Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley Teases Announcement the Same Day the Linkin Park Countdown Ends

With the cryptic countdown clock on the Linkin Park website ticking down to tomorrow, some fans seem to think they’re one step closer to figuring it out. As NME points out, Deryck Whibley, frontman of pop-punk band Sum 41, is teasing a major announcement at the same approximate time that Linkin Park’s countdown. Yesterday afternoon, the Sum 41 Twitter account posted “TUNE IN WEDNESDAY MORNING DERYCK WHIBLEY ANNOUNCEMENT” and, immediately upon posting that, the first comments on the post were all speculating that Whibley is the new vocalist for Linkin Park.

It would make sense as, even though Sum 41 is a pop-punk band, they’ve long shown a fascination with metal, often incorporating metal elements into their sound. Furthermore, at the Reading Festival in 2018, Sum 41 covered Linkin Park’s song “Faint” with a guest appearance from Linkin Park’s own Mike Shinoda. Plus, Sum 41 is on their farewell tour, which is set to wrap up at the end of January 2025, so he would definitely be available. It all just seems to line up.

Following the tragic death of Linkin Park vocalist Chester Bennington from suicide in 2017, it seemed impossible to imagine anyone filling the vocalist’s shoes, and the band announced a hiatus to rethink what they wanted to do. Then, earlier this year, reunion rumors started to swirl after Orgy frontman Jay Gordon let slip in an interview that he heard Linkin Park had a “girl singer now,” and, even though Gordon tried to walk that back as he was not supposed to say it, in late April there was word of a booking agency shopping around interest for a potential Linkin Park reunion tour.

So it would seem that everyone on the Internet has already figured it out, spoiling Linkin Park’s big reveal, but fans will be so excited to see a reunited Linkin Park that, in the end, it doesn’t even matter.