Tag Archives: new album

Simple Plan aim to break their no-writing-on-tour rule and will start working on new album on Warped Tour

AUTHOR: Dominika | 28. March 2018 | 1 comment

Slowly but surely, Simple Plan are heading to the finish line of this tour cycle. They still have some touring to do with the No Pads anniversary tour in Australia and South America in April and May and after that they will spend the summer on Warped Tour – but and after that the plan is to focus solely on their next studio album, which will be their sixth record. However, based on Chuck’s own words from the recent interview for MusicFeeds, it seems that for the first time in forever, Simple Plan may be in fact considering to start writing songs while they are on tour, in order to speed up the process of releasing the new album.

Usually, Simple Plan’s busy schedule didn’t really allow them to have any time left to work on new music while on tour, which is why they usually took about a year and half off after each album to write songs and then record them in a studio. But with the music industry and today’s society being so very fast and changing every minute, the band now feels that it’s important for them to not wait as long to release new music, in order to not lose their momentum.

Chuck, in fact, hopes to start working on Simple Plan’s sixth album this summer on Warped Tour. Check out what he said to MusicFeeds:

“We’ve been discussing [the new album] and talking about when we want it out and what kind of sound that we want. We’re not the greatest at writing while we’re on tour, it’s really hard for us. So I think we’re planning to do that right after Warped Tour around August or September and start writing.”

We might actually try to do a little bit of writing on the Warped Tour this time around and try to get the songs out and try to get inspired by all of the great bands that are going to be there and reconnect with some of our roots on that tour. We want to try to have it out quicker because we always take a long time to make albums and I feel like in 2018, that’s not the way you do it. You just have to shake things up and do things differently and have more music coming out more often.

So I think that’s the game plan, to make sure we have a really great and special album but at the same time, make sure it comes out quicker because our fans are asking for it and we want to be back on the road. We don’t want to go away for three years, that’s what Metallica used to do in the ’90s (laughs). We need to be more like hip hop and put more stuff out.”

– Chuck Comeau –

Fans will also surely be happy to hear that Chuck also discussed the topic of possible collaborations on the next album and mentioned that the band wants to keep the record more in the spirit of their pop-punk upbringing:

“I feel like we’ve always done [collaborations] in the last five or 10 years. We always try to do something that’s a little bit outside what people think that we can do. But all of these shows and tours have been inspiring and have revitalised the band and made us really eager to write again and come up with more songs that have an impact on our fans. So it’s kind of motivating when you have an audience that’s excited and is showing up, you want to give them what they want.

So I think on the next record we want to throw in some of that legacy pop punk influence and have some fun that’s really in your face and catchy and fast Simple Plan-style music but also take a few chances here and there. But yeah, I think you’ll get a lot of back to our roots kinda vibes and old school, so that’s going to be fun.”

– Chuck Comeau –

Are you excited for new Simple Plan music? Do you think they should continue focus more on their pop-punk roots than other musical experiments? Let us know in the comments!

Pierre on Simple Plan’s new album’s sound: ‘We’re going to keep going in the pop-punk direction’

AUTHOR: Dominika | 8. February 2018 | 2 comments

In an interview recently published by The 13th Floor, a music server from New Zealand, Pierre Bouvier revealed the band’s plans regarding their upcoming 6th studio record and most importantly – on the direction their would like to take with this album.

Pierre revealed that him and Chuck might in fact start writing in a manner of weeks. According to him, the song-writing sessions should then continue at least till the end of 2018, which confirms our projection that the album will be out 2019 the earliest:

“We’re about to start writing the next record. Our latest album came out in 2016, and, obviously, the Fifteenth Anniversary Tour has delayed the process of creating some new material, but I think that, in the next couple of weeks, we’re going to get together and start writing, and, hopefully, by the end of 2018, we should have enough material to hit the studio, and then put a new record out.”

– Pierre Bouvier –

But it isn’t just the timing of the album that interests the fans – it’s mainly its content. Over the past ten years, starting with their self-titled release in 2008, Simple Plan have been known to experiment with different music styles on each of their records. And over time, the band’s musical experiments have been met with diverse reactions from their fans. Some applauded the band for not trying to make the same music over and over again and therefore making themselves stand out in the sea of pop-punk artists. Some however were saddened by the band’s slight departure from their pop-punk roots and the sound of their first two records.

In the interview, Pierre made it clear that he would like for Simple Plan to keep pursuing the pop-punk style and head that direction with their next record:

“At about our third album, we really got into this whole idea of, “We need to evolve! We need to take Simple Plan to a different place it’s never been,” etc; and we tried it, and we did it, and it kinda felt a little bit weird. I think our third album was an album that a lot of our fans appreciate, but I think it went a little bit too experimental, and it went a little off the rails of what people expect and want from Simple Plan. I think that was a lesson that we learned insofar as I’m all for exploration and artistic integrity, but at a certain point, I realized that people, that are fans of Simple Plan, want to hear Simple Plan; just like if I hear a new Green Day album, I want it to sound like what I think Green Day sounds like but new material. I don’t want them to do a country record, or a metal record, because that would be weird. I don’t want them to start adding a whole bunch of stuff they never used to do. You could do it for a couple of songs, but I really like the core, such as when the new Tom Petty record came out, it sounded like his old stuff, and I was like, “Oh, this is cool! It sounds like his old stuff;” so, I’ve come to terms with the fact that, I think, as a band, it’s okay to say, “We’re not going to re-write the same songs, but let’s do pop-punk.”

We like it. I still love that kind of music. Our fans love it. Don’t push it too far, because people don’t want to hear a little country in Simple Plan; they want to hear Simple Plan. For some years, it bugged me to have that mentality, but now I’ve come to embrace it, and I think it gives me a direction of where to go, because I know what people like from us, I know what I like, and I know what we’re good; and it gives us a focus. If we’re to rehash a new sound of Simple Plan, that’s really hard, because where do you take it? My voice sounds a certain way, and it doesn’t really go well in certain styles. Where would we take it? So, I’ve come to terms with it, and I really enjoy it, and I think it’s fun to say, “Hey, you know what? We’re going to keep going in the pop-punk direction.”

It doesn’t matter if radio thinks it’s a dying genre, or if there are people who thinks it sounds like ‘this or this or that’. If you write a good song, and it’s pop-punk, people will like it; because pop-punk doesn’t really mean a whole lot: it just means that it’s got that pop catchiness to it, but it’s got that punk energy and speed, and stuff that makes you want to jump up and down or drive a car real fast; and that’s something that will never get old. So, I love having that direction, and just being able to say, “let’s focus on writing some good songs,” and we produce them the way Simple Plan should and would; and that’s our target.”

– Pierre Bouvier –

You can listen to the whole interview with Pierre for The 13th Floor below:

Pierre explains where Simple Plan are in the process of making album #6

AUTHOR: Dominika | 3. February 2018 | 1 comment

With the upcoming Australian No Pads tour slowly coming closer and closer, various media channels are getting ahold of the members of Simple Plan for an interview to get them talking about the tour and what’s up with Simple Plan in general as of late.

As you all know, after an exhausting 2017 that was almost exclusively filled with the 15th anniversary No Pads tour all over the world, Simple Plan took some well-deserved time off in the first months of 2018 in order to rest a bit. But don’t worry, they definitely haven’t forgotten about their most important goal of 2018: to make a follow-up album to their last studio effort – Taking One For The Team, which came out in 2016.

That topic exactly is what Pierre brought up in the most recent interview for the Australian website Hysteriamag, in which he discussed the current stage Simple Plan are in when it comes to producing the new record:

“We’ve got a couple of months off actually right now, which is very nice. We’re going to get some much-needed family time, a little bit of rest, start writing slowly. […] We’re not in full blown writing mode yet. But I think everybody’s thinking about it, obviously, because we haven’t had an album in about two years. We’re very slow. Honestly, we’re very slow, but it’s because we do take our time writing songs, and we want every album to be amazing. I think everybody kind of wants the next one to come out quicker, but we still need to get some rest and sort of get our ideas straight before we get going. Right now, it’s the phase where kind of anything goes. You can sort of try out a bunch of stuff, you know? Put out songs. Honestly, in the very beginning, everything’s kind of okay. Once in a while, it’s like, ‘Well this one’s good,’ you know? We’re not there. It’s still very early.

I think it sort of gets, not frustrating, but stressful, more towards the end, where it’s like, ‘Do we have an album? Is this good enough? Can we go to the studio now?’ Then you kind of look at the calendar, you’re like, ‘Oh shit, it would be fun if it was out in three to four months. Can we make it?’ That’s when it gets kind of stressful.’

– Pierre Bouvier –

As you can see, Simple Plan are still in the very early stages of working on a new record and with some of the band members still being on holiday, the stage could be described as a time where the band is trying to figure out which way to go, looking for inspiration and perhaps also figuring out who the producer of the record could be, who could help them reach their dream direction. The actual stage of song-writing is still yet to come.

