Sum 41 have had to cancel series of shows over the past two years for multiple reasons. The band most recently had to cancel a South American tour with Four Year Strong. Brian Keith Diaz, the band’s guitar tech, recently wrote up a long statement discussing Deryck Whibley’s back problems and how extensive they actually are. Check out Daiz’s comments below by clicking “Read More”.

As you all may know Deryck’s back was injured in an incident in Japan. Since then the band has continued to tour non-stop through Deryck’s ongoing back troubles. Before shows I have watched him go through a yoga and stretching routine, and afterwards ice his back and lay on the ground because he can’t move. I don’t know if any of you have experienced back pains before but they are terrible to deal with and in my experience they are nothing compared to what Deryck goes through. I also don’t have to play a show and run around on stage for an hour and a half every night for days on end, so I can’t imagine what it feels like. But, we continued pressing on through tours that took us all over the world. Flying every couple of weeks for 10+ hours at a time. Sleeping in tour busses. Playing every night. It starts to take it’s toll. Yet through all this he continued to soldier on and bring shows to people around the world. 

This summer we went down to South Africa for a couple of shows. After nearly 30 hours of air travel there and back, we arrived back in the U.S. to do a few dates on Warped Tour leading into some Canada shows. As you know by now, at the last Warped show we did Deryck did something to his back (I watched it as it happened) that ultimately led to us having to cancel the rest of the shows and then the rest of the tour. This decision was not made as a snap judgement call. Doctors and others have been telling him to rest and have surgery, etc. for a long time now. But, being the way this industry is, Sum 41 has to continue touring in order to promote their record and continue making money. This isn’t an arbitrary “let’s just cancel a bunch of shows” decision. This puts EVERYONE’S life on hold… the guys in the band, the people who work for them.. everyone.

I know for a fact that Deryck and the rest of Sum 41 are extremely proud of this record and they were having some of their most successful shows around the world, and we were all looking forward to going to southeast Asia and to South America. They wanted nothing more than to continue bringing this record to their fans around the world. The momentum was building and the songs were sounding amazing live. Until this unfortunate setback there were no plans to stop touring regardless of how well the record was selling, or whether people think the promotion was lacking, whatever.