Sum 41 drummer Steve Jocz’s mind is racing.
He’s just learned that his band will serve as an opening act on Mötley Crüe’s summer-long Carnival of Sin Tour, and as such, he’s trying really hard to think up ways he can match Crüe drummer Tommy Lee’s nearly patented drum-solo heroics (including, but not limited to, being raised in the air and pulling full 360s while bashing the kit).
“Man, I don’t know,” he laughed. “I might get my drum tech to push my drum kit forward and then pull it back really fast. Or maybe we’ll put it on wheels and I’ll get some stagehands to spin it around.
“But anything we try to do, they’ll definitely do it better. It’s not like we’re going to try and do a massive production, because anything we do will be dwarfed by them,” he continued. “When we played the Spike TV [Video Game] Awards with them, their whole set was strippers and dudes on Harleys. So anything we do is going to look like the Stonehenge set from ‘This Is Spinal Tap.’ ”
The Crüe’s Carnival of Sin kicks off July 27 in Sacramento, California, and Sum 41 are just one of the acts tapped to play the opening slot. For Jocz, the tour can’t begin quickly enough.
“When they asked us if we wanted to hit the road with them, we were like, ‘F– yeah!’ ”
he said. “I remember as a kid, being so interested in their personality. They’re one of the bands that make you want to get in a band. Their whole life is partying and having fun. Whenever any dude says, ‘I want to get in a band to get chicks,’ if you ask him what band he has in mind as a model, he’ll say Crüe every time.”
Until the Crüe come calling, Jocz and the Sum 41 guys have their Go Chuck Yourself world tour (a string of North American dates begins April 7 in Toronto) and there’s even talk of the guys reuniting with “Saturday Night Live” performance pal Ludacris for a full-on mash-up record à la Jay-Z and Linkin Park’s recent Collision Course collabo. Jocz played coy with the details but did admit that “discussions” were underway between both acts’ management.
“I don’t know anything else,” he laughed. “I’m a little low on the totem pole to be involved in any discussions.”
Though tight-lipped about the band’s future plans, Jocz did peer deep into the crystal ball and come back with one prediction: There’s going to be a whole lot of Crüe-inspired partying going on this summer.
“I’m not really sure what to expect, because I’m not sure who’s in [Alcoholics Anonymous] or anything like that. But hopefully they’ll be the gasoline and we’ll be the match, and something will explode,” he said. “Because I remember when [the Crüe’s tell-all book] ‘The Dirt’ came out, [Sum 41 frontman] Deryck [Whibley] and I both read it in, like, a day, and we cut out the pictures, and I put a little picture of Tommy in my bunk, and he put a little picture of Nikki [Sixx] in his bunk, and we’d wake up every day and be like, ‘I’m going to be like you today.’ That book was like our touring bible, and they were the patron saints of me getting f–ed up.”