With their pop-punk tailor-made for commercial radio, Simple Plan has never been dared by critics, but the longevity of the Québécois quartet commands at least a certain respect. Twenty after their first international success, the members of the group, now in their forties and fathers, believe they have proven that they are much more than little boys from the west end of Montreal who sing in English in the hope to break into the United States.
“On our first album, we were a much easier target, but after 20 years of career, journalists have changed their perception. Despite everything, we know very well that we will never be the darling of the music press. From the start, it was always clear to us that we wanted to be a people’s band”, immediately cuts through the drummer, Chuck Comeau, who recognizes a certain nervousness at the idea of meeting for the first time in two decades a journalist from the To have to.
“We have no illusions. We know that our next album will not have five stars in The duty “, continues with a joker tone the guitarist, Jeff Stinco, on the occasion of the release of their new disc, this Friday.
Nostalgia when you hold us
The first extracts from this sixth album, Harder Than It Looks, already suggest that this opus will not be the one where Simple Plan will reinvent itself. Sounds like the band’s early hits from the album No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls, released in 2002. Like when their Blink-182 idols walked around blazing naked in their music video. The time, too, when thousands of teenagers experienced their sexual awakening by listening American Pie.
It is to this generation, which has already worn low-waisted pants unironically and rented a VHS from the Blockbuster, that Simple Plan is aimed at. A skilfully maintained nostalgic fiber, which the singer Pierre Bouvier completely assumes: “sometimes it’s hard for the media to understand that we like our music. But we really like it! It’s the music we grew up with and still listen to. When I finish the demos, I’m proud. »
Still, he is delighted that the group’s first single, I’m Just a Kid, has gone viral in recent months on the TikTok social network, helping to make Simple Plan known to younger people. And to think that Jeff Stinco has long campaigned for the group to stop playing this piece live… The text was too simplistic, too childish for the middle-aged men they have become, pleaded the guitarist, who confesses with hindsight be wrong all along the line.
Quebecers after all
I’m Just a Kid was such a bomb when it was released that the song is now inseparable from Simple Plan. As Crazy, Perfect or Welcome to My Life. So many hits that allowed these suburbanites from good families to find success in the United States and Asia in the early 2000s by selling more than 10 million albums, a feat that few Quebecers can boast of.
However, no one is a prophet in his country. The rooms here were indeed struggling to fill up at first, and the songs took a long time before playing on the radio, because of the quotas which limit the number of English songs on the air. Between a hit of Green Day or the song of a small group of Francos who push the note in English, the broadcasters naturally leaned towards the first option.
Sometimes it’s hard for the media to understand that we like our music. But we really like it! It’s the music we grew up with and still listen to.
Simple Plan will end up being accepted by the Quebec industry with the release of its second album, in 2004, Still Not Getting Any…but it will be necessary to wait until 2011 for the group to record a first bilingual song, jet lag, in duet with Marie-Mai. The thorny question of language still follows today these four musicians who grew up between Laval and Île Bizard.
“Wherever we went in the world, we always said that we came from Montreal, that we came from Quebec. I’m not saying we should get a medal, but it’s still part of our identity. We have always treated Quebec as a place that was not like the others. We played in Brazil, Australia, Japan, everywhere, but we always thought it was important to go and do shows also in Matane or Chicoutimi”, defends bitten Chuck Comeau, who now lives in California, but who still assiduously follows the news of his homeland.
Still alive
In post-referendum Quebec, Simple Plan may have embodied better than anyone a kind of uninhibited Quebec identity: in relation to language, in relation to the rest of the world, in relation to success too. Talking about it openly, however, remains a minefield.
Another slippery subject, the departure in the summer of 2020 of bassist David Desrosiers in the wake of the wave of denunciations on social networks. The quintet that has become a quartet will have gone through crises in 20 years of existence. Time and time again, the group could have broken up, but it always got back up.
“We have always had this determination. If we stop playing, it will not be because of a commercial failure, it will be because we have decided to do so”, warns the drummer with unshakable conviction. He and his gang may no longer be “just kids “, but this youthful ardor has obviously never left them.