Sum 41 “salute” Rage Against The Machine with ‘Sleep Now In The Fire’ cover

11 January, 2024

Deryck Whibley of Sum 41

Sum 41 have offered their tribute to Rage Against The Machine with spirited a cover of ‘Sleep Now In The Fire’, recorded at Hellfest 2023.

The Canadian pop-punk band took to X on Tuesday (January 9), to respond to Rage Against The Machine’s recent announcement of their retirement from live performances. Posting a cover of the ‘Battle of Los Angeles’ highlight, which they performed during their set at Hellfest in June 2023, the band expressed their love for “one of [their] all time favourite bands”.

“In the light of the news of [Rage Against The Machine] never performing again, we wanted to salute one of our all time favourite bands,” shared the band in the post’s caption.

The band’s cover begins with frontman Deryck Whibley calling guitarist Dave Baksh to start the song, expressing high praise for Tom Morello’s riff: “Dave, why don’t you play one of the best guitar riffs ever written.”

Watch Sum 41 cover ‘Sleep Now In The Fire’ below:

Sum 41 have themselves announced a retirement from music altogether, with the band stating that they are disbanding after releasing their upcoming eighth studio album, ‘Heaven :x: Hell’, and its supporting world tour.

Recently, they announced that ‘Heaven :x: Hell’ will be released in Spring 2024, though they did not specify a release date. Whibley stated that the upcoming record was a double album consisting of “totally different records”, with the ‘Heaven’ side mirroring their pop-punk beginnings, and the ‘Hell’ side reflecting their recent, more heavy metal-inspired output.

The band first previewed the album with ‘Landmines’, which Whibley described as an “old school pop punk song”, in September, and in December, they released a second single, ‘Rise Up’. That month, Whibley spoke in greater depth to NME about ‘Rise Up’, which reflects on his hospitalisation in 2014 due to liver failure brought about by alcohol abuse. “‘Rise Up’ is about me coming out of hospital 10 years ago, and what happened afterwards,” said Whibley. “That’s something I’ll never stop thinking about.”

Elsewhere in the interview, the singer offered a preview of ‘Heaven :x: Hell’, describing the album as an “aggressive album”. “‘Heaven :x: Hell’ is an aggressive album,” he stated. “There’s not really any slow songs on either side of the record. Everything is very energetic. The pop punk stuff is fast and upbeat, while the heavy songs hit hard. There’s also some stuff that’s heavier than anything we’ve ever done before.”

The 43-year-old also expressed that feeling proud of the album served as one reason why the band decided to wrap up their career. “I feel really good about this album, which is why I felt it should be the last one,” he explained. “I’ve had this feeling for a long time now that I want to do something different and it just feels like the right time. This album feels like the perfect way to go out.”

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