Simple Plan – June 2009
June 24th, 2009 - Written by Angel
Their creative process is also very reflective of this perfectionism. According to Chuck, “Usually if somebody has an idea, you just work on it. And then you do a rough demo and send it out to everybody. Then, when we feel we have enough good ideas, that’s when the whole band gets together and we work on songs. After that, we go into the studio. This way everybody can have their own creative input and the songs end up being better.”
One of the topics we hadn’t broached three years ago was that of their philanthropic endeavours. According to the band’s Wikipedia page, ‘Simple Plan have helped non-profit and advocacy groups by donating to many established organizations such as MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), RADD (Recording Artists, Actors, and Athletes against Drunk Driving), and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. However, after being frustrated because the members did not know exactly where their money was going, the band created the Simple Plan Foundation; an organization that focuses on teen problems ranging from suicide to poverty to drug addiction.’
When I asked them why they had chosen to start a non-profit organization, Chuck had this to say:
“It just felt like we were at a point in our career where it was time to give back. We’ve been successful and very blessed with how things are going in our lives, so there comes a time where you feel that it’s time to give back and be a little more socially responsible and involved; to not only be musicians but have an active role in the world of today; to make a difference in our own capacity. Obviously it’s just a drop in the ocean and we can’t change the world completely but step by step and little by little, you have somewhat of an impact. It just felt right for us to start doing that. We wanted to control how it would get done, which is why we decided to start our own foundation. This way we can decide who we wanted to help. (…) We chose a lot of different groups to give to. We’ve given over 150,000$ so far to different organizations in Quebec and Canada as well as around the world. We are going to give probably another 150,000$ again this year. We’ve been raising a lot of money and doing a lot of benefits. We meet people every day that have told us that the money we’ve given them made a big difference. We try to choose small groups, not the multi-million dollar foundations, small organizations that focus on issues that we care about. And for them, receiving 10,000$ or 20,000$ makes a gigantic difference in their lives.”
As the conversation progressed, we stumbled onto the topic of illegal downloading, a tangent from my original question which had been something along the lines of “Have you learned anything in the past ten years that you wish you could go back and tell yourself while you were still playing in your parents basements.”
“I think that there are a lot of things that you learn by actually touring and being in the business that is different from how you think it’s going to be when you’re playing in your basement. I think that everything we’ve done so far we’ve learned from, and it created who we are, molded us into the people we are today. I don’t think I would go back and try to change anything. Everything happens for a reason. But obviously, the way that the music industry has changed, we should have started five years earlier.” Chuck answered to the question as Sebastien added: “We should have started when we were 10 years old. We would have had more good years before illegal downloading became popular.”
“It’s not that we’re against it or for it.” Sebastien clarified, when I pressed the downloading issue. “But it does put a dent in the business. A band with a certain amount of success would have sold a couple of million records ten years ago. And nowadays, they only sell 100,000 records. It makes a big difference.”
Wanting to clarify further Chuck added: “It’s not about the pay check. In terms of being creative, if you want to make an artistic video it’s expensive and you can’t really do it anymore because the labels can ‘t fund it. Same thing with album covers etc. Everything has to be done cheap. Ten years ago you could do whatever you wanted but now you can’t. Everything is so highly budgeted, it’s difficult to make something big. We try to still do it but it’s not the same as it was before.”
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