Yesterday evening, Pierre and Chuck from Simple Plan joined the hosts of the CKOI radio station in Montreal in their studio to talk a little bit about their new book and the history of the band. Here is a couple of pictures of the guys in the studio:
And below you can listen to the whole interview at CKOI, which is in French, so in case you don’t understand this language, Charbel prepared a little translation of some of it for you and you can read it under the player:
Interviewer: You guys just came back from Spain right?
Pierre: Yep we came back last night, long flight but we had a nice show there was 15 thousand people I think. Or was it 30 thousand?
Chuck: … Well 45 thousand. [laughs]
Interviewer: Not too jet lagged?
Pierre: Just a bit, I woke up at 5:30am, but we’re home so everything’s alright.
Chuck: I woke up at 9am it was perfect.
Pierre: He’s a machine! Chuck Comeau the machine. [laughs]Interviewer: The highlight from the last 10 years?
Pierre: There was so many highlights, I could name at least 10, for instance the time we got signed by Atlantic Records or the first time we did Bell Center (sold out) in Montreal, it was intense I couldn’t sing well, I was like “Shaat ap, Shaat ap, Shaat ap” [laughs]
Chuck: Even I had problems playing, we could see our parents & friends in the crowd, the whole place was full.
Interviewer: Just earlier (before the interview), I was telling everyone that when we worked together at MusiquePlus, you once told me “One day I’ll be up there on that stage” and I replied “I bet you 20 bucks the contrary”. [laughs]Interviewer: So Chuck your parents wanted you to be a lawyer, Seb was studied to be an engineer, what I wanna know is, how do you convince your parents that you wanna do music?
Pierre: Well you don’t give them a choice, at some point they understand that unless you end up having a huge fight and they end up kicking you out, the kid will do what he wants to do. So there was lots of disputes, of arguments, our parents kept telling us “If you guys are wasting your time, what happens then?”.
Chuck: It took lots of negotiations, for example the first time we went on tour, I was 16, and going to Vancouver in a small RV I don’t think my parents liked that idea. We were 4 back then, and we went without a tour manager, it was crazy with no supervision, we were discovering what being in a band really felt like. We would go to Calgary and no one knew us there…
Pierre: I remember our first night in Vancouver, we got robbed on the street [laughs],
Chuck: Yeah the guys was like “Hey gives us all your money”.
Pierre: Yeah the guy sees 16 year old kids on the street, I was like “He just took my 80 bucks, that was all I had for the tour” [laughs].[after the break]
Interviewer: I just posted a picture on twitter and it’s incredible how your fans follow you there, I got many replies from your fans in France.
Chuck: Yeah in fact, Pierre’s the most followed male in Quebec!
Pierre: I think so; 250 thousand followers but yeah our fans are really intense, and we love them very much.Interviewer: This is one the reasons why you guys love being in a band, for instance Chuck you first started playing in a band without even knowing how to play the drums!
Chuck: Yeah Pierre knew how to play a bit of guitar…
Pierre: Wow a bit? I was doing solos back then! [laughs]
Chuck: Yeah Pierre was a natural, we had a guitarist and a bassist so I was like “Alright, I’ll be the drummer” even though I didn’t know how to play the drums. We would watch Guns n’ Roses playing at Rock In Rio, and we were like “Damn how cool would it be to be on that stage?”.
Interviewer: Well this Sunday it’s gonna be a smaller stage than Rock In Rio, there’s the Simple Plan Foundation benefit event in the Science Center here in Montreal.
Chuck: Yeah it’s a bit more exclusive
Pierre: It’s one of our VIP events, we give a lot of our time with the fans, we take pictures with them, we sign stuff, we hang out with them.
Interview: Well thank you boys, it’s been 10 years and we wish you 10 more! Pierre Bouvier & Chuck Comeau from Simple Plan!
