With David being absent at the most recent tours, it has been quite a while since the last time we’ve seen a picture of him published on Simple Plan’s social media channels. Chady Awad, Simple Plan’s photographer however stepped out yesterday and published a never-seen-before picture probably from some of David’s last appearances on tour with SP last year.
You can now also check out this beautiful picture in our gallery:
In a fairly surprising and very rare Instagram post, David Desrosiers return to the world of social media last night to wish everyone merry Christmas via a short video of his fireplace. In the video, we can hear David wish everyone merry Christmas both in English and in French.
So if you’ve missing hearing David’s voice, definitely don’t miss out on the following video:
Earlier this year, the Simple Plan fans have first learned the reasoning behind the band’s bassist’s absence on previous tours and his continuous absence since May of this year – David Desrosiers publicly opened up about his struggles with depression, a very serious mental illness he’s been fighting for many years now. In order to focus on his own mental health and getting better, David has not appeared on stage with Simple Plan ever since their first U.S. tour this year (April 2017).
Over the course of this year, the band has fully supported their friend David in his decision to not join the band on tour but instead stay at home and work on getting better. With David’s blessing, the band continued to tour for the rest of the year, always making sure to mention David at every show and to assure their fans that he’s still very much part of the band.
David’s health problems have obviously had a great impact on the band and not just from the touring point of view, but also when it comes to realizing the importance of mental health. That is why the band has decided to make this issue a priority also in their charitable efforts – in David’s honor.
According to the latest article on HollywoodPQ, Simple Plan Foundation announced this year’s donations to various charities – with the main focus being put on organizations helping patients with mental health issues.
This year, Simple Plan Foundation is distributing $200 000 in total to 25 different organizations. The Foundation has previously already supported organizations specializing in child psychiatry and youth suicide prevention by donating to the Sainte-Justine Children’s Hospital in Montreal and the Mental Illness Foundation. This year however, the members of the band wanted to add two more organizations – in particular the two largest organizations working with mental health in the Montreal area – Montreal’s Institute of Mental Health (l’Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale) and the Douglas Institute (l’Institut Douglas).
We’re sure David is very proud and so are we to see the band shift their focus on such an important issue that has affected not just their bassist, but many of their fans as well.
Check out more information on how Simple Plan Foundation works here.
Pierre Bouvier’s wife Lachelle published a video on her Instagram yesterday, which was filmed at the Alternative Press Music Awards in 2015. In the video, you can see Lachelle, David Desrosiers and Mike Herrera from MXPX singing along to Weezer’s ‘Buddy Holly’ and very much enjoying themselves.
Check it out below:
Ever since May 2017, it has become a public knowledge that for the past couple of years, Simple Plan’s bassists David Desrosiers has been struggling with depression and in order to make himself get better, he has decided to take an indefinite hiatus from touring with the band and has been missing on tours ever since April. On Friday it was also revealed that he won’t be attending the upcoming shows in Japan, Hawaii and the Warped Rewind At Sea cruise either.
Out of respect to the band and most importantly to David himself, not many journalists have asked the band members in recent interviews about the bassist’s absence and his current well-being. On the most recent episode of the Man Of The Hour radio show (which you can download as a podcast on iTunes – 2nd episode of season 24), Patrick Langlois noticed this and since him and the whole band have been friends for a very long time, decided to ask Sebastien himself how David’s doing.
In his response, Sebastien revealed that David had in fact dropped by the recent Simple Plan show in Montreal, Canada in September and the band members got to talk to him a little bit face to face after a while, to check up on how he’s doing.
You can read the transcript of Sebastien’s whole answer and what he had to say about David’s current health situation below:
Of course, but, funny enough, we played Montreal a couple weeks ago and he actually came out before the show around soundcheck time to say hi and see how everything was going. And he was in good spirits, although still struggling, he’s not ready to come back on tour as we all know, tour life is not an optimal getting better situation with the traveling and all that – the crazy weird schedules. And that’s exactly what he doesn’t need right now to get better. He was just basically coming to say: ‘Thanks guys, I hear everything’s going great, I hear the shows are great. Thank you for being so supportive’ – which we are, we just want him to get better and if he wants to get better as well, he WILL get better. You know, he knows he will, we know he will. So there was nothing but good things to be said about seeing him the other day.
I think he was very happy to come in and say hi to everyone. Because obviously, Montreal, our hometown show, he wishes he could be on stage with us, you know? You know, we always have a great time, Montreal is a crazy city, it was probably the loudest show of the tour, honestly. Loud AF! And yeah, through the darkness, he still knows he’s gonna get better, he knows he’s gonna come back and you know, he’s going through the tough times right now to make sure he’s fine to finally get back on tour and play in front of everyone again!”