Category Archives: media

Watch Chuck successfully defend the book ‘Homes’ on his first day as a panelist on Canada Reads!

Back in February we informed you that this year, Simple Plan’s drummer Chuck Comeau would become one of the five panelists of the annual Canadian book competition Canada Reads, in which each panelists chooses one Canadian book and then has to defend it in a series of debates. After each debate, one book is eliminated until only one book remains. This book is then billed as the book that all of Canada should read and the publisher of the winning book then donates a portion of sales proceeds from it to a charitable organization working in the field of literacy. Chuck will be defending his chosen book ‘Homes’ by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah and Winnie Yeung against the books chosen by his other panelists that include Yanic Truesdale (actor – Gilmore Girls), Lisa Ray (actress, model), Ziya Tong (TV personality) and Joe Zee (fashion stylist).

Ahead of the series of debates, Chuck got to discuss his chosen book ‘Homes’ directly with its authors Abu Bakr al Rabeeah and Winnie Yeung and all of that was captured on the following video. Have a look to get an idea of what the book is about and see Chuck’s view on it through a series of questions and answers in this interesting interview, in which we can see Chuck on the opposite side of the interview chair for once:

Today, Chuck was in Toronto to take part in Day 1 of the official Canada Reads debates, which were streamed live across many platforms this morning local time. Great news is that Chuck’s chosen book ‘Homes’ made it safely past the first day, which means Chuck will keep on defending ‘Homes’ in tomorrow’s debate again. Below, you can check out his debating skills in the replay of the livestream of Day 1 of Canada Reads.

And we’re still not finished with Canada Reads news! One of the promotional videos filmed with the panelists in advance of the big Canada Reads week featured the quintet playing a ‘book jenga’ and answering some interesting literature-related questions. Check out the video below to find out what Chuck’s favorite word in any language, how he would sum up his chosen book in just one word or what the importance of literature is today to him:

“Get ready for a sick record!” – Chuck and Travis Clark share their excitement over songwriting process for new album

After Pierre took over social media recently with his utter excitement of the current songwriting process, Chuck decided to join him and shared his thoughts on the progress on his own Instagram yesterday. Travis Clark, the lead singer of We The Kings, who joined Simple Plan’s songwriting duo again this week to help with the writing process, then left a comment on Chuck’s Instagram post, letting the fans know that they should get ready for a really “sick record”!

Check out both of the musicians’ posts below:

“Back at it writing songs for album 6! Another great week with the amazing Travis Clark and the equally awesome Pierre Bouvier.

So stoked on what we are coming up with and so grateful I have the opportunity to be creative with such talented people. 🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

Also extremely thankful to all of you for still giving us the chance to make new music after 20 years as a band. I realize more than ever what a privilege that is and I want you all to know that we don’t take it for granted. We’re gonna make an incredible album for you and are pouring our hearts and souls into it. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻”

– Chuck Comeau –

“Haha it’s insane how great these songs as well as the ones that I didn’t have any part of have come out!!! You guys have a SICK record! Dear fans, get ready.

– Travis Clark –

To keep track of Simple Plan’s progress on their new album and make sure you don’t miss any important news about it, keep checking our special section about the 6th album for everything we know about it so far!

“New record is going to be phenomenal!” – Pierre dishes on songwriting progress & asks fans for their input

Simple Plan are currently in the process of writing songs for their upcoming 6th album and as it turns out – the results so far are incredibly promising – to use Pierre’s own words: phenomenal!

Today, while heading over to Chuck’s house for yet another songwriting session, Simple Plan’s lead singer Pierre Bouvier decided to record a couple of Instagram Stories, in which he shared how excited he was about his and Chuck’s progress with the songs so far.

But that was not all! Pierre also took this opportunity to ask YOU – the fans, how they felt about Simple Plan music and what types of songs they would be most excited to hear on the new album.

Check out exactly what Pierre said in his stories below and also make sure to message him on Instagram with your own opinion. As you can see, we already did:

“Hey, what’s up Insta-friends!

I’m on my way right now to Chuck’s house to go work on some more songs. But I just wanted to give you an update: everything is going so well – the new record is going to be phenomenal! Phe-no-me-nal!

I just finished up a couple of demos over the last few days… and seriously – I am psyched! There’s like 4, 5 songs that I think might be the best we’ve ever written. Fans are gonna love it, people that don’t know us are gonna love it, toddlers, grandparents, people of all races from all over the world are gonna love this record, I’m telling you. It’s really good. So, we need a few more songs, going in there today at Chuck’s house and we’re gonna rock out some more. Yeah, baby!

