Category Archives: interviews

Chuck teases the look of European tour’s setlist: greatest hits, focus on new record & new medley!

With Simple Plan’s European tour with State Champs and Mayday Parade being less than a month away, the local media are starting to pay more attention to the the band, who are coming back to many cities on the old continent as a headlining act for the first time since 2017!

A new Spanish interview for Mondo Sonoro with Chuck Comeau recently came out, in which the drummer was asked several question about the band’s upcoming tour, including what the fans can expect the setlist to look like. Chuck confirmed the tour’s setlist (while it may change from day to day slightly) will include the band’s greatest hits but will also be mostly focused on songs from their new album Harder Than It Looks (2022). Another thing worst mentioning is that Simple Plan want to include a special medley, where they try to incorporate short snippets of their songs to include as many as they can. This is remindful of the “No Pads medley” the band did in 2012 – given that the band is celebrating 20 years since the release of Still Not Getting Any next year, there’s hopes that this new medley could be a SNGA one.

Check out Chuck’s full response below:

“We haven’t done a headlining tour in Europe since 2017. So I think what we want is to just give our fans what they’ve been waiting for for a long time, which is a longer show. A show that spans all eras of Simple Plan, from the early days, which I know our fans love, to the new album that came out last year. So that it’s like a “greatest hits,” but with an emphasis on the new record, of course, and the new music. But we really want to play everything, every song that people want to hear. That’s really what we’re trying to do. And we’re going to change the setlist a little bit and have some songs come in and out and change every night. And we’re even trying to build a medley because we don’t have time to play every song that everyone wants to hear. We thought that maybe if we found a way to not play the whole song, but rather small fragments of several together, we would please more fans, or so we hope.”

– Chuck Comeau –

Are you excited for the Hard As Rock tour in Europe? Get ready! Most tickets are already sold-out and the tour begins on January 18th 2024 in Paris, France!

Recap of new SimplePlan.cz’s interview with SP: plans for 2024, band’s future as a four piece, secret featuring and more!

Last week, SimplePlan.cz caught up with Simple Plan before their performance at Rock For People in the Czech Republic and got to interview Chuck Comeau and Jeff Stinco, who gave us the most time out of any of the other media (for which we’re extremely grateful!).

In the interview, we decided to focus on some of the more important current topics and questions that have been in the minds of many fans recently and in this post we’d like to put down a summary of them in case you don’t have the time to listen to the full interview (which we wholeheartedly recommend, though!). Let’s get to the important stuff then, shall we?

ON CONTINUING WITHOUT DAVID
For the past few years, many fans have still been quite unsure about the current situation in Simple Plan after the rather vague announcement of David’s departure from the band, following the sexual misconduct allegations. In this interview, we decided not to ask but rather give the guys space to tell the fans how they feel about the situation without putting them on the spot with any specifics. And while it is still a very sensitive subject, which the guys can’t talk about in details, we think they made it clear that at least for now, the only way to go is to continue as a four piece. No plans on adding a new member to the band are on the horizon.

THE FUTURE OF SP CREW
For many hardcore Simple Plan fans, it has been a sad few years after their official fanclub SP Crew, which used to offer some amazing perks such as soundchecks with the band, has stopped functioning. The band knows this is an important feature in the fandom and they told us it is on their to-do list to bring it back in some new form. The fans however need to be aware that when it is back, they must not expect it to be the same as it used to be, but the band is trying to come up with a concept that would work out both for the band and for the fans and offer them something worthwhile.

SNGA AND GYHO ON VINYL
We also raised the question about the possible release of the not-yet-released Simple Plan albums on vinyl – Still Not Getting Any and Get Your Heart On. The guys said that that is another thing that is in works and they are thinking about either releasing them either separately or perhaps even as a boxset.

