we didn't either. We listened to punk rock music.

Yeah, there were flavors of it in there. Yeah, there's influences and stuff like that. Rock and roll. Just rock band. Kids playing rock music because we were all kids at the time. Yeah. Most of the people that play rock music are dressed in black. It's not like it's a new,

we're all dressed in like whatever at the time too. And I think it just gets marketed as something so that it's easier to kind of know who they're selling to X, Y, Z. It also is catchy and... I think these things always come from, the press, right? Like, they're always like, how do you, how do we talk about this?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got to call it something. It's like, I don't even think the labels come up with it. The bands certainly don't come up with it. It's just, it just kind of gets a label through sort of, some kind of press outlet,

somewhere, somehow, and it gets picked up, and that's that. I always used to feel like I pushed back against the pop punk term for a long, when it started being used a lot, I was like,

oh, I don't really don't like that. And then you get to an age, I'm like, I don't, just call whatever you want. Yeah. I don't really care. It doesn't define me. I define me. I feel like I leaned into it when I thought it would help me.

Yeah. That's fine too. Why not? Why not use it to your advantage? Oh, warp toy. Yeah, yeah. We're pop punk. Yeah. Oh, no, we're not pop punk. But if I think about it and I go, okay, I grew up definitely listening to punk music for sure. But we're just a rock band. Yeah, I mean, I guess in some ways we've probably leaned into the metal stuff like the same way. You guys have some very metal-ish. You have some very metal-metal qualities. Yeah, it's influences. We just pull from some influences. I mean, I've always listened to everything. Like in high

school, I always listened to everything. I loved Iron Maiden. I love Metallica. And when I was writing songs, I was like, I want to write some metal riffs. So I just put that in songs. You did it really well, though. No, thanks. You're a good songwriter. Some people would probably disagree. I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, I guess we all look at. anyone that doesn't like our music probably stands out. But I would say from an outsider who's also had like at times a front row seat. And you know, over the course of our careers, we've always known each other. Yeah.

And I love that. I love how we started both in vans together. Yeah. And when nobody knew we were just starting to make a little buzz and we were like, and that it all just worked out and went the way it did. And we're still here to be able to like be great friends and talk. And we were always like in and out of each. other's lives and tour and touring together and stuff like that. Well, I would say this, of all the

bands over the years, and maybe it was that starting in the vans together. So anyone listening, I feel like some people know the stories, some people don't, but our bands, we started around the same time. And one of our very first extensive tours was this tour we did, we were both in bands. And we were playing these little venues, probably like 250 cap. Yeah, yeah. Probably like a couple hundred cap rooms. And both of our bands were kind of emerging. So some nights, it would be sold out. Some nights, it was never empty, but it was probably like two-thirds sold on some nights. Which was kind of the norm, though, of the time. It didn't feel like, oh, is this not going well? Or it was just what we did. And at the time, it was exciting because we hadn't played much,

didn't played any bigger shows unless we were opening regionally or locally for some. We were the band that was starting to get called to open for bands when they needed to move like a few hundred more tickets. Same as us. And locally we were worth that. Yeah. So this was our first shot to do a tour that was our tour, that both of us were like together. And it was one of those cool little like co-headliner type 200 cap, 300, 400, 500 cap rooms max. And it was just like van life promoting during the day.

sometimes you'd go to the mall or you'd pass out flyers or whatever. I remember we were doing that on that tour. And I think that beginning for both of us, I think it gave us like a mutual respect that we always had for each other. It also gave us, I think, true autonomy from one another. There was never a time where like we felt or you, I feel like vice versa, like we owed each other anything. No. It was a true mutual respect for like. I always felt like we were always rooting for each Yeah. There's never like a competition. It was always like we were always happy for each other.

We always like had an eye on what, like seeing what each other was doing and like happy for it. And very different bands. Yeah. Like it's interesting how they work together so well, but they're very different. But I always felt that. I always felt like that's not always the case. it's hard to explain because I don't think bands really have beef with one another. I don't think they're truly jealous of one another. If anything, I think that there's moments of insecurity where they attach the idea that mine wasn't seen but his was. And I think mine's better or I wish my, in some way, shape or form, I feel like bands don't

know how to express their own maybe insecurity or moments of weakness or whatever. And I think... Usually because it's an age thing, I think. Because most bands are coming up, like, you're in your young 20s. And you have no idea how to express that. Or even what it actually... You don't understand what those emotions mean, what they are. It's like, it's all subconscious.

It's just all reactionary. Like, in the moment, you just... This is how I feel right now. And you don't think about it. And you've never dealt with something that feels so big to you. It's like the first time you've ever dealt with being close to a hit or being around someone that has a huge hit and you don't... All that is like so...

to even understand the first time you experience it, let alone at the age of 19 or 21. And our brains don't even fully develop until we're like 24, 25. Like there's like the last little bit of like, prefrontal like development. And so like we're not even fully like ready to handle all that kind of stuff. Yeah. To handle all those kind of emotions and those situations and we just react.

So when I see that play out around with bands, I see it. It's like normal stuff. Yeah. And especially now being older and working with bands who are younger and seeing that all around them and seeing the experience and actually being able to share that with someone who's younger because you actually understand like what you were experiencing or seeing at a younger age. When I think about you guys, that didn't exist between our bands, period. And I think it had everything to do with the early formation of getting your guys' first EP. That was a demo or something at the time. Yeah, yeah. Before you were signed and being on that kind of similar ride together, but in different cars,

kind of. Yeah. I think there was some kind of like mutual respect. I think, you know, I remember pretty clearly, like, the first day we met you guys, and we, you know, this tour had been planned and we showed up at the venue and we didn't know. I remember being a little nervous. Yeah. You know, not sure what you guys are going to be like.

You guys are like. First day of school. Dicks, you know. And you guys were so nice. And I remember just like, it was so disarming right away. And it was just like instantly, I remember our whole band were like, oh, we're going to be friends with these guys. I mean, like we just, it just was a connection right from the beginning.

