With how much the guys are travelling, it definitely can’t be the easiest thing to keep any relationships – with friends, family or girlfriends – working. The Canadian fashion magazine Flare sat down with Pierre right after he got back from his tour across Asia, to talk about touring, Canada and making long-distance relationships work.

You can read the interview below and also make sure to check out Pierre’s new photoshoot for the Flare magazine in the gallery.

You’ve toured all over the world. What can you only get in Canada that you look forward to?
Poutine and a good smoked meat sandwich.

Are Canadians the same across the country?
There are a few differences here and there but Canadians all have one thing in common: we’re very friendly people. It’s so easy to strike up a conversation with a stranger and end up becoming friends.

How do you pass the time when travelling?
We watch a lot of TV. I love Suits, Boardwalk Empire, American Dad and Bored to Death amongst others. It’s a great way to pass the time on those long flights and boring bus rides.

How do you maintain your relationship when you’re on tour?
Being in a relationship definitely comes with its challenges but it’s not too hard when you’re with someone who’s strong and smart and when you’re truly in love. It’s nice to have someone to talk to when times are tough on tour and coming back home is the best feeling when you know you have an amazing person waiting for you. If anything, it makes touring easier. I also believe that being apart sometimes reminds you how much you care and can’t be without the other, so in a weird way it can help a relationship.

Simple Plan do not only help people with their songs, but for 6 years now they have helped various organizations and thousands of people by establishing the Simple Plan Foudation, which helps to raise funds to support charitable organisations who’s goal is to help mainly troubled young people.

In the February issue of the Alternative Press magazine, (thanks SPB for the scan) you can find a whole article written by Chuck Comeau himself about the Simple Plan Foundation and what exactly it means to the members of Simple Plan, how it’s been established and what it has achieved in the past 6 years. I definitely recommend reading it. You can find the whole article here.

Simple Plan are having a marvellous time on their current tour across Asia and while the guys are kicking off the Japanese leg of the tour, let’s get back to the previous shows a bit and talk about the interviews the guys have made in the recent days.

You may have noticed I do not post many Simple Plan interviews here on SimplePlan.cz and rather focus on other stuff. One of the reasons why is that (as I’ve mentioned in my own interview with Simple Plan), the questions the reporters are asking the band just keep repeating themselves and therefore if you’re that kind of a fan who likes to keep track of all the interviews, after a while most of them start to seem repetitive and pointless.

So, instead, what I’m trying to do, is to show you those interviews that actually posess that certain spark that makes an interview either really good… or really bad – yes, I do believe even the slightly worse interviews tend to have a little spark and hilarity hidden somewhere deep inside (e.g. the legendary interview from Russia). :). As an exhibit A, feel free to compare the following two, which were done with Chuck and Sebastien in the last couple of days:

To show their appreciation for the fact that the fans managed to get all their names to the Trending Topics on Twitter in the last couple of days, including a few other Simple Plan related topics, the guys recorded a new short video. Check it out below:

From past experience I can honestly say that no other weekend has been this crazy for the SP fans, as this one – and I dare say most importantly because of this Saturday, January 14th 2012, it will go down in Simple Plan’s history. This time though not because of some great thing the guys have achieved or some kick-ass show they just played. No, this time it was all in the hands of the fans themselves. Simple Plan fans managed something they have never before: to completely take over Twitter and its Trending Topics.

If you’re a social network newbie, or just try to stay away from Twitter as much as possible, here’s the deal: Trending Topics is sort of a system that Twitter uses to find out (and show to its users) the 10 topics, that people talk about the most in real time on this network – that means it shows the most popular topics on Twitter. And due to the fact that these 10 Trending Topics are shown to all the Twitter users, it is a very neat and interesting way of promotion.

And what exactly did the fans manage to “trend”? For some unknown reason, without any massive call to arms, “Pierre Bouvier”, started trending. And that started it all. When the fans managed to get the name “Chuck Comeau” up on the TT list as well, they were certain they must put the rest of the band up as well. So, shortly after that, you could spot “Seb Lefebvre”, then “David Desrosiers” and “Jeff Stinco” among the worldwide Trending Topics. But the fans were far from the end of this take-over. Even though he is not with SP as much as he used to, most fans still consider him to be the “6th member of Simple Plan” – and that’s why “Patrick Langlois” was the next thing to trend. The fans wrapped up this Saturday craziness with “Astronauts Love Simple Plan” and “Brazil Miss Simple Plan”, to show the whole world, who’s fans were on fire that day.

And how did the band react to these news? Because this was the first time ever (if we’re not counting some birthday hashtags from a year ago) that the members’ names got to be on the TT list, they were absolutely mind-blowned. This is how Pierre reacted (after being told by Chuck): “I’m a trending topic!! How awesome! Our fans rule!! Pierre Bouvier is the coolest!!! This might be one of the highlights of my life… HAHAH!”.

According to Chuck’s reaction when he appeared on TT, he was pretty surprised too: “You’re joking! Now i’m trending worldwide!! Wow! 1st time ever! SP fans are INSANE today! Thank you so much! You guys rock!”, soon adding: “I’m sitting in my hotel room in KL and I can’t believe how powerful the SP Family and the SP Astronauts can be. I’m blown away! Thank you! Must a LOT of people looking at the trending topics and asking themselves: who the hell is Chuck Comeau? LOL. Love it! Thank you, SPfamily”, and finally: “Well SP fans…you made Chuck Comeau very happy tonight. I love you guys!”

Sebastien expressed his ecstasy with a tweet saying: “Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooo YEAH!!!!!!” and then of course when Jeff found out, he sent this beautiful message to his fans: “Wow! I just saw that I’m trending worldwide….you guys are the most crazy, sick, amazing, incredible, wonderful, brilliant fans in the world! I don’t even know what to write you guys, I’m so touched. Everything I think of sounds showoff-y or plain stupid so i’ll stick to: thank you! I’m an Astronaut too. Let’s say it how it really is: Simple Plan just has the best fans in the world. You guys are the reason why we’ve been at it for so long.”

And we can’t forget about Patrick’s reaction, who definitely didn’t expect a thing: “Just woke up from a nap and I see that I was trending worldwide! That’s crazy!! I guess I should nap more often!”

I still have no idea what exactly happened yesterday and what caused all this awesomeness, but the fans have definitely proved how strong they can be, when they join their forces. They proved it today also, when “Simple Plan Saved My Life” has topped the worldwide Trending Topics for hours. And what will trend next? Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook and it case something goes on, you’ll be the first to know.

After a long flight, all members of Simple Plan finally arrived to China yesterday, where they are kicking off their Asian tour with a concert in Beijing today. This tour is sort of a way to make it up to all the fans whose shows have been cancelled last summer because of Pierre’s medical condition. And even though their flight wasn’t as troubleless as they wished(the airlines managed to lose their baggage, and it looks like the only one whose suitcase didn’t get lost was Pierre, so Chuck naturally already managed to tell the world about whose underwear he is wearing today), the guys made is with a slight delay to their hotel at 9pm, where tons of Chinese fans greeted them with lots of cheer on their own welcome party, along with the singer Kelly Cha, who will be singing Jet Lag with Simple Plan later today.

During this party, Simple Plan were asked many questions, both from the fans and also from the reporters. And one of the most interesting information that the guys revelaed there is definitely the fact that the band wants to release their new DVD this year, as well as some sort of an EP, which the members described as “although not a complete album” but that the fans will love it just as much. Could this be a collection of unreleased tracks from the new album? What do you think?

Make sure to check out the gallery for the pictures from last night and below you can also watch a few videos from the party: