Category Archives: songs

Pierre and Chuck co-wrote new We The Kings song dealing with mental health issues

A few days ago, the American pop punk band We The Kings released a brand new single from their new EP SAGA called ‘The Light’. What’s special about this particular song is that it is one of the few songs that came out of the song-writing sessions Pierre, Chuck and Travis Clark (We The Kings’ lead singer) did in the span of the last few years.

Travis discussed the song recently on his Instagram, where he also mentioned that he co-wrote this song with the help of Simple Plan’s main song-writers, Pierre and Chuck:

“Our 5th single from SAGA is a song called ‘The Light’, which also reflects our 5th album, ‘Strange Love’. Both have themes of finding hope in dark times as well as understanding that sometimes those tough times make you more grateful of the happy ending.

There is no way to say that 2020 wasn’t a struggle for our world. So when we were writing the song, we wanted to offer people a sign of hope that this won’t last forever. I wrote this song with my good friends Pierre and Chuck from the band Simple Plan which I am incredibly grateful for, for us, we all use music to heal and sometimes to escape life and I hope that this song helps us all to see the light at the end of this tunnel.”

– Travis Clark [on Instagram] –

Chuck also promoted the song recently on his Instagram Stories, explaining that the main theme of this song were mental health struggles, a topic that is especially important right now, as so many people are having a hard time dealing with the state of the world we’re currently living in. Check out what Chuck wrote about ‘The Light’:

“Pierre and I co-wrote this new We The Kings song with Travis Clark and it just came out a few days ago! Go check it out and let me know what you think! It’s about mental health, overcoming obstacles, getting through tough times… Maybe some of you could find it helpful during these difficult times. I hope you enjoy it.”

– Chuck Comeau [on his Instagram Stories] –

You can listen to the entire song below and since we couldn’t find any of the lyrics to this song online just yet, we decided to put them all together ourselves. You can sing along to the song now:

WE THE KINGS – THE LIGHT

For the longest time I felt I couldn’t breath
Cause the darkest clouds would storm inside of me

Like I was drowning in the deepest, darkest sea
And I’d come up for air but the waves crushed down on me

I’m tired of feeling like I’m broken
I found the strength to find my way

Now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel
I’m done with all the days of the pain and the struggle
Say goodbye to all the nights I was under the rubble
Now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel

And I can finally breathe
Yeah, I can finally breathe

I try thousands times but the mountain felt too high
And the weight of the world would never let me climb
let me further back behind
And giving up was the only thing I never tried

I’m tired of feeling like I’m broken
I found the strength to find my way

Now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel
I’m done with all the days of the pain and the struggle
Say goodbye to all the nights I was under the rubble
Now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel

And I can finally breathe
Yeah, I can finally breathe
Yeah, I can finally breathe

Now when I close my eyes I know I’ll be just fine

Will Smith recreates old Fresh Prince scenes using Simple Plan’s I’m Just a Kid

The I’m Just A Kid challenge that started earlier this year on TiKTok is still going strong apparently!

If you’re not in the loop on what this challenge entails, let us explain: at the beginning of this year, when people started getting isolated in their homes, somebody decided to use Simple Plan’s 2002 hit song ‘I’m Just A Kid’ to recreate their old-school photos – but in the 2020 setting. This trend went viral very quickly, as tens of thousands of people joined in to recreate their own photos.

This time around, the challenge has spiked an interest in the one and only Will Smith on the set of his Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion. The movie star, also a TikTok & YouTube star these days, Will Smith filmed not only one, but two TikToks using Simple Plan’s song ‘I’m Just A Kid’ to recreate some of his Fresh Prince character’s most popular scenes. Check them out below:

@willsmith

This is why nobody lets me cook. ##FreshPrinceReunion

♬ I’m Just a Kid – Simple Plan

@willsmith

30 years later and not much has changed. ##FreshPrinceReunion

♬ I’m Just a Kid – Simple Plan

Simple Plan & other artists performed a new collaborative version of ‘Summer Paradise’ on Music Matters Live From Home

In the current climate, when getting together as a band is fairly impossible, the Singaporean music initiative Music Matters decided to bring artists back together – at least over the miracle that is the Internet.

Pierre and Chuck from Simple Plan took the role of hosts of a special collaborative livestream today on Music Matters‘ YouTube channel, where they were joined by the Australian band Sheppard, singer Quest from the Philippines, American rapper Lil J, Singaporean singer Rriley and Indonesian singer Teddy Adhitya. In the beginning, all artists introduced themselves and Pierre and Chuck kept the conversation going by quizzing them about topics such as productivity and creativity in isolation and then also introduced their music by playing a few clips from each of the artists’ songs.

The highlight of the livestream however was when all the artists presented the special collaboration they did together on Simple Plan’s song ‘Summer Paradise’, hence creating another version of this popular summer hit. According to Pierre, Sebastien started it by recording his guitars and then passing it onto Pierre, after which Jeff and David did their parts, Chuck added the drums by slapping his knees, after which the rest of the artists added their own flavor to this special version of ‘Summer Paradise’.

Check out the whole Music Matters Live From Home livestream including the new ‘Summer Paradise’ collaboration (Summer Paradise starts at mark 48:32) below:

Pierre about new album: Simple Plan might release some new material “pretty soon”

Just a few days ago, Nick Major from Idobi Radio got in touch with Pierre Bouvier from Simple Plan over videochat and together they discussed Simple Plan’s old hit ‘I’m Just A Kid’ becoming viral on TikTok and also Simple Plan’s upcoming 6th studio album.