Yeah. It was nice. A lot of good memories on that tour. Yeah. And a lot of memories I don't remember. A lot of stuff I don't remember either. I mean, in those days, I mean, there's lots of. Do you remember when we let off fireworks in a frat house?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do remember that. We got invited to some college party. I feel like we let them off in like in the guy's fridge or, something like that. We went to some frat party and we showed them you frat boys. I feel like I feel like Steveo and I were like being chased at one point somewhere on that. There was cops somewhere. There was like a lot of that stuff. But I think back to injuries. Yeah. To have an injury or to have any health concern, it immediately makes you want health, makes you want good health. I feel like

like sitting with you actually the last probably a couple years but especially recently because we've done stuff together. Yeah, yeah. But you came on stage. Yeah, you're incredible on stage. You're very like locked in like you know what you're doing. I know that's a lot of experience. I know what I'm doing. I know what you're doing. Just the music just kind of like guides you. You've done enough, you've done it enough to be able to go on and naturally be who you are without I don't find, I'll admit, I don't know if it's natural. Whatever it is, it feels. It feels. like you know what you're doing and you're comfortable in your own skin. When I'm at the side of the stage and when I was with you guys at the side of the stage, I'm thinking like, I don't know how to do

this. Like I'm a little, like it's been a while. I don't even remember. Like I don't know what to do and then I get out there and the music starts. Yeah. And it's just like, okay, here we go. I feel like all of us have a little bit of that. The music kind of carries us. And we can get lost in it. We can hide behind it sometimes. We can do a lot of things with music if we're so lucky to do what we do. But I would say all the years, and then if we talk about like the last couple of years, so we've gotten to do some stuff, play some shows. Yeah. We got to come induct you guys into the Hall of Fame, which was an honor. And a huge, a huge moment to be a part of because to watch someone you've known for 20 some years, group of guys get inducted into the Hall of Fame, right?

Especially that, this group of guys. Yeah, but and to participate in that is such a, special. It was so special for us that you were there. I wasn't sure if you guys were going to be able to make it. And it was just, you know, it was just something I really was hoping to happen. And when you guys were able to do it and we were all there together. I mean, the whole thing, it made it so, so much more special that you were there. Oh, dude, we were, we fucking worked it out. We were not, we didn't want to miss it. So me and Bench talked about what a, what a special thing to be a part of to witness. And strangely to have so many little moments to, uh, across 20 some, years. I would say what I think of when I think of some 41 in Good Charlotte is we are bound by

some fate. I can't explain it. Right. We've had so many shared experiences and our successes feel connected somehow. I give like credit to that. Like I believe in energy. I believe in like some stuff we don't understand. But there's people that come into your life and you don't know what kind of guardian angel they are, but they are contributing to something in your well-being. If you look at a through line, and you're like, every time things have gone well, that guy was around or that person was, and you start to kind of, the older I get, the more I consciously realize, like, there are some people throughout my career that have been woven in to this whole journey, whether it's like maybe a past life shit, I don't know, but it's bound. I know what you mean.

I know what you're saying. Like, I've always believed, and I believe more and more now that, you know, everything happens for a reason. There's meaning behind everything. Sometimes you have to search for it. Sometimes, like, your injury, like, well, what's the meaning of that? Well, the meaning is it's probably calling you to get a little stronger in that area if you're going to continue golfing. You know, it's like it can be small meetings of things, but I feel like everything happens and you can either look at it as like, this happened to me or it's happened for me. But it's our jobs to figure that out and to really look into that.

the amount of times I've felt like something happened bad, something seemed bad. If I sit there and think, I know there's got to be something in here and I can search for a meaning and I can find it and I go, oh man, I never would have found that meaning. And it's led me to this other thing that has worked out better in my life, but I had to find it. Where did you pick that up? Like, where did you get this perspective? I have to believe that like myself, because I agree with you, I didn't think that way when I was younger. I was kind of raised to believe that we're just like a sad story and good things don't happen for people like us. And I was kind of raised in a world where everything was kind of sad and we were defeated. And so was I. Okay. Yeah, yeah. But again, I think the,

the perfect word you use is just it's a story. Right. And if it's, I believe, and I, it's from experience, is that you can design and create your own life. So, like, if you think of, I think the biggest thing for me was realizing at a certain point, like, for one, like a near-death experience will change your outlook completely, right? Like that, that is something that will make you really think about your days that you have and how quickly it can be taken away. So that was a big thing, you know, me going to the hospital, what is, 12 years ago now. It was all of my own doing, right? Just drinking myself to death, basically. And sitting in that hospital and then coming out and it was like a three-year rebuilding process.

And that was like the line for me. What did you have to do to rebuild? I mean, it's really long. I'm sure it's a lot of things, but like, what parts of your life did you have to rebuild? I would say everything. I mean, okay, I'll tell you the most important thing was identity and story of the identity of I thought I was a certain thing. I played into that. And subconsciously, right?

Like, it wasn't like I told myself, I need to be. the rocks are who who can out drink anybody and stay up all night every single night and this is but it was who I thought I was right I believed that about me until reality set in and I realized I wasn't that in the hospital I will tell you one thing I did have some all this stuff comes from help right it's not like I just think about this stuff and it all just comes to me you spent time within therapy and what what happened was I was in the hospital and I was so terrified about what happens next like am I going to be okay? You thought you were going to die?

Yeah, because even in the hospital, my doctor, I was there for about four weeks. Wow. So. Oh, holy shit, dude. My doctor told me, like, it's a 50-50 chance that we're going to be able to save you. So I was in and out of the ICU through that month. So it was touch and go. Like, I didn't know if I was going to get out. And the doctors were straight with me saying, you may not survive.

This, we're going to do our best. And that was because, like, organs were failing or something? Yeah, yeah. My liver and kidneys and everything was just kind of falling apart. So, you know, I was terrified and I'd reached out to a few people who I felt had been through it all. One of them was Iggy Pop, who we'd done a song with. So I've, you know, I've been in contact with them since we worked together.

And I was like, Iggy, here's my situation. And he was like, he said the thing that just changed the whole game for me, which was, you need to forget who the fuck you think you are and just get back to who you really are. And in an instant, it all made sense to me. I go, oh, my God. I've created this identity. for myself that I hadn't let go, right? I just lived that identity. But it was an identity. Like, I wasn't that person before I created that identity. So once I realize it's really just

a story, it's an identity, well, then I can create a new identity. I can go back to who I was before that because I always liked who I was before. Right, but maybe like who you were before, maybe your self-esteem at the time when you were younger, this is what I found with me. And I think we're all similar. I don't think there's too many variations on on this type of experience in in the sense of like needing to rehabilitate because I have my own version of rehabilitation and I'll let you finish. But maybe I'll interject and you probably already know. But maybe the self-esteem didn't allow for you to think that the person you were before was good enough and that if you achieved all this success with music, which you have, all the

platinum records, all the sold-out tours, all the arenas, all the da, the, the, the, the, the list goes on. It was to be good enough. If I can just do that, if I can just do that, maybe I'll feel like I'm worth something because I felt worthless. That was part of the success of Good Charlotte was we just ran so hard at it because we felt like such pieces of shit and worthless and useless and maybe having that success while it was great, you also bought in all the way to this idea that, oh, this is actually, this is a better version of me. I'm going to be the rock star who just drinks all the time and does all the stuff that's bad for me.

