Since their band formation more than 10 years ago, Simple Plan has managed to stay true to their fans, their sound, and to themselves. Their one of the few bands who haven’t had members come and go, sticking with the same native five today that they were back when they released their first album No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls back in 2002.
Today is the release of their fourth studio album, Get Your Heart On! We got a chance to chat with the bands front man Pierre Bouvier. Here’s what he had to say about the album, The Simple Plan Foundation, and his role as a judge on the upcoming show CANADA SINGS!…
What can you tell us about your newest album?
It’s awesome! [We] spent a lot of time making it, last time we came out with a record was almost like, two and a half years ago, and we spent a lot of time writing it, I think that this is the record that we’ve put the most effort into. Not that we didn’t put effort into it before, but the most work into it this time. It’s got just over a year of writing and compiling songs, even a demo. We had a list of 65 songs we had written and we chopped that down to 27 hopefuls, because you know, those ones were good as well but we’re just trying to make it as best as possible. So we then cut that down to 12, and now we have a record. So it was a long process, but a lot of fun produced by Brian Howes, first time doing it with him, and it was a great experience all around.
What primarily was the drive behind the album?
I think that for us, we just, we always want something that we feel is better than what we’ve put out in the past, and we have a huge fan base around the world and I think they expect a lot from us and we feel an obligation to put out something that we feel, at least, is amazing and really up to par and kind of can, we want to raise the bar every time. And also we want to throw a couple curveballs at you, we don’t want to make the same record twice, we don’t want to follow or do things that we’ve done before, while still staying in the same kind of idea of where we came from.
How has the drive behind your lyrics changed over time?
I think the method, I mean, the lyrics, they follow us through our lives. We started out with our first record in the early twenties, now we’re kind of all getting into our thirties, so we’re getting a little bit older but I think the lyrics to our band have always been about just life and stuff that we’re going through or something that people can relate to. A lot of the times, we’re kind of general a little bit, the lyrics are kind of general, and I think that we, the whole idea is to talk about life, talk about what we’re going through, what people are going through. There’s a song on this album that’s kind of special and unique, lyrically it’s about, it’s kind of a follow up to “Welcome to my life”. We have a lot of fans that I think really rely on our music emotionally to, we have a lot of fans who follow us and they’re really into it, and our music seems to mean a lot to them… its crazy how our music can mean so much to some people and can, from the letters we’ve received, the stories we’ve heard that really are touching that you’re like “wow, this is really important to you”, and from that we wrote a song that’s called “This song saved my life” because it’s kind of about, it seems a little arrogant, but it’s about what our music has done for some people, because we’ve actually seen it, we’re not making this sh*t up, people have told us that exact line, so in order to do that, we wanted to not write a song that would potentially save someone, but more about the idea of how music, whether it’s ours or someone else’s music, may have impacted your life so importantly that you might feel like you, like it’s what kept you here. So as we were writing we went on twitter and asked our fans to in honestly tell us in one tweet, tell us what our music means to you and what Simple Plan has done for you, or tell us how you feel about it when you think about the band Simple Plan. And it started pouring out all of these quick little one liners about what the music or what our band has meant to them, and we used that as lyrics. We actually took some pieces, obviously we had to shape the pieces here and there so it fits with the melody, but we used those in the song for the verses. So it’s like a song for the fans, by the fans, and it turned out really good. And that’s one of the unique things about this record is that particular song, it may be the first song ever written on Twitter, and so we’re going for something pretty mindful…. If you listen to [the song] knowing that, the first time you hear you’re like “Oh, that’s interesting”, but if you listen to it again knowing that story, and we actually have some video footage of us writing that song which we’re going to package and release into something for the fans, but it’s pretty cool how we’re just sitting there reading all these lines and we’re like “Oh, that’s a good one, that’s cool”, and it j ust came out right.
What can you tell us about CANADA SINGS, the reality show you’re judging?
Well, it’s kind of fun because we’re usually so busy I can never fit these kind of things into my schedule but since we’re, just now we have a release date for the record, we’re all planning up the photo shoots and the video shoots and all that, I had a couple of weeks off and this opportunity came up pretty quickly through my management office and they sent that over and I was like “Eh”, I’m not really a huge fan of these contest shows like the IDOL stuff. I like it, but it’s not where I came from, it’s not the way I made it up, it’s entertaining to watch, but I don’t know if I could do it. So I read the script and I read where it was going, and I had a little DVD presentation of who the people were, that are in the show and in the different groups, and it seemed like a really cool idea. It’s different because they aren’t people who are trying to make it, they’re not trying to get a record deal, they’re not trying to get money, they’re not trying to get anything for their own, they’re just doing it because it’s fun and they want to do something different, and they want to step out of their shells and sometimes these people have a lot of issues with their self esteem and this is like a big deal for them. It seemed like a really great show, and I’m having Vanilla Ice and Jann Arden as the other judges, it seemed like it would be interesting and a lot of fun. So it was only a five-day commitment, and I didn’t have anything else going on, so I figured I’d give it a shot. I got here and immediately after the first episode, I was like “this is awesome, it’s really cool”. The acts are, I mean, there are some people that I pretty much expected, like they’re not amazing, but some of the acts stand out as just being, I mean, they’re amateurs and you just look at them and you feel, like we all agree that if this was a Broadway show and I had paid a ticket to come here, I wouldn’t have felt ripped off, like this is really good. And to think, they only had a week of training, and maybe like a week of rehearsals, and that’s it. And it’s positive, we’re not there to tell them “Oh that was awful, you should never sing again”, its just constructive criticism and we’re all just having a good time.
What’s it like working with Vanilla Ice and Jann Arden?
Very cool! I’d met Rob [Vanilla Ice] once before some award show, I can’t remember what it was, and I think I’d briefly brushed shoulders with Jann Arden as well, but I had never really talked to either of them and I didn’t know what to expect. But immediately, the chemistry, we went for our first lunch before the show so we could get to know each other and to see if we had any chemistry for on camera, and immediately it was like “Wow, you guys are cool”. And we’re all artists, we’ve all gone through, we’ve all been on stage, we’ve all made records, we’ve all written songs, we’ve all performed, I mean I’ve never done choreographed dancing but, I don’t think Jann Arden either, but we have experience in that world and it was fun, it was great.
What can you tell us about the Simple Plan Foundation? At what point did you guys as a band decide to start up a charitable organization?
It was before a big Canadian tour we were doing and we had done this festival for a few years and things were going well and it was like we had this big tour coming up and I think it was a friend of ours who came up with the idea in Montreal. Someone said you have to start a foundation because you can easily convince people to, it’s more to make people aware of certain things and encourage them to give and then you collect that money and then give it to another foundation if you think they’re doing a good job, or help raise money for other reasons, you know? So we did that on a Canadian tour about five years ago and the first idea was to get all the sponsors that were on the tour, like the venues, the promoters, to take a percentage of what we would give them and just give it to this instead, and hopefully get them to also chip in. So we take a piece of what we’re making and they take a piece of what they’re making and we’re all giving a little bit. And we started giving proceeds from t-shirts on that tour, and it was just an idea that we’re like “let’s see where we can take this”, and it quickly blossomed into something pretty big… we’re not a huge foundation, but we do our part and it works out.
Thank you, Pierre Bouvier! You can read more of Pierre’s interview in the upcoming July/August 2011 issue of The Magazine!