It’s tough not to look at the career of Montreal band Simple Plan and not be a little envious. With more than 7.5 million records sold world-wide, the band is set to release their long-awaited fourth record tomorrow. Entitled Get Your Heart On (you get it?), the band’s intentions in naming the record were nothing but pure, you sicko. The album title partially stemmed from a Twitter session between Simple Plan vocalist Pierre Bouvier and drummer Chuck Comeau where the duo asked their fans exactly what their music has meant to them. According to both Bouvier and Comeau, the response they received from their fans was both humbling and overwhelming and led them to write the track “This Song Saved My Life”, the lyrics of which include some of the many tweets the band received on that fateful evening.
Last week, The MusicNerd Chronicles was fortunate enough to chat with Simple Plan drummer Chuck Comeau all about the band’s new record, their re-discovered spirit and how it feels to be getting back into the game after a couple of quiet years:
Does it feel good to be getting back into promo machine in support of the new record?
Comeau: It is fuckin’ awesome! We had worked hard on the record over the course of a year, writing more than 70 songs and spending four to five months in the studio. When we had the June release date scheduled, it felt so far away and it was hard to keep it under wraps for so long. We are all really excited to get back out on the road and support the record; we are really proud of it.
Compared to your first two albums, your 2008 self-titled effort seemed to do away with some of the humour that was prevalent on your earlier work. Where is the band’s headspace at these days?
Comeau: It really feels like we are a new band again. Around the time we were writing the self-titled record, Pierre’s family went through some rough times and I think it ultimately affected the entire outlook of the band and as such, the songs we were writing were a lot darker. After having toured and played those songs for a year and a half, we all kind of longed to get back to the spirit of our first two records and I think we did that with Get Your Heart On. It is a lot more fun and carefree compared to our last record; it was important for us to get back to that. After doing this for the past eleven years, we came to realize that we are very blessed and privileged to be able to do what we do. There is definitely a new-found appreciation of what we do amongst all of us.
Your new record features collaborations with K’nann, Natasha Bedingfield and Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo to name but a few. What led the band to want to collaborate with so many artists on the new record?
Comeau: This record was all about a celebration and we saw the collaborations as a way to keep things fresh while also creating something more special. Collaborations can sometimes be hard to coordinate with everyone’s schedules being all over the place but this time, everything fell perfectly into place. We wanted to have fun making this record and I think we have done just that.