And it plays in two parts because also you're medicating this pain and suffering from long ago, right? I was just about to say. So all of that is correct. Like that all plays into it. I would say as the years went on, so I drank, if I added it all up, like 17 years in my life. I drank. 15 years, I never felt any kind of addiction to it. I was just a guy who liked to drink and party.

We all did, right? And as time went on it and, like, tensions grew in the band. There was also just career not going as well, going through divorce, like all these things that were all kind of like colliding at once. And then I hurt my back again for the second time. So I was in a lot of physical pain. So all these things added up. And that's what escalated my drinking past the point of just being the guy who liked

to party. Right. So I started self-made. on top of all that other stuff that you just mentioned. It's all compounded into this big bag of shit. Yeah, it just all collided at once. And as my drinking escalated, my life got worse. And what do you do when things are feeling bad?

You drink more to make it feel better. And it became the cycle, right? And that's when my body became fully dependent on it. Where, like, mentally, I didn't really want to be in that place, but I was so far past that line. There was just no way to say, hey, I'm just going to stop today. Right.

It was just too far past that to even be, to have coherent thoughts. Because if I was awake, I was drinking, and I was like never really sleeping. You're kind of going in and out of like passing out, waking up, drinking, passing out for a bit. You're just in this like, you're so delirious. Like it's hard to explain to some, like, even to myself. Because like as a sober person right now, I'm like, you would think like, well, just don't do that. Right. You know, but when you're in it.

It's very complicated. Yeah. It's very complicated. My dad died from drinking. Okay. I think if he had the opportunity to get sober and healthy, he wouldn't have gone back because I don't think that everyone who's an addict is, I think the disease is different for like people.

And I think that a lot of, I'm saying this could be, I don't want to say to anyone that's in a program that you shouldn't be in a program. That's not what I'm saying. It's an incredible program. But I do believe that mental health and trauma, cause us to medicate in different ways, and then you start medicating, and then you become addicted, and then your body actually needs it. And I do think that if you go and do extensive work on

yourself, which is years and years and years of hard work, therapy and things like that, you can heal those traumas. And I do think that people could find that they don't struggle with staying sober as much when they feel whole. Yeah. And so it's not to say that the program doesn't work. That's not what I'm saying. But I don't believe that everyone is a hopeless addict that has no. I believe that there's a lot of ways to heal. And I think that my dad just submitted that he was an addict instead of looking at the cause, which he had a very traumatic life. He had insanely, my granddad is a vet, World War II vet. There was a lot of PTSD. There was in that house. And then so there was a lot of trauma that was never talked about, never looked at, never,

you know, and there was a lot of shit that happened that no one ever talked about and even admitted it happened. And he was suppressing so much pain. And it was a cycle, right? So then we had PTSD from the house we grew up in and it was just passed down, right? Generational trauma. And then that was never talked about. It was never.

And then he left and that became the issue. And we were angry at him for that. But actually what we were angry about was. that he was in pain and it's hard for kids to watch their parents hate themselves or be in pain and the cycle continues, right? Until someone goes and does the incredibly hard work of like breaking the leg and setting it and fixing it and healing, that's the work that needed to be done each generation. So what I hope is to break that cycle and not pass trauma down, which I like to think I have, but watching him and then when he died, because it was sudden, but it was from

drinking, you realize, like, that's kind of the only way out with alcohol and drugs is a long pinball down that's messy and confusing. And then one day you fucking die. Yeah, yeah, totally. And you woke up in a hospital and you were there for a month at least. Yeah. And you had to come to terms with, why am I here? And then that's where the work started. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't think it's ever stopped. I think every year, it's that compounding thing.

Like, I just became, it's like, you know, it took a long time. It took three years to actually feel like I could kind of be normal in just the way, like, physically normal and just mentally, psychologically, just everything felt weird and off. Like, you know, when I first got out of the hospital for that first year, I had really bad nerve damage in my feet. so I couldn't really walk. Not only that, being, drinking for so long, like the year that led up to the hospital

and then being in the hospital and not moving, like I had so much muscle atrophy that I couldn't even hold my own weight. But then if I, once I got to the point where I was a little bit stronger, like my feet had so much nerve damage that it felt like Bruce Willis and die hard walking on the glass.

But like every day in my life wasn't a movie. It was real. So it was like, I couldn't walk even if I wanted to you and that lasted for like a year and it finally started to go away and that's when I could kind of start being a little bit more physical and I started working on building just my strength up but mentally you know that was tough because everything was just so confusing you're getting sober but it was also like coming out of that delirium for two years straight of not sleeping and just drinking all day every day right like it was just it took a while to for my brain to reset

my motor skills were off. I couldn't really form full sentences. I couldn't really, like, it was just like one words. I'd get so caught up on saying wrong things. Like, it was just really strange. I couldn't play guitar at first. I thought that was going to be like a refuge for me. When I got out of the hospital, I felt like it was bursting with creativity in my mind.

And like, I just got to get back to music because that's who I am. And I pick up a guitar. And I'm like, I don't even know. I can't, my brain couldn't tell my fingers what to do. It was so weird. And that took a long time. I'm Anna Mena. And, like my music, my

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not the kids, which was maybe a good thing. It was, I mean, the whole thing was a great I look at going to the hospital as the best day of my life. Wow. You know, like, again, that goes to the meaning you give something or, you know,

searching for the reason in something, right? So, yes, it was brutal. I never want to go through it ever again. And it took a long time and it was painful and torturous and awful. But my life has been exponentially better since that day. You feel like liberated? In so many ways. Yeah, because, again, like I shed that identity.

there just wasn't serving me. Yeah. And I decided I was going to create a new life for myself. And I just started going down the path. And that was slow. And it didn't feel like it was exciting or inspirational or motivated. I wasn't motivated. It was very difficult.

And everything felt like it wasn't working for so long. But this goes back to what you were talking about of just this thing in life, which is somewhat of the unknown of just having faith. Yeah. Something. Like I just had this faith. If I put in the work, it will eventually work. even though it feels like a lot of days I'm going backwards.

I felt like I was getting worse after six months. Like felt like the pain in my feet was worse than it was six months ago. So I would just say, God, have faith that if I just keep working at it, it'll get better. And I would always remind myself, and this was a big thing. People have done much harder. If other people have done it, then I can do this, right? And I look at that in most everything in life at this point. But did you before?

