Simple Plan – June 2009
June 24th, 2009 - Written by Angel
The downloading topic brought us to another tangent when I pointed out that one of the good things illegal downloading had brought on was that bands were now more or less obliged to be much more interactive with their fans; gone are the days of rock gods and un-attainability. “We’ve always been involved with the fans though.” Chuck pointed out. “We’ve always been a people band and tried to be as accessible as possible. Now, [bands] do it as a means of survival. But we used to do it because we felt it was the right thing to do. I feel like it was a lot more genuine back then. Now it’s like you’re told by your label to go sign stuff because you need to win your fans one by one. But back then, we just felt like doing it. It’s fun and it was part of the experience for us. Now it’s mandatory so it’s different.”
The devotion Simple Plan show their fans, has of course been reciprocated. At the time of our interview, the boys were nominated for a Much Music Video Award in the ‘Favorite Canadian Band in Canada’ category. As I type this, the band has won the award for the 6th time.
“We’ve won the award 5 years in a row so we feel like it’s our award and we don’t want anybody else to win it. Because it’s the important award to us as it’s the fans that vote. It’s not random people in offices; it’s not the biggest labels, with the most employees, voting for their bands. It’s the fans that decide and it shows how loyal our fans are and we love that. It reflects well on us to win these because it shows that we are a people’s band.” Sebastien gushed, unable to hide his pride. “[The fans] are starting to see it as their personal victory as well. Of course they do it for us but they do it for themselves as well to prove that they organize together and get things done. We put up the links and all that but really it’s them who organize and band together to get this done.”
As we edged toward the end of our interview, I asked the boys if there were things that they had yet to do or accomplish, that were a ‘must’ on their bucket lists.
For Sebastien, new destinations are among them as well as a few others. “For instance, we are going to be going to Russia and we’ve never been there so that’s going to be fun. Maybe win a Grammy eventually, be on the cover of Rolling Stone. In a way [Rolling Stone] isn’t as influential as they used to be but we grew up with that so it’s would be cool. It’s more about having fun than achieving a place in the industry.”
“In a lot of ways we’ve exceeded what we wanted to do and our own expectations. ” Chuck added.
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