MUSIC VIDEO FOR ‘ICONIC’ FEAT. JAX?
By asking the guys two seemingly unrelated questions, we might have actually made them spill the beans about a secret project. Judging by Chuck’s “secretive hints”, it looks like Simple Plan might be releasing a music video for the song ‘Iconic(which has been a hit on many radio stations at least in the Czech Republic for a while now) and that release might actually feature a collaboration with Jax, an American singer/songwriter, mostly popular for her viral song ‘Victoria’s Secret’. We can’t wait to find out more!

TOURING PLANS FOR 2024
A question we could not have not asked was about Simple Plan’s touring plans for the foreseeable future. According to Chuck and Jeff, the band still aims to visit places they haven’t been to after the pandemic – and that is Australia and South America. Besides that they also revealed to us that their plans include a European tour very early in the new year (2024).

NEW MUSIC ON THE HORIZON
It is not just touring that the guys have their minds set on, though. They still have some new songs left over from the recording session of Harder Than It Looks and they are trying to come up with ways how to release them – possibly similarly to their EP from 2013 that came out after Get Your Heart On with a few unreleased tracks.

25th ANNIVERSARY PLANS
During the interview, the boys have also mentioned that Simple Plan’s 25th anniversary is coming up in 2024, which deserves to be celebrated, so it is possible that some of the previously mentioned things – such as the vinyls or the EP might be tied to this special anniversary next year. And of course knowing Simple Plan, we can always expect a lot more exciting stuff!

You can check out the full video interview below (the audio quality isn’t the best, so make sure to turn on the English subtitles we’ve already provided!):


New SimplePlan.cz interview with Chuck Comeau from Prague

After 5 long years, Simple Plan have finally graced us with their presence here in the Czech Republic, when they performed alongside Sum 41 at a concert in Prague. A full report from the concert is of course to come, but we figured the first thing we really need to put out is the interview we filmed with Chuck Comeau on Simple Plan’s tourbus during the afternoon before the show in Prague.

In this interview Dominika (SimplePlan.cz) and Chuck discussed many subjects from the pandemic, becoming an independent band without a label and the behind the scenes of Simple Plan’s song-writing process.

Being over 37 minutes long, it is now SimplePlan.cz’s longest interview to date, so make sure you make time to watch it in full.

Big thank you goes to Coalition Music, Conspiracy Concerts, Danny Vance and of course Chuck Comeau for setting up this interview. Special thanks also goes to Viola for being the best camera girl.

We hope you’ll enjoy it & we can’t wait to hear your feedback in the YouTube comments:

And if you’re in a mood for more SimplePlan.cz interviews, check out all our previous ones we filmed with the band members here.

Simple Plan & Sum 41 discuss finally burying the hatchet between them

You may recall our article from 2010 which gathered quite a lot of attention back in the day and even got a response from a Sum 41 member back then. The article was called ‘Sum 41 against Simple Plan…once again’ and in it we dived into the issue of then known rivalry between these two Canadian bands and featured a compilation of some of the instances where the two pop-punk acts went head to head and each made fun of each other in various interviews. The most memorable one being the quote “I would probably rather eat a goat ball than watch “I’m Just A Kid” by Simple Plan” by Sum 41’s former drummer Stevo Jocz.

Today’s article about the two bands will be quite the opposite however. As we’ve seen from the release of Simple Plan’s latest single ‘Ruin My Life’ featuring Sum 41’s lead singer Deryck Whibley, the two bands have finally grown up and definitely buried the hatchet between them. In a very interesting brand new interview for Exclaim with Pierre, Chuck and Deryck, the three musicians discussed the rivalry from their point of view from the very beginning all the way to when they finally hugged it out. Like Canadians do.

In the interview, Chuck confessed that the rivalry probably started back when Simple Plan just started off as a band and besides being a drummer, he also did some contributed to music magazines with some album reviews and in 2000 he actually reviewed Sum 41’s album ‘Half Hour of Power’, giving it only 2,5 stars out of 5 [this review is actually still online – in you speak French, you can read it here]. And it looks like Sum 41 didn’t exactly rise above this review, especially it coming from a fellow Canadian band member and this is probably where the tension between the two bands officially began.

