Sum 41, a rock band that has been creating music for 28 years, has left some fans puzzled over the meaning behind their iconic stage name.

The band, made up of Deryck Whibley, Dave Baksh, Jason McCaslin, Tom Thacker, and Frank Zummo, was formed in Ajax, Ontario in 1996.

They have since won numerous awards for their hit songs including In Too Deep, The Hell Song, Fat Lip, Still Waiting, Landmines, Pieces, Walking Disaster, With Me and Noots. However, despite their long-standing fame, some fans are still in the dark about the meaning behind their stage name and the significance of the number 41.

A Reddit thread titled ‘Band name origins’ saw one user ask fellow music enthusiasts if they knew the “origin of names for the bands they listen to”. One user expressed their surprise upon recently discovering what Sum 41 means. In an interview with Alternative Press, lead singer Deryck Whibley revealed the origin of the name, explaining it’s a reference to their childhood in the 1990s.

He said: “The band started on the 41st day of summer for us, because when we were in high school, we considered ‘summer’ the day that the school ended. I don’t know if it was the official 41st day of summer but to us, when we were 16, summer started when the school was over, and the day we started the band was 41 days after that.”

He further explained that the band was initially named Kaspir when he began playing with schoolmates Steve Jocz, Grant McVitie, and another unnamed student. He said: “We went to the Warped Tour in ’96, these were all the kind of bands that we listened to, which was NOFX, Face to Face, Lagwagon, Pennywise, and Kaspir was kind of, like, it leaned to some of that, but it wasn’t fully into that kind of world of that kind of sound.”

“After we went to the Warped Tour and seeing all these bands perform live, it was really exciting and really, it just kind of changed our world. All of a sudden, we just said, ‘We need to start a band that is more like this kind of style and that can play on the Warped Tour.’ “That was the dream.

From that day on, that was the 41st day of the summer for us, and we decided that Kaspir is no more, the band is Sum 41. “One stunned fan reacted to this revelation by saying: “This whole time Sum 41 just meant 41 days into the summer? I’m stupid.” Another user chimed in: “Someone at school told me it was because the sum of all the band’s kids was 41. For some reason I never, not even once, questioned all four band members having 10+ illegitimate children in their 20s/30s.”.