Not before that, no. Had you even come to a conclusion you think about that, or do you think you do? or do you think you didn't think about it, or did you have, like, a hopeless perspective? In my 20s, like, I mean, I've always felt like I have been lucky in some ways that I've always been a happy person. Right. Like, I've always leaned happy. When you were alone, were you sad?

Never. Oh, okay. No. So I've always felt, like, have I felt insecure or felt like an outcast? Absolutely. Have I felt sad in moments? Sure. Yeah.

But I don't, I've never really lived there. There's nothing that's, like, really, like, kept me down. I've never really felt like I was just. drinking to make myself happier. I always felt like I was happy, but partying was like an escalation of happiness. It was like, I'm cool like this, but like that's awesome. Yeah, gear five. Yeah.

So what I was going to say is like in my 20s, like I didn't think about anything that real, right? Like, and I probably played more victim to certain things, right? Like if something didn't work out, I had the mindset of like, I got fucked on that. Right. somehow somebody screwed something up for me. Like instead of realizing like, okay, if there's a roadblock, there are ways to get around things. Yeah, I learned in my older age because I'm the same, but I grew up in a very hopeless house.

And nothing was possible. Yeah. And I think that the upside of that was me and Benj had built our own little world where everything was possible. And I think that was their driver for everything and that's always stayed with us. but I realized to have more of a balanced perspective now at this age, I kind of go, hmm, good luck, bad luck, we'll see. And that's with good and what could be perceived as a negative. Like, we didn't get it.

Oh, they didn't pick us. Or we got it. We'll see if it's good or bad. I don't know if this lead. I think I'm going to continue to follow my gut and go forward. And I think forward is the way. So that's my process is go forward. Yeah.

Aim upwards, not down. And just keep going and try to go forward. but if we don't get something, it might be for the best, but we'll find out later. I believe that. But here's the thing that I realized is, and I think there's a lot of power in this, because a lot of times things don't work out and you think, is this a bad thing? But then you find later that it actually was the best thing for you. And I've come to realize that a lot of times, most times, the dots connect in reverse.

Yeah. So if you just keep moving forward and if something doesn't work, you find another way, or you find something else or you try to search for the meaning in that of like is there something that I can take away from this day even if it's just like I learned something like not to do that again because I technically did screw that thing up that's why I didn't get it you started to look at things too another thing I realized was like again with this like in my 20s I felt like I would play more victim about things and then when I started realizing you know I kind of am everything kind of is my own fault, right? Like, there is a way to get around certain things. Sure, that didn't work

because somebody did something, but I just let it go from that point on and just blamed somebody, right? Whereas instead of saying, okay, that didn't work, I'm going to find another way. Yeah, like, it is always my fault at the end of the day to not try to keep moving forward, right? Yeah, it's like I'm the owner of my experience and I'm going to take the information and continue to plot the course and if there isn't good or bad. Like, what if there's no good and bad? What if good and bad is a perspective? What if my good luck is someone else's bad luck? I mean, there's a lot to be said for that. I mean, there's, you know, you're asking me, like, when did I start to realize some of the, like, exactly what we were talking about, good or bad. A few years ago, I really started getting into

stoicism. And if you tell me about stoicism. So that, I like the sound of it. The essence of that is like nothing, like nothing is anything. It is what you decided is. We assign meaning to any given situation. I agree with that. So nothing is good or bad. It's what you, with the meaning you assign to it. So you're saying I'm a bit stoic.

You could be. Yeah, because I do feel that way. Yeah, and I had kind of been feeling that way. That's why I gravitated. When I started hearing about that, it's the same thing.

I was like, wait, I kind of feel like that. Let me dig a little bit deeper into that. Is it like a philosophy? Yeah, yeah. I like philosophy. Yeah.

Different than religion. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But the two are similar. There's philosophies. Yeah. But I like philosophy because it's something we can explore, argue, and it's not that emotional because it's a philosophy. See, I love philosophy. I love psychology.

And these are the kind of things that have helped me. First, I got into this stuff just to understand myself. Like, what have I been doing wrong? Obviously, like, when I was going through all that period of coming out of the hospital, trying to get better, obviously, I'd fucked up. So how do I figure out how to not fuck up like that anymore and just get better? And once I got more into it, it became, it just became so, I don't know, I want to say exciting, like this learning of all this new stuff. And then you see it working in your life and you see your life getting better and exponentially better and quickly.

I just started diving more into that kind of stuff really just to manage my own psychology, my own emotions. Because at the end of the day, everything's psychology, right? Like everything and everything is emotion. You're always managing your emotions or you're a parent. Like you're managing children's emotions. Everything is emotions. And then, you know, as children, they don't understand their emotions. And usually we grew up to be adults who don't understand her emotions.

Yeah, we have trouble regulating ourselves because we're just like never came to understand what that feeling was or, or think about this. Most of us, a lot of us, anyone listening could agree with me. I didn't know how to recognize when I needed anything and how to ask for anything I need as a need, not like, hey, I need a minute. Yeah. Or, hey, I need support. I feel like this.

Being able to express a need is a real strength, even though it feels weak. I 100% agree. And I think one of the biggest things is you can't learn emotional intelligence just by reading about it or studying it. or studying it, you have to go, you have to be uncomfortable. You have to go through the emotions to understand how to get out of them. Now, it helps to read about this kind of stuff, sure. Yeah. But you can also learn by going through it.

And I think the problem that I see a lot of, I hear about it. I don't really witness in my own life, but you'll hear like a lot of people in this society as today is like, don't want to be too uncomfortable, right? We're very set up to be comfortable. It's very easy to fall into just being comfortable because that's modern society is designed to make everything really easy and comfortable. So when we get out of that comfort, it makes people feel uncomfortable. And then a lot of people feel like I don't want to be made to feel uncomfortable. So I need to stay in my safer bubble.

But in the long term, I think that creates problems because you don't develop that emotional muscle. Yeah. You don't get that gift of injury. I always know. We need to go, we need, like, I mean, think about building any muscle. How do you build a muscle? You have to, like, work it out. Resistance and strain, and you have to, like, you move something very difficult to the point where it becomes not that difficult anymore.

Yeah, it's a very similar. Yeah, yeah, you have to put the reps in. And unfortunately, emotional reps kind of suck. They do suck. Because you have to be uncomfortable and you have to be sad and you have to, all the emotions, right? At the root of everyone's problems, whatever that problem. problem is everyone, it plays out in a different way for everyone. But at the root of every health problem, right? From, I would say habitual health problems. Problems that arise from a habit,

whether it's drinking or it could be not working out, not moving your body. It could be lots of things. It could be just a lot of stress. Stress, all of it. At the root of that problem is usually some kind of emotional, unresolved, emotional. I think every therapist would agree with you. I mean, I agree with you 100% because emotion is everything. Everything we do, all our behavior, our actions, it's all driven by emotion. Everything all of us do is controlled by our subconscious. Like when I started really diving into understand my own brain and sort of reading books

about the brain and psychology and stuff like that. Was there a book that stands out? There's an easy book. There's a book called Inner Size. I jokingly call it like, it's like the brain for dummies. Okay, I like that. It will, it's a great starting place to really understand how the brain works in a very simple way.