In the interview, Pierre confirmed that the album is done and the band is now looking for ways to release it in the current climate. One of the things besides not being able to promote it on tour, that is still holding the release back is the fact that Simple Plan are in the talks of getting a new record deal with a new record label. But once that is settled, the guys still need to figure out in what way the album would be getting released. Read what Pierre said exactly on this matter below:

Nick: Are you guys holding off on the new album release just to wait till you’re able to tour on it?

Pierre: We’ve talked about what we’re gonna do… There was talks of like holding it off for a bit and there was talks of like we can’t hold it off because we don’t know how long it’s gonna be and right now we’re just kind of figuring out like how we’re gonna release it. Like… we’re in the middle of getting another record deal right now so it’s kind of not that we’re holding it off, it’s more that we’re just trying to […] plan it and figure out, you know, do we release it all at once? Do we do a couple of EPs? Do we break it up? You know, it’s because now there’s so many different ways to put out a record. You could put out a song every week, you could put out twelve at once… so it’s a matter of just figuring that out.

Of course until then, the guys plan on staying active online in various other ways – according to Pierre, the band has some online performances planned, a bunch of interviews and they also wanna continue recreating their own old photos on TikTok, keeping the viral trend going.

But what about a single? Could we perhaps expect some new material before the full record (in whichever way) drops? According to Pierre: YES! And maybe even “pretty soon”!

Nick: That’s awesome and with this TikTok stuff going on, oh, not a bad time to release one of the new songs off the album..

Pierre: Yeah, it’s not a bad time to release it. And I think like, I don’t wanna… we haven’t talked about this and I’m sure that Chuck will be listening to this and going like: ‘Dude, shut up!’ But like, I think that we’ll be putting out some stuff pretty soon. We’re not gonna be waiting that long and yeah, just kind of hopping on the TikTok momentum. And also, it’s time, you know? It’s been a long time and we don’t wanna sit on these songs. We want people to hear them when they feel fresh and they feel good.

And in the final quote we decided to extract from the interview, Pierre discussed how happy and excited he is about the new Simple Plan songs, explaining that this is the record he’s probably put the most of himself into, especially since he’s also producing it for the first time (with Zakk Cervini, Brian Howes and JVP). Check out how Pierre himself feels about the album:

Nick: Album no. 6, man! You perfectionists: are you guys happy with what you’ve created with this one at least? Does it meet the standards of Simple Plan?

Pierre: This is to me, I think, by far, one of the albums that I’m the most proud of. Because… like I’ve always been very very involved with every album. Obviously, I’m one of the main songwriters of the band and since album two, which was 2004, Still Not Getting Any, I’ve been sort of producing our demos. So I write the songs with Chuck, we’ve brought in some extra songwriters here and there… But I pretty much for 99% of our songs, I am the one building the skeleton, building the prototype, building what it’s gonna sound like in my computer, recording everything. And then I take it to the band and then the band rerecord everything. So for this album I’ve done it more than ever, a lot of my production is on the album, I’m actually a producer on this album and I feel like as a person, as a musician, as a producer, I’ve really come into my own at this point, you know… I’ve been doing this for long enough, where I’m starting to feel like I’ve mastered my craft.. Not mastered, but.. you know, I’m doing well.

And I feel really.. I feel like I’m the most part of this album. Like this is the most that I’ve given personally to an album and I think I’m very proud of it and I think it sounds great. I think the songs are great, the songwriting is great and I feel like the fans… there’s like I would say four or five, maybe six songs that the fans are gonna lose their shit over. Like, I think that they’re gonna be really really happy. And that’s always a challenge, because a band in the pop punk era, you know, you want.. I love pop punk music, I always have. When a pop punk song comes out that’s awesome, it’s always my favorite genre. But, you also want to like keep yourself fresh. I don’t wanna keep making the same record over and over again, so we always try to do different things. And you know, that can sometimes backfire on us… or it could be ‘whoa that was so cool’! And on this album I feel like we’ve really hit the pop punk sort of what they all want. And then we did some things that are a little bit off there, but they’re out there in a cool way. They’re not out there and like “eww, that’s kind of pop”, you know what I mean? It’s like we’re pushing the envelope in a way that I think fans are gonna be stoked about.

And yeah, I’m just fully 100% behind. I think the songwriting is some of our best lyrically, some really awesome honest lyrics in there. And the production: we’ve got Zakk Cervini mix most of it. And he produced one song. Then we have myself and another guy Jay [note: Jason ‘JVP’ Van Poederooyen] that produced a bunch of songs and it’s sounding like, in my opinion, one of our best records.

If you’re interested, you can watch Nick’s entire interview with Pierre below:

Simple Plan’s debut single ‘I’m Just A Kid’ certified Platinum in the U.S.

Given the recent resurgence of Simple Plan’s song ‘I’m Just A Kid’ due to an unprecedented viral success thanks to the “I’m Just A Kid” challenge on TikTok, the band’s debut single has now been certified platinum in the United States. The certification has been awarded to the song on May 26th 2020, 18 years after its original release.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) awards singles the Platinum certification when they hit 1 million units sold. Each permanent digital download counts as 1 unit and 150 on-demand audio and/or video streams count as 1 unit. It is undeniable that the recent new-founded success of the song on social media spiked the streams of the song on various platforms, including YouTube or Spotify.

With its new Platinum status, I’m Just A Kid is the highest certified single by Simple Plan in the United States.

Simple Plan recently joined TikTok on their own and continue spreading the “I’m Just A Kid challenge” together even despite social distancing. Check out their fantastic recent green screen effort:

@simpleplan

Throwback to before ##ImJustAKid was a TikTok song 🤣🤪 And these green screens we got on Amazon… best money we ever spent 🤑 ##imjustakidchallenge

♬ I’m Just a Kid – Simple Plan