Source: SPB.com

What do you think that Simple Plan and Willy Wonka have in common? No, unfortunately Johnny Depp will not be singing the female vocal parts in the next version of the song “Jet Lag”… But Willy Wonka’s candy will be involved.

Simple Plan have teamed up with The Willy Wonka candy company for their new campaign called “Rock with Wonka”, in which the citizens of Canada can create their own lyrics to the new “chocolate” version of Simple Plan’s song “Jet Lag” (Pierre, I hope you’ll forgive me for the image on the left… it was too tempting).

The winner of the chosen lyrics will then have an exclusive chance to record the new version of “Jet Lag” with Simple Plan in a recording studio.

The beginning of the lyrics that the contestants are to finish, looks like this:

The Canadian music station Much Music has revealed the nominations for this year’s annual Much Music Video Awards and the Simple Plan fans can be very proud because their band has scored two nominations!

The first nomination that Simple Plan are in, is in the category “Best International Video By A Canadian” – for their music video for the song “Astronaut”, directed by Mark Staubach. In this category they will be competing against Justin Bieber, Avril Lavigne, Drake and Nickelback.

Their second nomination was the fans’ doing because Simple Plan have (yet again) received a nomination for “UR FAVE VIDEO”, for their music video for “Summer Paradise”, directed by Randall “RT” Thorn and Mark Staubach. Here, in order to win against Carly Rae Jepsen, Drake, Hedley and Marianas Trench, YOU can help them by voting every day on the MuchMusic website.

Congratulations!

Whether Simple Plan wins or not we will find out on June 17th 2012 when the MMVAs take place in Canada. Unfortunately, the band will not be able to attend the event this year, as they are still touring Australia at that time.

The Australian version of the singing competition show The Voice has a very impressive variety of coaches, which include Seal, Delta Goodrem (who you may remember from one of the versions of the music video for “Save You”), Keith Urban and Joel Madden from Good Charlotte. Their job is to mentor the contestants who get into their teams throughout the whole journey of the show.

One of Seal’s protégés is 26-years-old Sam Ludeman, who performed a cover version of a Simple Plan song in the last night’s episode of the song. And what other song than “Summer Paradise” it could be, when this song has already become Australia’s summer anthem, and has managed to stay at the tops of local music charts for weeks.

After Chuck from Simple Plan had heard about one of their songs being played on The Voice, he contacted Sam himself via Twitter, congratulated him on his performance and invited him and the coaches from The Voice for their upcoming concert in Sydney, Australia.

Below you can noww check out Sam Ludeman’s version of “Summer Paradise” that he performed with at The Voice yesterday (thanks to SPB.com for the link):

Thanks to our colleagues over at SPB.com you can now check out the previously mentioned “naked” version of the song Astronaut, which has appeared for the first time on the digital single of Summer Paradise, that is now available on iTunes.

What do you think about this new version? Which “Astronaut” is your favourite?

Simple Plan’s arrival to Europe (where they will be heading right after the Australian tour) in about a month, sure seems be a little bit hectic if you will. Let’s see:

The first public appearance that the guys have planned is in the morning of June 20th, when they are scheduled to appear in the studio of a private German TV station called SAT 1, that resides in Berlin (thanks to Anika for the info). However, the same day, they will still have to drive to the approximately 180 miles distant city of Kiel, where they are supposed to play a 45-minute show for the local radio station N-Joy later that day.

The next day, Simple Plan will be in Hamburg for a couple of interviews and will kick off the festival season in Europe the day after that with the Under18 festival in Spain.

It seems like Simple Plan will be staying Down Under for a little longer than we’ve expected! It has just been announced that they will be performing on June 17th on a V8 Supercar event’s concert called “Race & Rock” in Darwin, Australia alongside acts like The Potbelleez on the same day and Jimmy Barnes and Ian Moss the day before.

The Chief Minister for the Northern Territory, Mr. Paul Henderson has stated that “Simple Plan has enjoyed incredible success all over the world, so to have them perform here for Territorians at the V8 Supercars is a real coup.”