“I felt so bad, truthfully. I was really heartbroken, because at the time, Sum 41 came out maybe a year before us, and they were already doing well and they [were] just a tiny bit ahead of us in some ways, you know, like in their timeline, like their record came out maybe a year before ours, like their first EP. So I was really like, ‘Oh, my God, what did I just do? Like I can’t believe this. This is snowballing and becoming so big.’ And I felt guilty and bad for the rest of my bandmates, I was like, ‘Guys, I cannot believe this. This little thing, this side job I’m doing, has somehow caused all this.’ I just felt really really bummed about the whole situation.”

– Chuck Comeau [Exclaim interview] –

For many years after that, many not so nice words have been said from each band, usually poking fun at each other at shows and in interviews. This however finally ended in 2008 when the two Canadian acts met at the Much Music Video Awards, where they had dressing rooms right next to each other. And surprisingly it was the fore-mentioned former drummer Steve Jocz, who decided to make the first move and hug it out.

“Stevo walked by me in the hallway and I was like, ‘Oh shit, here we go,’ and he was like, ‘Hey, dude, I’m sorry for all the shit we’ve been talking for the last few years. It’s so fuckin’ dumb,’ And I was like, ‘Sweet, that’s how I feel!’ And we kinda hugged it out, and from there, we did a couple of shows together. We went out with Deryck and the boys and had some good times. We hung out backstage, and we buried the hatchet and all realized that it was an immature young little beef that really had no substance to it.”

– Pierre Bouvier [Exclaim interview] –

After years of childish rivalry, Sum 41 and Simple Plan are finally on the same page. According to Chuck, growing older and realizing that both bands have been around for so long, both going through struggles of the music industry but both still being relevant in their genres. It was just time to finally put the differences aside and as Chuck put it “do something cool together”. And that is how Ruin My Life came in the picture.

And how did Deryck Whibley feel about the collaboration?

“For me, it always comes down to the music. Pierre sent me the song and I thought it was great right off the bat. We talked a little bit about how our vocal ranges were a little different from each other on this song and that could be kind of a cool thing. I like the way it turned out.”

– Deryck Whibley [Exclaim interview] –

Simple Plan to release a new song as a title song to season 2 of the TV contest ‘The Fashion Hero’

‘The Fashion Hero’ is a TV contest, which first started in 2017 as a competition between unconventional models to see who will be the next face for a renowned brand’s advertising campaign. According to its executive producer and president, Caroline Bernier, “[The Fashion Hero’s] mission is to change the unhealthy and unrealistic standards of the fashion and beauty industry by bringing people who do not fit the traditional norms of the industry and giving them a chance to be selected by our international brands to model in one of their advertising campaigns.”

Season 2, which will be hosted by The Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean, is set to air in January 2022 and will be filmed in South Africa, where the final contestants, chosen from hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world, will compete in various disciplines and aim to win the competition.

In a brand new interview with Caroline Bernier, Pierre Bouvier has revealed that Simple Plan will in fact have a brand new song featured on the show as the title song and the band will also have a special Simple Plan challenge placed within the show.

We’re gonna be premiering a new song, an exciting song, which I can’t tell its title just yet but a song that I think fits perfectly with the message behind The Fashion Hero. […]

It’s a song about overcoming all obstacles and becoming something great and start believing yourself. And sort of trying to beat all the odds. And this is exactly what I think The Fashion Hero is all about.”

– Pierre Bouvier [in an interview for ‘The Fashion Hero’] –

According to Caroline Bernier, “the name of the song is what the contestants will hopefully hope for”, making us wonder what the actual title could possibly be. Any guesses?

Caroline also mentioned that this Sunday, the show is filming some promo with Chuck Comeau at his house.

As far as the release of the full song – it has not been confirmed whether the song will premiere prior to the release of the show or with its release, which is currently set to January 2022.

You can watch the full interview with Pierre here:

And to get a better look at what The Fashion Hero is actually about, you can check out the official trailer for the new season below:

Big thanks to Natalie for letting us know about this news.