But I’m also kinda curious to know from you guys, from the fans out there: What do you look for to the most on this next record? And let me be more specific: I mean, do you prefer fast, punky stuff – sort of like Thank You or Time To Say Goodbye, or like Farewell type? Or do you prefer more mid-tempo-y stuff like Welcome To My Life, I’m Just A Kid, or like Jet Lag? Or do you prefer the slower, more emo, emotional stuff like Perfect or This Song Saved My Life or what else, like Save You.. What’s your favorite? Or not what’s your favorite but more like what style speaks to you the most when we make our albums, cause you know, our albums have all kinds of different styles. So yeah, or maybe you prefer the more modern approach to pop-punk that I feel is like Boom, or more poppy stuff like Summer Paradise? Tell me what you like! Send me a message! I wanna hear it.

Oh yeah and there’s also another style that my friend Dominika reminded me: like I Refuse, the darker stuff. Like Me Against The World, I Refuse and Last One Standing. Do you like that better? Or do you like all of it? What’s up?”

– Pierre Bouvier –

Sebastien discusses his family life & new SP music on The Rockstar Dad podcast with the members of Bowling For Soup

Jaret Reddick and Gary Wiseman, two members of the American band Bowling For Soup recently had Sebastien from Simple Plan on their podcast The Rockstar Dad, in which they like to discuss the highs and low of being a parents.

In this episode, which was already released at the end of October, the BFS duo talked to Seb about how he handles being a rockstar and a Dad at the same time. Sebastien revealed many insights into his own personal life which he shares with his wife and a 4-year-old daughter Clara and also was asked about his band’s upcoming music plans. Sebastien noted that Simple Plan are currently writing new songs and hopefully they might have some new music (perhaps a single) out early next year and the full album then whenever they have enough songs to actually put one together.

Check out the full episode 7 of The Rockstar Dad podcast to find out more about Seb either on the Idobi website or right here:

Mike Herrera interviews Pierre: reveals SP are writing songs with former Neck Deep member and much more!

Mike Herrera, the lead singer and bassist of MXPX, released a brand new episode of his podcast the Mike Herrera Podcast today, which features a very in-depth interview with Pierre Bouvier.

This interview, which I wholeheartedly recommend listening to in full, reveals a number of interesting stories and insights into the life of Simple Plan’s lead singer. First and foremost, it partially serves as a promo for MXPX’s new upcoming Christmas song, which is to be released tomorrow (Friday, November 29th), and will be featuring Pierre Bouvier and singer Emily Whitehurst.

In the interview, the two musicians discussed a number of issues including the way Simple Plan approach the song-writing process. Here, Pierre confirmed that him and Chuck have already begun writing – not only separately but also together with outside song-writers, naming Fil Thorpe-Evans, the recently departed member of the pop-punk band Neck Deep, as one of their current collaborators:

“So I’ve been writing for the last few months but a little slowly, kinda here and there. And Chuck and I like to get together to do some sessions with some outside writers just to throw some ideas around, you know… cause we’ve been writing together for so long, it gets… sometimes you just kinda get like yeah, I can write a song, but it would be nice to have someone to be like: ‘’Yeah, this is cool.. or think about this or…’ So we have a couple sessions in LA, we’ve been doing that for the last few albums.

So we do some of that on our own, we do some of it with some people… So I’m up here for a session with a guy from… you know the band Neck Deep? So the guitar player, Fil, I guess left the band and became a producer/writer so we’re writing a song with him right now and another guy that works at the Madden company… And then yeah, so we’re doing that. We kinda like sprinkle out the writing process with a few writing sessions, so we do like – I’ll be at home, at a studio home.. not like a studio but like a guest house where I do my studio stuff and I write, write, write and I get together with some people and I throw some ideas around, go back and work on it again. So, it’s a fun little process.”

– Pierre Bouvier –

Here, Pierre also mentioned that one of the things he’s been struggling with all his career is the awkwardness of writing songs with outside song-writers because of how vulnerable it feels to open up in this way to someone you (often) do not really know.

As far as song-writing for the new record goes, Pierre noted that he thinks him and Chuck will be in the song-writing phase probably until spring of next year. This means that the earliest we could expect Simple Plan to return to the studio to record the new album is summer 2019.

Besides that, in this interview Mike also shared his deep appreciation of Simple Plan mentioning MXPX in their early song Grow Up and their constant devotion to his band, revealing that in a way this also inspired him to return the favor by referencing Simple Plan on MXPX’s own new album in the song ‘The Way We Do’. We also learned in this interview that the tour that MXPX refer to regarding Simple Plan in the lyrics of this song, was not in fact a tour of MXPX with Simple Plan but with Reset. Pierre noted that it was the exact tour that by its end resulted in the big fall-out between him and Chuck and it became the catalyst of the eventual foundation of Simple Plan.

If you have about an hour to spare, definitely give this interview a listen to learn more about Pierre’s view of the music industry, which is wrapped nicely in a very smooth conversation between these two musicians: