Category Archives: media

Simple Plan among AP’s TOP 10 most influential pop punk bands

In their latest article, Alternative Press, one of the most respected music magazines of the alternative music scene, named the TOP 10 most influential pop punk bands, which shaped today’s pop punk other other styles of music. It surely was very hard to narrow down all the incredible pop punk acts into a list of only 10, but still, the writers of Alternative Press couldn’t forget to include Simple Plan, who have been one of the most persistent bands on this scene for over 17 years (14 years, if we could from the year of their debut album’s release).

Check out Alternative Press’ reasoning for including Simple Plan in the list that also features Sum 41, MXPX, Blink 182, Green Day, Good Charlotte, Jimmy Eat World, New Found Glory, Yellowcard and Fall Out Boy:

Simple Plan

“These Canadian natives hit the scene hard with their debut, No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls. While the album titles have gotten a tad more mature, their music still sounds made for every summer vacation. And now, 14 years into their career, they’re collabing with…Nelly? Yeah, you read that right. Just goes to show Simple Plan aren’t afraid to take risks and still keep coming out with awesome pop-influence albums.”

Pierre about a concert experience that changed his life

According to SPB, a short piece written by Pierre Bouvier from Simple Plan was featured in the Kerrang magazine recently. In this article, Pierre reminisces about the first concert that influenced his following career and made him truly want to be in a band.

Check out Pierre’s memories on the NOFX / Face To Face / Ten Foot Pole / Trigger Happy show that took place in Montreal in 1994 below:

NOFX, Face to Face, Ten Foot Pole, Trigger Happy
The Spectrum – Montreal (November, 15 1994)

This was the first show I ever saw that had a real impact on me. I was 15 years old and I knew how to play guitar a sing a little, but I had never seen a true rock show. I’d just started a band with Chuck Comeau about a year before, and both of us were obsessed with the SoCal punk scene, which was huge in Montreal at the time.

The show was sold-out, and as soon as the first note was played by the opening band, Trigger Happy, the crowd went insane. It was like a gigantic steam room in there, with people moshing and stage-diving nonstop for hours – it was like nothing I had ever seen before. I spent some time in the mosh-pit getting smashed around, but I soon realised that what I really wanted was to be up on that stage. The music the bands were playing was amazing, and the energy coming off these guys onstage was palpable! I knew right then and there that this was what I wanted to do more than anything. I watched and listened to all the bands attentively and studied their moves and banter.

It felt like I had finally found where I belonged. I remember whe the show was finally over, I bought an oversized, mustard yellow Ten Foot Pole t-shirt and a few CDs. From there on out, all I wanted to do was listen to music, play in our band and somehow find a way to do this for a living.

Simple Plan progressing on Czech charts

Even though almost two months have passed since the Prague show, Simple Plan have not lost their popularity in Czech media since then. For instance, the song ‘Opinion Overload’, although not an official single from the Taking One For The Team album, the song has been going strong in the TOP 20 MODERN ROCK chart of the Czech branch of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). This particular chart documents the 20 most played rock songs on Czech radios every week.

As you can see from the table below, ‘Opinion Overload’ can currently pride itself with the highest position (#14) of this song on this chart ever since it reached the TOP 20:

Song Chart This week Last week Two weeks ago
Opinion Overload
IFPI: TOP 20 Modern Rock
#14
#18
#20

However it is their second single off their new record – Singing In The Rain, for which the band recently released a music video, that Simple Plan are counting on the most. And it is precisely the video and single for ‘Singing In The Rain’ that the Czech music website MusicServer reviewed very positively today – giving it 8/10. While the article admits that the song is definitely a very pop material, it describes it as a “well-written [song] that definitely stays in your head after first listen and makes one wanna tap their feet and immediately start singing along.” Along with that, MusicServer also marked the song as the next big summer hit, which is definitely a very good news!

And while radios over here in the Czech Republic are still only very slowly putting ‘Singing In The Rain’ on, as you already know from one of my previous articles, the Czech music television TV ÓČKO has been airing the music video for a couple days now. This week, the clip has also finally been added as a new addition (N1) to the Óčko chart, where starting today, you can start voting for it! In the past, the fans of Simple Plan have been known on this station to have extremely good voting skills, so let’s not disappoint this time and let’s move SP to the top of the chart! You can vote until Tuesday – just go on the chart’s website, scroll down to N1 and click on the link next to the title of the song.

Medium Type of media Song Current position Voting link
Óčko TV
Czech music TV station
Singing In The Rain
new addition N1
[week zero]
Óčko chart

‘Singing In The Rain’ single now available for requests on radios

Simple Plan’s new single ‘Singing In The Rain’, who’s music video has been out for over a week now has officially been sent out to radios this week. What that means is that you can now start requesting this song to be played at your local radio stations and help it become a hit and consequently even help bring Simple Plan to your country. The maths is easy: more spins equals more popularity, which also means a better chance for Simple Plan to set up a concert in that area.

You can request ‘Singing In The Rain’ in a number of ways:

1) First, check out your local radio station’s website – some radios have special request forms on their websites, inviting their listeners to send in song requests, which may be played on air throughout the day.

2) Secondly, you can also hit up your radio station on social media and let them know which song you would like to hear them play – try Facebook and Twitter for this option.

3) And finally, a good-old phone call is the third way how you can have your radio station play the new Simple Plan single – wait for the segments, where radio DJs ask their listeners to call in with song-requests and go and try to have them play ‘Singing In The Rain’ for your loved ones!

And it’s not just the single taking over the media – the music video for ‘Singing In The Rain’ is also slowly making its way to music channels. The Czech TV Óčko, for instance, has already started playing it during the day [see the image Eliška took during today’s broadcast!]. It is expected that the video should be put up in the Óčko chart (a weekly music video chart fans can vote on) very soon.

VIDEO: Simple Plan on Japanese TV

A new video featuring a short interview with Pierre and Seb from Japan has just appeared online. In the interview, the Simple Plan band members can be seen discussing their love for Japan, while expressing their astonishment that smoking indoors is still not banned in Japan.

Check out the video below: