During their rehearsals a couple weeks ago, the members of Simple Plan let a reporter from Radio Canada join them in their rehearsal space and talk to them about their new album, the changes that the music industry went through in the last decade and more. A very interesting part of the interview was when the reporter brought up the topic of the terrorist attack at the Bataclan venue in Paris, France that took place last November.

You may recall that Simple Plan were supposed to play in Paris just a couple days after the tragedy and were in fact supposed to be leaving the day after it happened, but canceled their plans after the security situation in France didn’t allow them to safely get there.

But according to this new Radio-Canada interview, David actually initially planned to get to Paris earlier and to attend the Eagles Of Death Metal concert at Bataclan on the tragic night. However, the members of SP had to attend the Simple Plan Foundation dinner with the auction winners that night, so he could not leave to Paris earlier. “It’s strange… life didn’t want me to be there,” said David (big thanks to Raph for the translation).

Below, you can watch the full French interview that is available on Radio-Canada along with some other quotes from the band members that appeared in the accompanying article.

“The band comes first. We all have to make small sacrifices here and there, and Taking One For The Team is a really symbolic thing in the sports terminology, where the important thing is that in the end, everything is done for the team to win.” – Seb Lefebvre

“Finding out who we want to be in 2016, after 17 years of career, having experienced different styles, with the musical context that is evolving and new artists doing new things, it took a long time.” – Chuck Comeau

“Fatherhood inspires me to be just right. It is an aspiration, I do not want to disappoint [my children], I do not want to stumble.” – Jeff Stinco

“It is sure that if you sell 3 million albums, it helps, but it has never been the biggest thing for us. Our shows are our trademark, and albums have often been our business cards.” – Pierre Bouvier

“We had many difficult times together, personally or professionally. I would say that these moments, because we got through them by supporting each other, make our relationship much deeper and more solid now. So we’re going to have fun doing it and people will have fun listening to us and come see us live, and we will continue for as long as possible.” – Chuck Comeau