If there’s one thing you can rely on, it’s that every December towards its end, SimplePlan.cz will come up with another recap of the year, and obviously, 2019 is not an exception. Just like for the past 11 years, in this year’s recap we would like to summarize everything important or interesting that has happened over the course of the year in the world of Simple Plan news.
And while you can certainly check out the whole past decade of SP news in our previous recaps [Check them out over here: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018], let’s go ahead and have a look at everything that happened in 2019!
January started on a high note when David Desrosiers reappeared on social media after quite a long break, wishing all Simple Plan fans a happy new year and also giving them a bit of hope in his eventual return by saying he’s looking forward to the new SP album. In fact, all of January was then revolving around the upcoming 6th Simple Plan record with Pierre and Chuck hard at work writing new songs (often with Travis Clark from We The Kings) and even asking for the fans’ input. On the contrary in February, Pierre and Chuck decided to explore also some other interesting music ventures and while Chuck appeared as a guest DJ at Emo Nite, Pierre went on to create music for others – he was featured on DJ Domeno’s song ‘Alleys’ and also helped break a couple of world records at the videoshoot for YouTuber Elton Castee, in who’s song ‘The Fun In Life’ he was also featured on.
In the beginning of March, Jeff set off to South Africa with his girlfriend and two daughters, where the family filmed a documentary about sustainable tourism and learn a lot about the African culture in the days they spent there. Just like the previous years, this year Simple Plan also didn’t say no to yet another appearance at 
Walt Disney World in Florida, where they appeared mid-March for a couple of days, playing 3 sets a day. Many fans there were surprised to hear a live version of ‘Vacation’, a very rare song for SP to perform live. Shortly after their time at Disney, Chuck returned to Canada, where he had the honor to be one of the panelists of the Canada Reads contest, defending a book called ‘Homes’ by Abu Bakr Al-Rabeeah and Winnie Yeung, a true refugee story told by a teenager. Chuck did very well defending the book and eventually placed second in the competition.
Even though the guys still continued working on new songs in May, it was slowly time to wrap things up and head over to the United Kingdom for a couple of first big performances of the year – Simple Plan made their first appearance 
at Slam Dunk Festival in Leeds and Hatfield. The most exciting thing about the beginning of summer though (and perhaps of all of 2019), was David Desrosiers’ return to the band after 3 years of absence due to fighting depression and looking after his mental health. David returned to the band at the first of three stops of the 25th anniversary Warped Tour shows.
In July, Simple Plan had the honor to open for Blink-182 in Toronto, Canada and also finished off the final third 25th anniversary Warped Tour show that month. After that it was time to get back on track and focus on the new album again. And so they did and at the end of July, all five members of Simple Plan entered the recording studio in California in order to start recording their upcoming 6th album, where they stayed pretty much until September. In the meantime, SimplePlan.cz celebrated 12 years online in August.
In September, it was revealed by Pierre that Simple Plan’s record deal with Atlantic Records is officially done and they are “free agents” now. After spending some more time in the studio in September, the guys released first new music in years in the form of a song called ‘Where I Belong’, which also features the members of State Champs and We The Kings. The song was released just ahead of the co-headlining U.S. tour of Simple Plan and State Champs, where We The Kings were brought in as the support act. The tour kicked off at the end of October and continued throughout most of November.
During the tour with State Champs, Simple Plan also filmed the music video for ‘Where I Belong’, where they could not NOT feature the members of the other bands as well. The video was finally released just in time for Christmas. After the end of the 
State Champs tour, the guys took a few days off before heading out on another short tour – this time to Australia, where they were invited to play at the Good Things Festival and while at it, also performed at a number of additional sideshows as well. While down under, Pierre also took the opportunity to attend the Simple Creatures’ DJ set in Melbourne, where he ended up joining Alex Gaskarth and Mark Hoppus in singing ‘I’d Do Anything’ live on stage – it being the very first time Mark Hoppus was involved in a live version of this track, which he was originally featured on.
Obviously the biggest thing about 2020 in the world of Simple Plan will be their new album. In January, the boys are planning to record the final 4 songs for the album and according to Pierre, they have to be done with it by the time they head out on the Bowling For Soup tour in the UK, which starts in the beginning of February.
After that, of course, while the album is going through post-production, the boys should be preparing all the stuff for its release, including the photoshoot for the album cover and most importantly: coming up with the title for the record. According to Chuck, the release date is planned for either spring or summer of 2020 and we are obviously expecting to hear some new music before that. With that also comes the question of whether Simple Plan will sign a new record contract or whether they will remain an unsigned band for the next album. Hopefully the near future should answer this question for us.
Besides the album, there’s lots of new tours coming up in 2020 and we’re absolutely stoked to see who Simple Plan will bring with them. According to their recent live webchat on Instagram, the guys would like to bring the ‘Where I Belong’ tour to more countries, which could mean that we might see Simple Plan touring with State Champs and We The Kings again in the future. But also, the guys would also like to bring more known acts with them on tour because they feel like it’s what the fans want.
Overall, next year is gonna be a blast and we can’t wait to bring you all the details on the next record and more!
Stay tuned for more news!
