Interviewed March 2011.

Canadian rock band Sum 41 first broke into the spotlight with the single "Fat Lip" off their debut album All Killer No Filler in 2001. 10 years later they are releasing their fifth studio album Screaming Bloody Murder. I caught up with drummer Steveo Jocz for a few questions via phone from Perth, Australia.

Bill: So where in the world are you today?

Steveo: I'm in Perth, Australia.

I'm about to get on the plane to go to Valencia, Spain. This is ridiculous routing to get there. I think I get there sometime next week.

Bill: I've been reading that Deryck (Whibley) has been sick and you've had to cancel shows. How is he doing?

Steveo: He's fine now. We've had a pretty grueling past few weeks. The week before we got to Australia we were in a different country every day. Flights every day to get there, and shows to do and press. Then we had a 30 hour flight to Australia. Then we had a show the next day and a flight and then another show. After that he got sick so we had to cancel two or three shows. Now he's fine, so we're going to go to Valencia and do this one show. Just one show with My Chemical Romance. Then we fly to Toronto. Then we have a couple of days off and then we do a show.

Bill: So keeping up the busy schedule.

Steveo: Yeah. Especially now because the album's coming out. It's a bit intensified. Our schedule is pretty busy...for a little while now. We first started touring again in April (2010) in Europe.

Then we took a couple of months off and then we did Warped Tour. We took a month off and then ever since then we have basically been on the road. We've been to Europe three times in the past six months. We've been doing a lot over there.

Bill: What can you tell me about the new album?

Steveo: It's called Screaming Bloody Murder. It comes out on March 29th. As far as how it sounds it's a heavier, darker, more aggressive album. The songwriting, compared to the other records, has improved immensely. It's just night and day with the other stuff. The musicianship is good. On each album I think everything gets better, but this one, for whatever reason, it was a bigger leap.

I think it's a big sounding rock album. Deryck produced it after we tried a couple of other producers and it wasn't working. If you like big sounding rock albums, you'll like this one.

Bill: When you say heavier, is that both sound and lyrics?

Steveo: There is a depth to the lyrics, and they are definitely not throaway, superficial lyrics. There's sort of this honest depth to them that I think comes with maturity. As far as sound it's big riffs and the drums sound big. There is just sort of a heaviness to it.

Bill: In the past you have always included a lot of melodic hooks. Are they still there with the bigger sound?

Steveo: It is very melodic. You know, we love heavy metal, hard rock and everything. Heavy metal, at least now, is sort of devoid of melody. Everybody just screams. Not that this is a heavy metal record. There are hard riffs to it, but it is melodic. That's something we like, the combination of heavy and melody. So there's a lot of hooks, and you can definitely sing along with the whole thing.

Bill: Since the last album you've done a lot on your own. You got married, right?

Steveo: Yeah, Cone (bass player Jason McCaslin) and I both were married...to women, not each other.

Bill: Does that make the touring harder?

Steveo: We had a long break due to sort of being married...to sort of enjoy that. Yeah, it's tough, but I think we are lucky to at least be touring in the era of Skype. So you can have that contact with a person, with your family and friends everywhere. I can't imagine doing it back in the 80s or back in the 60s when there was none of that. You had to write a f**king letter. So it's not as hard as it could be I guess.

Bill: And you've been working in music video? Can you tell me a bit about that.

Steveo: I've always enjoyed that aspect of what we've done. I've sort of been involved in our videos. The guy who directed all the most popular Sum 41 videos, this guy Mark Klasfeld. He just invited me to work at his production company Rockhard Films, so I said sure. I started doing videos there. I've done eight or nine or whatever. I did a 3OH!3 video, an Airbourne video. I've done just a few, and I've kind of had to stop this for awhile, because we are on the road. My schedule is so unpredictable I can't say yes to a video. I'll take it up again. It's fun.

Bill: With the amount of touring you do, I'm sure there are some songs you have played hundreds if not thousands of times. Are there songs that are your personal favorites?

Steveo: I still like playing "Still Waiting." I still like playing "Fat Lip." If there's one song we have played more than any other because it was our first hit, and we have played on every show...I mean we've never played a show where we don't play that song. It's still fun to play, and the same with "Still Waiting." We've played it on a million shows, Conan and Saturday Night Live. We played it every show since it's come out. Even if we were to play a five minute set we would play those songs. Those are still fun to play, but it's mainly because of the reaction. The second we start playing them the crowd goes crazy and it's energetic and fun. It grows. It starts crazy where most people would be satisfied with just that. We're all thankful for the amount of craziness with the first song, but then it grows, and by the last song...it's usually one of those or another one..."Into Deep" is another big one. So even though we play them often, we play those songs the most out of any other songs, they are still fun to play.