A very cold dish of revenge

Remember Deryck Whibley used to be married to Avril Lavigne? And that Lavigne is now engaged to Chad Kroeger?

Guess who Deryck and his current partner dressed up as for Halloween?

"Ha ha, you're engaged to someone from a dreadful rock band, Avril" scoffs Deryck, recalling a phrase written on gifts given to Avril back at her last wedding shower.

Whibley, Lavigne: marriage's great hopes

If even Madonna and Guy can't make marriage work, even with the support of bottles and bottles of Kabbalah water and almost totally separate lives, what hope is there for anyone?

But here is a heartwarming tale of young couples making sanctified union work to their advantage - Deryck Whibley and Sum 41 have rejected rumours about a crack in their marriage:

On October 20th the National Enquirer issued a gossip story
surrounding Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 and his wife Avril Lavigne. For
the record we strongly deny the inference of martial problems
between Avril and Deryck. We also strongly deny the National Enquirer
claims of any other liaisons. Deryck has in fact been travelling
through Asia performing with Avril as evidenced by the numerous
Youtube videos.

Says Deryck Whibley "I'm actually very surprised that so many media
outlets picked this story up. Since when did the National Enquirer
become a trust worthy news source?".

Yeah... videos on YouTube. That's, like, admissible evidence in all states and territories apart from Syria and Arkansas.

Still, it's great to know this marriage is strong and all those who thought it was little more than a stunt to try and shore up two dwindling preteen acts must be feeling pretty stu... hang on, what's this at the end of the official statement?

Sum 41's most recent release "Underclass Hero", which spawned the
hit singles "With Me" , "Walking Disaster" and " Underclass Hero" ,
has now sold in excess of 1 million albums, 2 million digital tracks
and 15 million streams world wide. The album peaked at #1 in Canada,
Japan, and #7 on the US Billboard charts. Based on this success
Universal Music picked up their option to have Sum 41 produce a new
album in 2009, thus after completing a very successful 18 month
world tour the band has started work on a new album.

Why, if we didn't know that this was all about Whibley defending his love, we'd assume that this denial was little more than the start of the promotional campaign for the next Sum 41 album.

Lavigne and Whibley to spawn

The prospect of Avril Lavigne continuing to pretend she's, like, fifteen while simultaneously wetnursing the child she and Deryck Whibley are having isn't an edifying one, is it?

Having a child means accepting ones responsibilities, which might be why the settlement of alleged copyright infringement that Lavigne was involved in. Some people thought Girlfriend was a rip-off of The Rubinoo's I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend. Others - including Lavigne, her management, and... erm, well her and her management denied there was any similarities. The terms of the settlement are being kept secret, so it sounds like Lavigne's cut a huge cheque to make the problem go away.

[UPDATE: She might not be pregnant.]

Deryck Whibley defends the missus

How sweet and chivalrous of Deryck Whibley, who used to be a pop star himself, to defend his wife from her many detractors:

"It's a funny misconception with her.

"People always think she's really angry and she's really mad and she really hates everyone, and doesn't care about anything, when the thing she cares about most is her fans and her music."

Of course. When she almost wears a Hooters t-shirt, that's just for the fans, that is; and naked photo shoots for Blender? How could she be thinking any more about her music than posing for those?

The funny thing is, of course, people tend not to think of Avril Lavigne as angry. More sort of whiney, isn't it?

A little bit of politics

We're sure Sum 41's sudden interest in writing a political song is nothing to do with wanting to get some of that sweet, sweet Green Day mature applause. Indeed, they seem worried they might have alienated their core audience by writing a song about, you know, stuff on the news and that. Deryck Whibley (Mrs. Lavigne) is quick to reassure:

hey everyone. we've released a new song off of the album on itunes and other digital stores today. it's called "March of the dogs". lyrically it's one of the more political songs that are on the album, following in the style of our songs "still waiting" and we"re all to blame". i wanted to let you all know that this will NOT be a political record. this is just one of our favorite songs on the album so we wanted to give you it to you early since the record won't be out until the summer. this is not the first single. the first single will still be Underclass Hero which will be coming out in may.
go check it out.
enjoy!!

Actually, as it turns out, the song is hardly Newsnight:

Ladies and gentlemen of the underclass: The President of the United States of America is DEAD!

I don't believe in the politics
A dozen fools and hypocrites
To walk a line that's stretched so fine
Is death or glory had in mind
Here we go, again there's mixed illusion
No one knows to sink revolution
Attention grows, the way the world's conclusion

It's too late, there's no time
(It's too late, there's no time)
Offer none never 1,2, 3 ,4

March of the dogs
to a beat of disillusion
Sworn under God bringing panic and confusion
The white flag is down
Sent to the crowds
The carnival of sins is now meant to begin

It may be of a pessimist
but I say we need an exorcist
The root of all evil standing tall
under God and above the sun

Here we ago, again in desperation
All we know is tension and frustration
Attention blooms no vision of salvation

It's too late, there's no time
(It's too late, there's no time)
Offer none never 1,2, 3 ,4

March of the dogs
to a beat of disillusion
Sworn under God bringing panic and confusion
The white flag is down
Sent to the crowds
The carnival of sins is now meant to begin

1, 2, 3, 4!

Another president dead
because They blew off his head
No more sense to be read
Guess to heaven he fled
Was it something he said
'cause of who's in his bed
By who will we be lead
From who's hand will we be fed
all the lies by the lying liars
Who said, we'll be fine, it's okay
hey look mom, no head!

1,2,3,4

(bow, bow, bow, bow, bow)

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA It's okay, Alright.

Interestingly, this subtle political stance has so far generated precisely nothing in terms of response on the band's MySpace page beyond "wooos" and "you guys are awesome" - nobody has even suggested there's something self-defeating about their argument that they don't believe in poltics and yet their response to the fictional assassination of an unnamed president is to ask "well, who will lead us now" rather than to suggest this would be the opportune moment to effect a change to the structure of the American democracy to relocate the people at the centre of the process.

Nobody's even pointed out that Bush "fleeing to heaven" would just mean we'd be having President Cheney sworn in.

Avril Lavigne is Clarrie to Deryck's Eddie Grundy

Avril apparently is determined to ensure that former druck-head Deryck Whibley won't be going up to the shed and doing drugs like he used to. Oh no, it's clear Deryck has a choice - it's her, or illicit pleasures:

"He doesn't do drugs. Clearly, he used to, because he talked about it, but I wouldn't be with someone who did, and I made that very clear to him when we first started dating.

I've never done coke in my life, and I'm proud of that... I could never. I am 100 per cent against drugs."

Cocaine also issued a statement, saying it would be prepared to take Deryck back, providing he promised to stop seeing Avril: "Obviously, I've got my standards and I'm not prepared to disappear up a nose that has been sniffing someone like Lavigne - I've had nothing to do with mass-market pre-packaged teen angst, and I'm proud of that."