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):

As a part of the celebrations of this year’s 41st Juno Awards in Canada, many art-related events will be taking place the week before the Juno Awards ceremony. One of these events is a special audio guided tour of the National Gallery of Canada, during which the visitors of the gallery can for $6 get a player with audio recordings from eight chosen Canadian musicians (those who in the past either won or were nominated for Juno Awards), which will be including their personal comments on pieces of art of their choosing – those, which have the most special meaning to them.

The forementioned eight personalities – Classified, Holleado, Kellylee Evans, Lynn Miles, Mighty Popo, Gabriel Malenfant (Radio Radio), Shad and also Chuck Comeau from Simple Plan – are currently in the process of visiting the gallery and choosing their pieces of art.

A series of videos featuring their comments will be published online on March 26th 2012.

This whole event is being organised by the Juno Awards and CARAS (The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences).

A press conference for the upcoming Juno Awards took place today in Ottawa, Canada and the members of Simple Plan were there to help with a special announcement – all that despite the fact that they weren’t nominated for any category at Juno Awards this year. Have no worries though – it seems like Simple Plan will be getting an award at the Juno Awards after all. A very valuable one.

It has been revealed on the press conference that Simple Plan will be in fact the recipients of 2012′s Allan Waters Humanitarian Award, which is annually given to that Canadian artist, whose humanitarian contributions have positively enhanced the social fabric of Canada that year.

Simple Plan will be receiving this award because of the foundation they started in 2005 – the Simple Plan Foundation, which helps young people in need and through which Simple Plan try to inspire people to pursue their dreams. According to Lynn Saxberg, Canadian music writer, Simple Plan are the youngest Humanitarian Award winners in the history of this award. Previous recipients of this award were for example Neil Young and Bryan Adams.

“Words cannot express how grateful we are to be the recipients of this award,” said Simple Plan’s drummer Chuck Comeau. “To be recognized by CARAS and the JUNO Awards is a true honour for us. As a band we have been very fortunate to receive the constant support of our fans, which has allowed us to continue doing what we love for the last ten years. Because of that, we believe that it is extremely important for us to give back, and the Simple Plan Foundation is our way to do this. We are very proud of all of our Foundation’s initiatives — they have helped to define us as a band and have become a large part of who we are. There is no question that the Simple Plan Foundation will continue to grow and that we will be able to help our communities for many years to come.”

“We are thrilled to be recognizing Simple Plan’s charitable achievements and dedication to youth welfare with this honour. Their ongoing commitment to philanthropy and their Foundation is tremendous, and we salute them for all of their exceptional work,” Melanie Berry, the Juno Awards’ president and CEO, said about Simple Plan.

Juno Awards will be taking place on April 1st 2012 but according to the press release, the members of Simple Plan will be receiving this award the day before, on March 31st at the 2012 JUNO Gala Dinner & Awards in Ottawa, Canada.

It was announced that Simple Plan will be attending the “Fan Fare” on March 31st during the Juno week at St. Laurent Mall, Ottawa.

Make sure to check out the first pictures from the press conference in the gallery.

Congratulations Simple Plan! The award was very well-deserved!

Last spring, Pierre Bouver from Simple Plan became one of the three judges of the Canadian singing competition called Canada Sings – along with Jann Adren and Vanilla Ice. The recording of the show took place in March, and the show itself aired in August.

Unfortunately, this year’s 2nd season of this competition will have to make it without Pierre. According to the spokesperson, Pierre could not be in the upcoming instalment due to a scheduling conflict. Of course – the band is currently promoting their new record on tour and their schedule in spring is completely full of concerts in Europe.

Pierre will be replaced with a Toronto choreographer Laurieann Gibson.

Today, Chuck teased his fans on Twitter with a very mysterious new message, saying: “This morning Pierre Bouvier and I had to get up at 5:30am to Skype with a secret guest from a secret location for a secret project.”

So, the biggest question now is: what exactly are the Simple Plan guys up to?

Judging by the fact the guys had to get up super-early for the Skype call, we can assume that the mysterious guest probably isn’t from anywhere near their time-zone, which leaves us with Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. Could this be about some possible new collaboration? Or something about the upcoming EP or DVD? Or perhaps even some secret show somewhere on the Earth?

Let’s hope we’ll get all these questions answered soon. What are your guesses?

Upadate: (Feb 5th 2012)

Pierre also mentioned the secret project in one of his tweets from last night, when he wrote: “Working on 2 exciting projects right now!!! Both of which I can’t speak of just yet… Fun stuff! Can’t wait to fill you all in!”

So it looks like we not only have one, but two secret projects that the guys are working on and we can look forward to. Let us know about YOUR ideas on what these secret projects could be about!

At tonight’s annual NRJ Awards in Cannes, France, Simple Plan and Marie-Mai won in the category “Francophone duo/band of the year” for their collaboration on the French version of the song Jet Lag that is featured on Simple Plan’s latest album “Get Your Heart On!”! On behalf of the whole band, Pierre, David and Marie-Mai accepted the award. Immediately after the win, Pierre tweeted: “We won!!!! SP fans you’re the best. Love you so much!” Below you can check out the first pictures of Pierre and David posing alongside Marie-Mai with their brand new NRJ Music Award:

It is important to add that Simple Plan have only been nominated to an NRJ Music Award once before – in 2007 – but only the 2012′s award is their first official win.

Below you can check out Simple Plan’s acceptance speech (in French):