Simple Plan – Interview [2003]

You wanted Pierre and we got him. The front man from Simple Plan sits down and talks.

Life is crazy.

It is. We’re so busy. We’ve been on the road for like a year hacking it away.

We were looking on our message boards and every young girl seems to be leaving the message ‘Pierre is so hot’.

Oh really? (Laughs) That’s good for me I guess. (Laughs)

Do you get a chance to hang with fans?

All the time. It’s like a ritual where we go out and talk to fans. We usually take an hour and meet. We get to meet a lot of cool people.

How long has the band been together?

This line up has been together for almost four years now, but we’re all friends from high school. Chuck and I have been in a band together since were like thirteen. We’ve all been playing for a long time and four years ago none of us were in a band so we formed this one.

Was it always this style?

Yeah, some of the songs on this record are some of the first songs we ever wrote.

What is the songwriting like?

It’s mostly Chuck and me. We do most of the lyrics and music together. We usually get together with an acoustic guitar and write the bulk of the song. Then we all come together and make it a final song.

You guys have a knack for writing a good hook; do you find it comes easy or hard?

I think the melody is… well actually I think it’s all pretty hard. Some bands will say it takes ten minutes, but it takes us a long time. We actually re-write the lyrics over and over again until we like them. It’s a hard and long process, but we really enjoy it.

This genre is very hook driven.

I think it’s really that way in everything. The songs that get you are the songs that make it.

Well it should be that way.

Yeah. The songs you remember right after you’ve heard it are the songs I like. If I have to listen to a song twenty times to remember it than I don’t care for it.

It seems some rock tracks today stray from that big hook.

Some groups can pull it off, but I don’t like it.

What did you listen to when you first got together as a band?

When we were in high school we started listen to a lot of southern California punk bands from like Fat Records, Epitaph, Black Flag, NOFX, and other groups. But when we got out of high school we started to listen to stuff like the Police and the Cars. Now we listen to a lot of things like Emo, Bjork, and the Used. It really depends on mood. There are two kinds of music, good and bad; I like the good.

Have you been touring on a bus?

Well we started out in an ambulance. Then we went on tour with Sugar Ray and we rented a mini wini, but after a while we realized it was better to just get a bus.

Could anything have prepared you for being on the road for so long?

We were all fairly prepared. We’ve been on tour with bands before like MxPx, but I don’t think anything can prepare you for not going home at all. We’ve wanted to do this for a career for seven or eight years so we can deal with it.

You guys are from Montreal right?

Yeah.

I’m very familiar with Toronto growing up near there.

We have a great fan base there.

What was the scene like there?

Punk rock really blew up there in the early ‘90s. It was a huge market for bands like NOFX and Blink-182. It was the biggest place for punk bands to play. We opened up for bands like Face To Face there.

Toronto is really a club scene.

Montreal is more of a rock scene, but it really is starting to follow Toronto in that way and has a growing club scene. I think it’ll always have a good, health rock scene.

What’s it like seeing the crowds grow?

It’s so much fun. The crowds are getting bigger, the fans know more lyrics and they sing louder. It’s fun to see people enjoying the music.

What about getting on Conan?

I’m really excited; we’re doing that tomorrow! It’s awesome. I watch Conan. I hope we get to meet him.

“I’m Just A Kid” and “I’d Do Anything” are blowing up now, could you imagine it?

It’s funny because “I’m Just A Kid” was huge in Canada and didn’t do much in America and now “I’d Do Anything” is changing that. It’s awesome. I can’t believe it. As soon as we wrote it and Chuck brought that line in I loved it.

Do fans talk about how they relate to the songs?

They tell us how certain songs got them through tough spots in their life. A lot of fans tell us “Perfect” really helped because it’s about a relationship with your dad. When we were quitting school to get the band going our parents couldn’t relate to that and a lot of people go through that in a different way.

It’s it a great thing about opening yourself up to others?

I’ve always been really open so I’ve lost that feeling of ‘oh my God’ about leaving myself open.

You spent all these years hoping to be in the place you are in now, what are you hoping for now?

I’m enjoying the moment really. I don’t want to set anything too high. Right now if it all went away today then I’d be happy with what we’ve got. I want to keep going. I want to keep going and have people still showing up.

Is there any band that if you were compared to them at the end of your career, not just style, but overall greatness, which would it be?

Green Day. I think they’ve always written great records and always seemed really cool and had the same attitude.

The greatest thing is that you watched them mature.

They evolved and really became themselves.

While they changed and evolved everyone else was trying to catch up and they always stayed one album ahead of them.

Exactly. They are a great band.

+ charlie craine