August 5th 2016 marked the 10th anniversary of Sebastien’s and Patrick’s radio show Man of The Hour on Idobi radio. To celebrate the show that has brought us hundreds of songs and countless stories over the past 10 years thanks to its great two hosts, SimplePlan.cz has decided to talk to Sebastien Lefebvre a bit about this side project of his.
Check out our full interview below:
Man Of The Hour has recently celebrated 10 years on air. Do you feel like in those 10 years you’ve become better radio hosts? Has anything changed in the way you two work together since the beginnings in 2006?
Seb: Well, i sure hope so! I think when the show first started, it was only about getting together and seeing what happened… Now we get prepared. We make sure to try to remember to talk about stories or things we think our listeners will be interested in. But the essence of Patrick and i catching up is unrehearsed. As he is not on tour with the band anymore, and we are both busy when I get back to town, we really use the show to hang out and spend a bit of time together.
Do you discuss the topics you talk about on the show before you start recording or do you each just have a list of topics the other doesn’t know about? How much spontaneity is in the show?
Seb: Even if we do take notes now, we basically only briefly say hi to each other when Patrick gets to the studio to make sure we keep some of that spontaneity. I don’t really know what Pat will bring to the table until he spits it out.
During the past 10 years, you two have told countless of stories on air – some about your personal lives, some about your work lives. Has there ever been a moment when you told a story on the show, which would later come back to haunt you and you regretted ever talking about it?
Seb: This has never happened to me. I think that with the show, the tone we take dictates the way a story will be perceived. Even if I’ve said something not as nice about someone, you can tell we are most of the time joking. ELE. We stay away from the major issues that could upset some people.
Obviously, when Man Of The Hour started as a radio show, both of you have been also 100% involved with Simple Plan, which hasn’t changed for Sebastien, but it has for Patrick since then. I would assume that most of the listeners in the early beginnings were purely Simple Plan fans, who saw this as a great opportunity to get more of “Simple Plan” in their lives by listening to the band’s guitar player and its “sixth member”. But do you think you’ve managed to attract other than Simple Plan fans over the course of the past 10 years?
Seb: I believe we have. IDOBI radio got bigger since the beginning of the show, and I think a lot of people enjoy the show for the music we play. It’s a great way to discover new music. But it’s definitely our personalities that keep them coming back.
Over the years, I’ve been told by many fans that they’ve discovered tons of new bands and artists through listening to Man Of The Hour. Do you think that your personal music library would have been way poorer had it not been for the show?
Seb: For sure. When I look for songs to play, it’s basically music trolling. But a lot of our playlist come from the IDOBI playlist. This station is a good way to discover new music.
Can you tell us what the current audience of Man Of The Hour looks like? How many listeners do you get per episode? Do you know which country people listen in the most?
Seb: Radio is a medium that makes it very difficult for us to know what our listeners look like since it’s basically only audio. We get close to 200 000 listeners per episode, and mostly around Canada and USA. But we know we have a strong following in Europe. People stay up very late to catch the show on Wednesdays. And in Asia and Australia, it’s a morning show. A lot of listeners catch the reruns as well.
You both have your careers based on your voices – whether it’s singing, giving interviews or hosting on TV and radio. Have you ever suffered from hating how your voice sounds on a recording, as do so many other people?
Seb: I think if that ever happened, it was a long time ago and we both quickly got over it as this is what we wanted to do.
And finally, what’s next for Man Of The Hour with Sebastien heading back on tour soon? Any MOTH specials we can look forward to?
Seb: We just keep going! Season 20 is almost over. And 21 is just around the corner. As far as specials… Every episode is a special moment for me.
Big thanks to Sebastien and Idobi radio for taking the time to do the interview. Make sure to check out Man Of The Hour every Wednesday evening at 8pm EST on Idobi – or the re-runs, which air every Sunday at 3pm EST. If you’d like to listen to MOTH any time, you can also download all the past podcasts on ManOfTheHour.ca.