The inner size. It's just like exercise, but inner size. It's just things that you can understand about your brain that you can do in regular life that will help you understand why you're doing things and why it's working. Yeah. You realize how much of our subconscious controls like 90%? of everything we do. You know, there's like that saying of like, oh, we only use 10% of our brains. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's not true. Where that comes from is like, because we're controlled 90%

of our subconscious by our subconscious. And there's this 10% that is conscious. Yeah, like, we think we're in control, but actually the pattern is some subconscious. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I agree. So, you know, that was very interesting. So it's like, yeah, all you, and what is your subconscious? It's all your past experiences from childhood. It's just like compounded. decide why you think the way you do, act the way you do, and you can consciously stop certain things. I found for me one of the biggest things was meditation. That's where you can kind of really like slow everything down and kind of rewire or at least add to your subconscious, especially if you're like using like visualization of your future

that you want to create, right? Like you can start planting that in your subconscious and you will start grabbing. vitating towards where you're like envisioning you'd like to go. Yeah. That's where I believe in that. We talked about meditation because I meditate as well. And I find myself in periods where I go, oh, I haven't fucking meditated in a month. I can't believe I haven't meditated in a month.

And then I start meditating again. And it does, it's a huge tool. And meditating before I go to bed is a big one for me. Yeah, yeah. Because most of the time, actually I, this is through habit, but most nights I fall asleep thinking about things I want to do, places I want to go, visualizing outcomes a lot, outcomes of things. And if I go, okay, if there's no rules and I get to decide,

how do I think I'd like this to like play out? And then I'll just let my mind wander. And it's always positive. It's like, wouldn't that be cool if that happened or that? And if I'm being honest, because I think also it takes some vulnerability to share with people that you even want something to happen or because it's like not. normal. I mean, I think we're in a kind of a society and a culture full of pain and suffering most of the time. And I think people almost treat people who are dreaming of the future outcomes

like as like they're crazy, which I remember having that experience when you start a band and you're like, one day, we're going to get signed and we're going to be a big band. And everyone's like, oh, what are you talking about? Fuck out of here. But when I'm going to bed at night, that's my space. That's my time. I can think about whatever I want. And I just have always meditating every single night when I fall asleep, it's falling to sleep dreaming of the future. That's how I fall asleep. I think that, like I said, it goes into your subconscious and it drives your actions without you realizing it.

And that's why it's good to have good thoughts. You know, and this whole like thinking positive is a part of it, but it's like if you do it the right way like that through meditation, it actually has an effect. Is that a part of your process? Yeah, I do a lot of meditation, a lot of visualization. And I'm more, I think more about, I mean, the biggest thing is like we were talking about emotions, right? I think managing emotions is one of the most important things because, you know, your emotions, create your feelings, your feelings drive your actions, your actions create results.

So if you're getting poor results, you just work backwards, right? If you start with your emotions, now that sounds like, oh, how do I control my emotions? So, I mean, it goes back to this stosis thing we were talking about. we're like, nothing's good or bad. It's the whatever you decide it is. And it's your job to find out where it can be good or why it's bad. Now, and you'll find this too if you go and read that intersize book or any book on the brain or even just Google it because it's like our brains are so old.

It's like two million year old tech basically. And society has gone so far past what our brains were meant to do because our brains are still in like caveman days. Right. about predators and try to keep us safe. Brains are not designed to make you fulfilled and happy, and it's meant to keep you alive. Wow.

So now we don't have. Except that. Yeah, and it's freeing once you realize all this stuff, and now all of a sudden everything makes sense because we don't have predators around every corner. We're not going to be killed by a saber-tooth tiger anymore. Right.

So, no bears. But our fear, like that part of the brain, is constantly looking for things, and it turns into anxiety, and it turns into what's that person thinking about me? What's so saying about me? It's turning everything into a saber tooth tiger. Yeah, because it's like a self-protection thing.

So it's constantly scanning for what's wrong. Yeah. And we tend to live there. That person's judging me. That person said this about me and this and that. And we stay there. And then we medicate that in a way by if I could just get this, I'll be happy. Whether it's alcohol, drugs, food, sugar, this, that.

We're like, if I could just get that, I feel safe. I feel safe. I feel safe. And you into these mini cycles all day long of soothing that discomfort because you're not aware that you're anxious. Yeah. And then if you're anxious, you don't take a minute to go, I wonder why I'm so anxious today.

Well, it's probably this. It's probably this big, this interview I have coming up or this coming up. And I'm not giving it credit and realizing how much anxiety it causes me. Yeah. And just by a stack the bad. You stack the bad. And just by recognizing that something makes you anxious. I'd say it cuts the anxiety in half.

Yeah, yeah. Just by knowing when I'm on a show day. My brain's doing that thing. My brain is doing that thing. It's just starting to stack things. It's starting to worry about things because that's what the brain is designed to do. Uh-huh. So now your conscious brain can be like, okay, let's stop.

Like, why don't I focus on things that are, that make me grateful? Because like you can always focus on, and I am guilty of this still. Like it's a practice, right? I'm not like some Zen master. Yeah, yeah, it's a real discipline. These are things like, you said daily practice and I get caught up. I'll start stacking things and I go, hold on. And I'll realize there's like five great things that happened today and yesterday.

And I start focusing on those. So again, it's like bad is there and good is there. What do you want to focus on? Do you think that some 41 and the entire experience, if you wrapped it all up into one thing, do you feel like you needed to move on from it because of growth? Like why take that and put it on the shelf like that? that's interesting you know it's funny because a lot of the way I operate is just by the way I feel gut instinct and it's not that I didn't really think about it because I sat with that thought for

about a year or two before I even mentioned it to anybody um because again I felt like it wasn't that it was my identity but it was also it was just like I built this thing like all these songs I'd written like do I just stop like it was it wasn't identity but it was just the the work like what is what is that where does it go like well i not like i enjoy performing i still enjoy performing right um it's fun yeah like i love all that stuff so it was this weird thing in my mind if i thought about it logically i couldn't really come to a reason or conclusion it was just something inside of me was saying it's time you're ready for something else even though i don't know what that is necessarily right but you felt you needed it to be closed or there needed to be an end

Like two simple ways I can put it. It's throughout the whole career, even through all those ups and downs, and especially once I was in the hospital, we were at a, not just personally at a low point, but the band was at a really low point. Like, wasn't even sure, like, if we could sell 500 tickets in places, like certain places. Yeah, yeah, that's a real moment. We've had those two.

Yeah, I wasn't sure what would happen. So, but what I was sure of is that I wasn't going to let the story end there. Right. Is that, okay, even if we are at the lowest point of the band, get out of the hospital, I will build it from nothing again and take it to as high as I can take it. And I never had a thought of, and then I'll walk away. But then when I got to that point, all of a sudden it just felt like, okay, I got to a place that was even better than I actually thought was possible, how bad it was, you know, when I was in the hospital. I'd say before

you guys ended, it was a new hike. It felt like it. I mean, it's hard to be in it. know really what's happening. From the outside, I would say, I mean, we're having that experience now. I think people remember our bands as big because we did arenas and stuff in the time when we had all the songs in that moment. They were big. But I would say like it's bigger now weirdly. Like, it's hard to explain to people unless they were there. Yeah. But I would say the same thing about you guys is I saw it from the outside. And it was like, new heights. Yeah. I mean, again, like it's so hard to know what if I can only know it. it feels like in the bubble.

Right. But it did feel good. It felt similar or the same or more, I mean, at times, like, than the early days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of ways it felt bigger and better than the early days because when you, those early days, you're still like a kid band that nobody is really taking you that seriously. And even though you're having success, people kind of like look down on you. Yeah, it's like, you know, you're considered flashing the pant.

Like, you never really get to celebrate that. Like, we're a big band. You're kind of like, do people think we're cool? I know we're selling a lot of records and people are here, but it seems like everybody's, the press rips us apart. Yeah, like all this stuff. Yeah. So we were easy targets, though.

Easy. So, but yeah, I don't know. I forget where we were before. Well, I was kind of just kind of like what did the closure. Oh. And ending, you know, some 41. Was that a closure thing? Was that a-

It felt like he got into a place that I was just really comfortable walking away. And it wasn't like I had set this goal that once it gets there, I'll walk away. way, it just felt like something inside of me. And then I also felt... It was like when Forrest Gump just stopped running. I guess so. Yeah, exactly. I stopped running. Kind of prolific. Yeah. And I just felt like, yeah, I could walk away.

And one of the biggest reasons why I think I felt that way is because when I started thinking about another record or new music, I was like, I don't know where I'd even go. I feel like the work is now complete, especially with that, this last record that we made, I felt all those songs that I had written had kind of been the record I wanted to write all along. It touched on all the kind of metal stuff, the punk rock stuff, and it had everything that I always wanted to do,

and I felt like I had done it the best that I could express it. And then I just felt like, well, now what? Am I going to do something that's a variation of the same? Do I just do the same? Is it similar but different? But I was kind of like, it's all coming back to just the sameness, but a little different. And I just felt like I need to close a door to see what else, see what other doors open.

And I don't know what those are yet. I mean, it hasn't even been a year yet. So. That's weird. It feels like it's like, is it a year or 10 years? I can't tell. Yeah. It's only been under a year still. So like it's still early. to, even though it's a catchy name. I'm always going to dig deeper. Yeah. I'm always going to turn something into art.

Let's go. I feel like walking disaster is a way of taking, you know, the experience that you've, and listen, I think sharing your experience that is not the polished, buttoned up, look at me, I've got it all figured out. That's what we're always inclined to do. We're kind of always like, I think it's our first. want is to make us look perfect. If you look at my Instagram, you're going to look on there, you're not going to see any fucking mistakes, right? You're not going to see any bad habits.

I'm going to present a buttoned up fucking guy who's got it worked out. But it feels like taking that kind of idea and making it something that you're extremely proud of and that you're creative in and that you're doing something like really cool. But to me, I relate, I kind of connect walking disaster to that lifestyle and that a life full of, you know, falling down and, you know, not being conscious and stumbling through, right? Yeah, I mean, for me, I, at this point in my life, it's, if there's anything that I want to tell people or present through the work I do is that I've always felt just like, especially more now, realize that I've been a disaster, so much in my life, so many,

mistakes, so many things. But the only thing that's gotten me through and has got me this far is just like persistent work in all aspects, whether it's in my personal life or in my professional life, and that I feel like anyone can do this. If I can do it, I'm a walking disaster and if I can pull shit off, then anyone can. I've never felt, like I was telling before, like I'm not a natural performer, never a gifted singer that just could do it. I couldn't write songs at the beginning. I was horrible on stage for so many years. Everything I do is learned. So with starting like walking disaster clothing line,

I know nothing about business. I don't know anything about that stuff or even how to design clothing. But I was like, I'm going to just do something because it's something I've always wanted to do and it's fun, it's creative, and I like contributing things to culture, right, to people. I like, you know, clothing is one of those things

that is, it's identity-based, it makes people feel a certain way, And if I can contribute, the same way music makes people feel something, I like to make people feel good. So if clothing can do that the same way music can, like that's why I like doing stuff like that. You know, again, nothing, especially at this point, has any kind of like, ooh, this might be financially viable. Like, none of that matters, as we've both been talking, none of that matters. It's, you want to work on things that are fulfilling and that hopefully can make other people feel good as well. That's how I feel.

Everything I do in music, it's not like, it's definitely not a money thing. No, I think people like us were creative and what we also contribute. Like that, there's a, and even if it's subconscious, like we want to see things go out in the world and people enjoy it. Back to the book, do you feel like that experience or exercise helped you get to this fully realized guy that's sitting in front of me? Yeah, I do. I think writing it was very, it made me. me face things that I knew were there, not that I was trying to bury, but because I don't really think about the past too much, it made me revisit it all and see it all in a row. And it's that thing of

like the dots connect in reverse. All of a sudden, like I was reading my life for the first time, seeing how it all played out and seeing how things kind of made sense. But I think it helps, but I don't really spend a lot of time thinking about myself. It's more about like, I think about more about how can I grow than I, than about how things happened. Right. So, yes, it helped because everything helped. I mean, everything leads you down a path, right? Everything matters.

Everything informs who you become, everything you do from the small to the big. It's just all compounded, right? It's, it's all part of your journey. But I think I'm so much more excited about the future and learning and absorbing new things than thinking about why that happened. Do you feel like you have any guides? Guides? Yeah, like people in your life.