If you’ve been following Simple Plan for a longer time, you already know that they are very slow at putting out records and even if they have some music ready, they take months and months making sure every single beat and every single tone is perfect and just the way they imagined. Hence why the new album can never be done within the snap of a finger. The interviewer for Hysteriamag brought up the recent situation where Beyoncé dropped an album without anybody even knowing she’s been working on one and therefore completely surprising all her fans with new music. According to Pierre, with his band’s presence on social media being so constant, this would be an impossible task to do for Simple Plan, as their fans are used to being told of the band’s every move:

“Here’s the thing, we don’t know about Beyoncé. […] Here’s the thing about it is that because we are so present on social that to pretend we’re not even thinking about an album for the next six months, I don’t think we can pull that off, you know? That’s how she surprised people, you know? She just had a picture of her at some fashion event, a picture of her there, but meanwhile, she spent days in the studio, writing and recording stuff, and she never tells anybody. That’s something she can do. I don’t know how she does it. We’re always on our social. We always get together. Whenever it’s time to record or do stuff, that if we actually go social media silent for a few months because we’re making an album, people are going to start to worry.“

– Pierre Bouvier –

So while we can definitely forget about waking up one day in the near future with an announcement of a new Simple Plan album in the news, there’s definitely loads of other stuff to look forward to. In the following months, Simple Plan have a couple of tours planned – an appearance at Walt Disney World in Florida in March, a tour in Australia in April and a still-yet-to-be-announced South American tour. And after that the band is ready to fully invest all their time and energy into their sixth studio album, which we will be following closely as always, bringing you all the details here on SimplePlan.cz. And with any luck, you all could be holding a new Simple Plan album sometime next year.

Simple Plan to start working on new album early 2018!

AUTHOR: Dominika | 30. September 2017 | 1 comment

With Simple Plan’s No Pads tour slowly coming to its end and only a with the band having only a few more places to visit it with this year, the question of “what’s next” has been on many journalists’ minds lately. And lucky for us, the guys keep giving quite a promising answer to that question. According to a recent interview with Jeff, the band is ready to start working on a new record just as soon as their schedule clears after this year’s touring – that means the guys might start writing as early as January 2018.

Read what exactly Jeff said about the new album-making process and all the challenges that come with it in last week’s interview for Purdue University [you can listen to the full interview here]:

Interviewer: So, […] what’s in the future for you guys?
Jeff: “Well, you know, we’re gonna stop celebrating… [15 years of 1st album] cause it’s been a full year of celebrating. I think we’ve had enough of that. So, yeah, we’re gonna do like a few more shows around Japan, Mexico… and we’re gonna finish the year, you know, in good places. And then we’re gonna start making a new record! We’re gonna start working on new music. And yeah, I mean every time it’s a bit of a challenge. It’s like.. what is Simple Plan capable of achieving next? And can we stretch the boundaries of what people think and know about Simple Plan? How do you make the Simple Plan sound sound current in 2017, 2018 and 2019? So, those are all challenges that we’re gonna work on, you know, during the next year. But it’s exciting to be getting into a new record. And the goal is just to get out there, finish the record and start touring as quickly as possible.”

– Jeff Stinco –

Meanwhile, Sebastien has pretty much confirmed the same in the interview for The Charlatan.

Even though this is obviously very good news, let’s not make assumptions that the band will also release their new album next year. Simple Plan usually tend to take their time writing songs and song-writing is usually the longest part of their album-making process, as they do not like to write on the road while touring. Realistically speaking, recording and post-production included, we could be looking into 2019 as a release year for the next record. However, the band members have previously been quoted many times that they want to hurry up with this record more than ever before, so who knows… they might just surprise us. :)

Simple Plan aiming to possibly release sixth album around 2018

AUTHOR: Dominika | 15. May 2017 | no comments

The Czech online magazine called Headliner’s May issue features an interview with Simple Plan’s drummer Chuck Comeau. In the interview, Chuck discussed Simple Plan’s current NPNHJB tour, which celebrates their debut album’s 15th anniversary. And while there are still plans to prolong this anniversary tour, according to Chuck’s most recent words, the band also still wants to continue with their Taking One For The Team tour after the No Pads tour (which he still plans for the end of this year):

“We didn’t manage to tour a lot with the fifth record yet, even though we’ve been touring pretty much non-stop except for a couple months at the end of last year. Now we decided to include the anniversary tour and after that we still want to head out on another Taking One For The Team tour. We think we owe it to that record.”

– Chuck Comeau –

Of course after the tour cycle ends (whenever that is), the band is certain about one thing: they don’t want their fans to wait another 4 years for a new record. See what Chuck had to say about a possible 6th album’s release date:

“After we finish the cycle for our current record, which will be around the end of this year, the time will come for the creative process to begin. We would like to start working on new material in the beginning of the next year release the album as soon as possible. One thing is clear: we don’t want to take too much time in between records, so we would like the next album to be released about two years after the last one came out. “

– Chuck Comeau –

Now if our calculations are correct, if Simple Plan want to release the record 2 years after the last one came out (February 2016), that would make their goals aim for the next year, 2018.

In theory, that could be managable, but we know how good SP are with meeting deadlines and taking months to both write, record and also post-produce and promote new albums. I think we’ll all agree that we would like the next SP record to be released sooner rather than later, but let’s just take the year ‘2018’ as more of a fluid objective or a wishful thinking, than a fixed point in time. Especially if we already know the band plans to only focus on touring in 2017.