Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley has announced a new memoir, titled Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven And Hell.
The book, announced via Whibley’s Instagram account, is due to arrive on October 8 via publisher Gallery Books – pre-order your copy here. Per an official synopsis posted by Gallery Books, Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven And Hell will not only be a memoir of Whibley’s life, but will also tell “the untold story of Sum 41”.
The synopsis reads: “Deryck takes you backstage, into the recording booth, and through the highest highs and lowest lows of the band whose story is inextricably woven with his own.”
Sum 41 are due to release their final album, ‘Heaven :x: Hell’, on March 29 via Rise Records. Following the album’s release, the band will continue on with their final world tour, which will see the Canadian punk icons perform across North America and Europe between April 2024 and January 2025. On January 30, 2025, Sum 41 will play their final show in Toronto, Ontario.
Back in September, the ‘Fat Lip’ singer was admitted to hospital with a pneumonia infection. His wife confirmed his hospitalisation on social media adding that it was on the day the couple were supposed to be in Chicago celebrating their eighth wedding anniversary.
She explained that her husband would be kept in hospital for several days due to the risk of heart failure. Whibley had developed a cold after coming off tour with The Offspring, but it spiralled into COVID-19 and then pneumonia.
Whibley was previously hospitalised in 2014 for severe liver and kidney damage caused by alcohol abuse. He spent nearly a month in hospital and was told by doctors that if he had one more alcoholic drink, he risked death. Prior to that, he was hospitalised for pneumonia back in 2011 while touring in Australia.
Last December, NME spoke with Whibley about Sum 41’s “aggressive” new album, which he called “the perfect way to go out”. “There’s more to the album than nostalgia,” he told NME. “Even if I tried to write ‘All Killer, No Filler’ again, I wouldn’t be able to. It just doesn’t come out the same. The songs sound like they could be from those eras though.”
Following on from recent single ‘Landmines’, Sum 41 also released ‘Rise Up’, which Whibley described as “me coming out of hospital 10 years ago, and what happened afterwards,” referencing his 2014 hospitalisation.