No, I've often felt like I don't have any mentors or anything like that. So I do seek out a lot of knowledge, like through books or podcasts or interviews and stuff like that. And I just try to absorb as much because, yeah, I don't really feel like there's a lot of people that I can go and talk to that have done a lot of this stuff. Do you go therapy? I don't. I have been, but it's usually like specific for something. Right, you'll go. Usually about the band.

Like when the band was like having tougher times, like when I first got to the hospital. Right. I found I didn't love going to AAA. I wasn't, I liked the back and forth with somebody. Yeah, like a one-on-one is why I do this show. This is my favorite thing I do. And it fulfills me in a way that I don't need it in a lot of other places. So it's weird, right?

Yeah. I don't have a huge social life. Yeah, yeah. I mean, do that. I work. It's pretty social, the thing that I do for a living. And then this show fulfills my social kind of life. And so anyone,

listening in my mind, we're talking about a couple of things. We're talking about experience and what that meant and how we process that. We're also talking about process. So anyone listening that's kind of trying to work out their own process, I guarantee you someone out there listening right now is struggling with drinking and they can't make sense of it. And there's some, like I said before, we're not so different all of us. There's a few different types of us. And if we find someone that's our similar type, we can find through lines and we can we can relate to where they're succeeding and maybe where they've stumbled or where they've run into problems or they've had one of those moments you had where you wake up in the hospital and you're like, okay,

I've got to go forward from here and build a process that actually works that leads me to more life and I guarantee someone listening right now is in some version of that where they see themselves heading down that road and they're trying to figure out how to head it off at the past. Sure. And your story is helping them. That's why the book's important. That's why you sharing how you succeed is important because we're not only giving something to like all the people who love your music that want to get to know you better.

Great. Absolutely. It's a nice thing to hear someone and get a sense of like. the actual person, which is really hard to do. But also, they respect you enough to be open to the idea that something you do works. Like, let's say Stoicism has really helped you. Someone might take that and actually have a ton of success with it.

The thing about Stoicism, it's sound like philosophy. Like that sounds like really heavy. It's not. It's so simple. Like I said, the essence of it is like focus on your output and not on the outcome. Like focus on the controllables and not what other people are, not the,

outcome, you know, or the meaning that you give something. You can either, you can assign, nothing is anything. You just assign the meaning to it. And usually we assign a bad meeting to things more often than not. Right. Or we find something that's not as good as it could be. And I do that all the time. Like even something stupid, like being stuck in traffic. You can say, well, how, how is this? Like, say you're caught, you're on your way somewhere and there's like an accident up ahead. Now you're stuck for an hour. Like you weren't expecting. You're going to be late. you're going to miss something with your kids or whatever it is. Something we all go through, simple.

And every inch you're moving, every minute that goes by, you're getting more and more mad, right? Because this has happened to me. This is like, how good, like, you're playing it all out. Or you could say, okay, this has happened. I can't control this. I'm going to listen to this podcast that was like really, I've been, I have this like backlog of things that I know I need to listen to when I have time that's like and help me with my growth or whatever it is, which is what I usually do.

I usually have things that are like kind of loaded for those moments because I don't want to be reactive. I want to be proactive. So now all of a sudden, oh, I have an hour to learn something rather than I'm missing something and I'm stuck here, right? That's a simple sort of scenario of like meaning. I'm pretty stoic then. That's what I do.

That's the thing. You find like I found that I was already doing certain things. That's why and I think a lot of us do. It's a kind of a simple philosophy. It's things that we go, oh yeah, that makes sense. I could do that more. That's pretty easy to apply. I always want to optimize all my time, which is probably like goes into that, like,

even the idea that I'd said, like, this is my social life. This is, to me, it's like optimizing my social life where I'm doing something that feels like has like a higher purpose or something that I want to like get better at. Or like, you said, if I've got an hour, I'm stuck in traffic, I'm going to do something with that hour. Yeah. The woman I listen to a book. And it could be anything, right?

It could be whatever you want it to me. That's just what I choose to have. But yeah, it's finding a better meaning. Yeah. Yeah, that's a great philosophy. I went to a lunch one time with somebody that was like,

the meeting was pointless and the whole thing was pointless. But that made me, I went, I drove far away for this meeting and I felt like this meeting was kind of pointless. And I was driving back thinking, that was so pointless. I had to do stuff today and I canceled that thing because I thought this was going to be cool. And then I'm saying no, there's got to be a reason.

Everything happens for a reason. Why did this happen? I was searching and searching, scanning that meeting, what happened. I remember this one thing the person said about this one book. And I was like, that book didn't even sound that interesting, but maybe that's the reason. Maybe that's the point. I went to find that book. I went read that book and it opened something up for me.

And I started being creative in this whole other way. And I loved that meeting now. But I had to find the meaning. You could find those in every situation in life. What's good and bad is always there. Yeah. What do you focus on? From the book, now Walking Disaster,

what do you feel like the next, like, five years is focused for you? That's kind of tough. I do think about that sometimes of, like, where do I really want to go? And because it's only been, like, 10 months or so out of the band, I've had ideas of things, and I really want to go down this walking disaster closing line thing because I feel like not only is it something creative and fun that I just want to get out,

it's also something I want to see. It's like I want to see what I'm made of, right? I want to try something that I've never done before. I have no clue how to do it. I'm going to figure it out and just to see who it makes me in the process, right? And I just feel like these kinds of things, I just go down these paths to see where these doors lead me, like where the path leads and what other doors open. And I don't know where that goes yet.

When I see my visualization of five years, I feel like it's much further, like it's, I feel like I've accomplished a lot. don't know what it is yet, but I don't see myself. Like, I'm like you, I don't do well with like, everything has to mean something. Like, I don't sit around and do it, just chill out. Yeah, I need to have some purpose to it. I got to be doing something. There's always purpose. There's always a result. There's always an outcome. There's always a reason I'm doing it. I mean, even like golf, I'm not, I'm not just playing golf. Yeah. I'm there accomplishing multiple things, whether it's a meditation. I'm training like golf. I don't just play for fun. I'm training to compete. Yeah.

And when I start competing, I'm going to be doing that for some other reason. But like I do, I am driven by feeling like there's some goals, some purpose. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I feel like for me, because of the amount of work that not only do I do just with like reading and learning and stuff like that, I feel like the physical work I do to just feel healthy, like I feel better. And I feel like I'm getting younger as I get older. Like I have more energy.

I feel stronger. I feel like. I think you're healthier than I've ever seen you. I know that I am just like biologically. Like I've had tests done. The blood work says it all. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, almost a decade younger inside than my actual age.

Yeah. According to my blood work. And I plan. And I'm not really trying too hard. But, you know, I just am on more of a healthy thing that's consistent. I think the consistency is the key. It's just a daily thing. What are the key health drivers?

