A recording of the whole panel filmed during the panel of the Music Matters conference in Singapore, where Chuck Comeau together with the manager for Simple Plan, Eric Lawrence spoke.
In their speech, or rather in the answers to the host’s questions, Chuck and Eric talked about how Simple Plan started off, how they tried to get any record label on their side – and how Chuck even had to pretend he was Simple Plan’s manager, under a fake name, just to get to some label representative, how they finally got Andy Karp from Atlantic Records on line and through him how they first met Mr. Eric Lawrence.
Eric said that according to him it’s very important for the band to be the one who’s in charge of running things – not to get entirely overwhelmed by the music industry, the label etc – to get to have your own say in things – just like Simple Plan have donw it for years. According to Chuck it’s very important to believe in yourself and follow your dreams. In the band, it’s always been Chuck, who kept pushing Simple Plan towards a better and bigger future, was creative and took care even of other things that just the music itself. The record companies will always have other bands to turn to in case one fails, so it’s important for the one band to be able to take care of themselves: “Nobody will ever care more about your band and music than yourself. Nobody will spend more houts, nobody will be so passionate than you, cause to you, it’s all you’ve got.”
In his speech, Chuck emphasized the role of the song lyrics: “You can be the best guitarist, or the best drummer, but if you don’t have good songs, nobody’s gonna care.” Chuck also mentions how important it is to make a good first impression, and why Simple Plan put so much effort into creating a good website, good album cover, good music videos – because it’s the first thing that people see. “Everything matters… that’s why I don’t sleep much.”.
They also didn’t forget to mention how important it is to ask the fans’ for their opinion. Chuck emphasized mostly the importance of the social media and their simplicity in how the band can approach their fans.
Because Simple Plan are one of the few bands, who even after 12 years of existence are still consisted of the founding members, Chuck explained how the guys solve problems that come up in the band every once in a while. According to him if there is a dispute in the band (which fortunately doesn’t happen very often), the five of them lock themselves in a room and they have a rule that nobody comes out of it until they are all hugging and being best friends again. “Sometimes it takes 20 minutes, sometimes 3 hours, sometimes the whole day, but it works!”
You can check out the six-part video from this conference (thanks to CSP) on YouTube right here: