By Audrey Reed
Opinions Editor
“When Hell is full, Sum 41 will rock the earth” is the slogan plastered on the Sum 41 Web site. The band’s newest album is titled “Does This Look Infected?” Its lyrics consist of “you don’t make any sense with all the gas you’ve been huffin’.”
These guys are not a Christian band. Any MTV-watcher could have told Pepperdine administration that.
But for some reason it took them not one, but two lyrical checks to decide that Sum 41’s ideals and the university’s were not the same. Thus the Student Government Association concert committee was told they must pull out of the $40,000 concert deal even after the offer had been submitted.
Understandably, a Christian university would not approve of such a band. They are a group of typical young rock stars. They openly admit to doing things more extreme than having girls in their bedroom after 11 p.m. Whether the administrators have the right to ban such groups is not the pressing issue.
The bigger question is why were they even propsed as a Pepperdine concert in the first place.
While the concert committee is doing a great job bringing popular groups to campus, it must also look all at the moral caliber of bands it recruits. Every campus organization must follow the campus mission statement, and asking Sum 41 to perform pushed those limits. People on the concert committee should be familiar with music. They presumably knew how Sum 41 was perceived among the public and what sort of activities the band is involved in. If they didn’t already know that, lyric checks should have been done even before SGA presented the idea to administrators.
But in the end administrators are responsible. The way they initially checked the lyrics and persona of the bands was insufficient. After the first check, Pepperdine said that Sum 41 was suitable for the university. Not until a staff member brought forth convincing lyrics and magazine articles was Sum 41 deemed inappropriate.
It’s hard to believe that there was even a lyric check performed. Just by going to Sum 41’s official Web site, www.sum41.com, would give anyone doubts. The first image on the site is a cartoon of band members puking blood, biting off human flesh and eating eyeballs. It’s graphic and certainly not wholesome. The site is also programmed to play “The Hell Song” when entering the page. Not to mention that when reading any interview they use swear words and allude to alcohol and drug use.
Administrators can’t rely on the students’ view of what is acceptable for the Pepperdine community. That’s why they are here.
But both SGA members and administrators say they’ve learned their lesson. They claim there will be a new way to evaluate potential performing bands. All of that, however, was at the cost of a dirtied name among record labels, touring agents and musicians.
That is why, from the business perspective, Pepperdine should have allowed these groups to play. Bands had already consented to striking a few questionable songs.
If the student body and administration wants to continue to have concerts, they must make good decisions. A private university such as Pepperdine is a business. When administrators retracted their offer to the bands, they used poor business strategies.
The regard for the business side of the concerts was completely abandoned because a few school officials got nervous after seeing some shady activities of the previously Pepperdine-approved Sum 41.
Thankfully, the bands had not entered into a contract, but just a preliminary agreement, so there is no legal liability. We were lucky this time.
While Sum 41 sadly won’t be coming to campus, they will be playing at other area venues that have a clear-cut lyric and persona policy.
March 13, 2003