It's the simple things that we all kind of know. Sleep well. meditation helps and just healthier eating like I just avoid it's not that I'm like crazy healthy it's just I don't eat anything that's bad really right I just kind of avoid all the stuff that we know you shouldn't have healthy habits yeah it's just and it's just consistent and I don't really break from it does family life help that oh yeah absolutely yeah I mean especially being off the road and now there's like some routine to it like where I can control the routine because when you're on the road, it's all, you know, everything is variety and uncertainty all day.

Do you think being in a band for a long time makes it easier to be married? I don't know why I feel like that. Even though marriage is work, but I feel like being in a band for a long time, it landed itself to me understanding like the process and the ebbs and flows of like building this partnership with someone over 19 years now. I think it's probably different for everybody. I think for me, two things. I think being married and divorced has helped me be married now. Right. I think being in a band in that whole world has helped me with children. Right. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. There's a lot of managing emotions and tantrums and stuff, right? Yeah, which is kind of like being in a band. Yeah. Tantrums. Yeah. Just like things that are just like,

you know, emotions. Yeah. They kind of like come out of nowhere for, and one, it's one thing with one person and not just band, but like, you know, the whole, there's a lot of people in the organization. The record industry, people, there's a lot of big emotions, right? Yeah. You're doing great, dude. I'm so happy for you. Thank you. What right now are you fully focused on? Walking Disaster. You've been talking about health a lot. That's really good. I think you're going to help a lot of people just by talking about it. Everything I feel like I do is just kind of easy. It's just consistent. I've been out of the hospital for 12 years and I kind of found a path and I've just stayed on it. Yeah, I think it's like all these compounds. Yeah, all these small decisions. It's like if you save a couple bucks a day every day in 12 years, you start to see. Like, actually, it all adds up.

It does. And there's interest. It compounds. And so you get this momentum. And I think what you're living proof of is it's all these small decisions that are good for you added up with a couple big ones too. You know, like I think there's no saying that your subconscious didn't tell you now's a good time to close the book on Sum 41. And you don't know why. You just felt it.

Yeah. And you don't know if you hadn't done that what the outcome would have been, no matter what, good or bad. Like, I think about that all the time where you made a feeling decision. And it was leading you down some road to some great thing that you, that lies ahead, which I think is the case for you. I think you're going to discover it. And had you not close the chapter where everyone's going, what are you doing, man? Everything's going so good.

And you're like, nah, just feel like I need to do this. And you're like, thank you, God bless. I need to go this way. It's counterintuitive to everyone else because they only look at what looks like a fantasy to them, which is like these sold out arena shows and these big headliners. Like, that's amazing. And you're like, no, something's over there. I need to go find out what it is.

I think that's where you're at. Yeah, definitely. And I want to say that where somebody was at, it was amazing. Everything was, it wasn't like, oh, you may have looked amazing, but it was. And I was not miserable at all. It was great. But it was a really hard decision. It's just a feeling.

But I was a feeling and I've found in my life that the hardest decisions usually are the best ones. Once you find out what's on the other side of that hard decision. You know, that was the whole catalyst for it for me. This seems like a really difficult decision to make, so I probably have to do it. Yeah, dude. This is the fun part. Like I said, like the hard stuff coming out of the hospital was the best thing that ever happened to me. Everything difficult and hard and painful has been the best thing.

And I will, I forgot to add about it with the health stuff. like with all my organs and everything failing and how I managed to like turn that around and be almost a decade younger inside all my organ like I walked away from that completely unscate even though things were shutting down like it's all like your liver regenerates like everything is healthier and better and that's that part I would say is biology and luck but like that's just the way our body like my body shut itself down before any damage could happen yeah biology but luck too luck so if there are people listening out there. I mean, there is luck to that. Like, you don't want to get to that point. The sooner you get to health,

consistent, healthy decisions, the sooner you can get lucky. Yeah. And I do think there's like a dedication. I mean, you're like, well, so I'm going, well, how did you do it? And you're like, well, it only took 12 years of good health. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? So just to say, there is some luck. You can't arrive to the luck unless you dedicate yourself. What do they say luck is it's like when opportunity and preparation meet. That's right. And I always like kind of subscribe to that like luck is there if we go forward. You'd be working towards it. You got to be prepared. To hit those moments where you get that lucky moment and you're prepared for it. There's a dedication. And so like I am not surprised you're having

such good luck because you've been dedicated to this for the last 12 years since that. Listen, there are sad stories of people going right back and it's nice to sit with you and you're not that. you're one of the good stories that can inspire people that it's possible to be healthy, that there's more to life, right? And we, you know, to me it's sad because I feel like we culturally, we kind of celebrate those like early death rock stars. Like we glorify it a little bit. Like it's romanticized. And it's actually just a really sad story. Totally. And when I get to hear stories like yours, it's a really happy story because it's not easy to show up. every day and be dedicated to something to be disciplined.

And I think maybe at now 12 years in, it is for you because. I don't mean to cut you up, but I was going to say that the biggest thing, though, the transformation happened in the hospital with identity. Yeah. I think that's the strongest force of change is what is your identity? Because if you're stuck in there, well, I can't, I'm not, I can't get sober because I'm just a loser.

I'm just this guy who's going to dream. My whole family's in alcohol. It's just who I am. That's your identity that you're telling. That's the story you're telling yourself. Yeah. Now you could have that same background. The facts can be the same.

You can say, I'm not going to be like everybody else in my family. I'm going to change. I'll be the one that's different. It's the same fact, same history. You just decide what your identity is going to be. Totally agree. I would say after getting to know you more in this era of your life, I would say I go back to the songs with a different, like I really enjoy them more.

Oh, really? It's really cool. It's been, it's like every time I hear another one of your songs, I've always liked them. But there's a good depth there. I hear the words different. Like I hear like something different. And it's pretty cool actually. So I have really enjoyed.

And then like even just sitting here talking to you, I go back to your songs with a different kind of like. depth that I really enjoy. That's interesting. It's pretty cool. I think it's really cool. Cool. Well, thanks for telling me that. But congrats on the book, the family. I'm really happy to see you. Always happy to see you. I always forget too. I have a ton of new songs I'm working on as well. That's like the one thing I forget about is that I've written music. Like I have to go through my phone. I go, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. I got like 20 ideas in here. I didn't remember writing those. I can't wait to hear them. I love your songs. Thanks. And likewise. Thanks for coming to.

Yeah, thanks for that. Awesome. Thank you for watching Artist Friendly. If you liked this episode, please make sure you hit the like button, you follow the channel, and please share it with your friends. We appreciate the support.

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