Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley thought sobriety ‘would be boring’

Deryck Whibley is grateful he can hit the road again.

The Canadian rocker, who often sang about drinking and partying alongside his band Sum 41, collapsed in his kitchen in 2014 when his liver and kidneys failed after boozing the night before.

The then-34-year-old spent three days in an induced coma, followed by followed by a month detoxing at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

But these days, the 38-year-old is in better spirits again. He and his bandmates are touring to celebrate the 15th anniversary of their hit album, titled “Does This Look Infected?” – and this time, he’s enjoying life without hitting the bottle.

“If anything I actually kind of enjoy it more now, which I wasn’t really expecting,” Whibley told People magazine. “I was having such a great time when I was drinking and partying and I thought sobriety would be boring, but it’s really not.”

Whibley also stressed that despite his rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, he isn’t tempted to drink.

“Everyone’s supportive, but at the same time they still drink and do their thing, which is fine because the last people I feel like drinking with is my band,” he said. “I’ve done that. I could be on the tour bus and they can be drunk and doing their thing, and I can walk past them in the bus and listen to conversations and be like, ‘Nope, I want none of that.’”

Whibley added, “There’s nothing about that that makes me want to get in on this. I’ve been there a million times at five in the morning sitting on the bus, sitting with these guys talking about nothing.”

These days, Whibley said he’s more interested in performing, writing new music for Sum 41’s upcoming album, as well as spending time with his wife, model Ariana Cooper. The couple tied the knot in 2015.

“It’s still early but we plan on having new music as early as 2019,” said Whibley. “Even while I’m on stage playing I can sort of map out ideas while I’m performing other songs; I can sort of see how I would write something.

“It’s weird, but when you get to a certain point on tour, you can write your grocery list while you’re on stage, so I was actually kind of writing some ideas in my head while I was performing.”

Still, Whibley is perfectly content performing songs from the same beloved album that made Sum 41 a sensation.

“I feel like everything gets better – and not because of drinking or not drinking,” he explained. “As you get older and you’ve been around longer and it’s still working after this long, it’s just a different feeling than it was in the beginning.

“When you’re so young and you have success, it goes by so fast that you don’t quite have the capability to appreciate it. When you get older and you realize how difficult it is to maintain a career, you can feel a sense of accomplishment and pride.”