Simple Plan documentary is an emotional look at Montreal band's rise to the top
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Chuck Comeau is sitting in the cafeteria at the Maison de Radio-Canada marvelling at the good fortune of his band Simple Plan.
Comeau and his bandmates don't take anything for granted, which is something all of them underline in the new Amazon Prime documentary on them, Simple Plan: The Kids in the Crowd. When they founded the band 25 years ago, they were a gang of teenage French-Canadian punk-rockers from Laval and the West Island whose ambitions were greater than their musical chops.
Comeau in particular wanted to be a rock star and it was almost like he was going to will it to happen if need be. But he and the others — singer Pierre Bouvier, and guitarists Jeff Stinco and Sébastien Lefebvre — never forgot where they came from. A quarter century later, they've sold millions of albums, partly because when they started out selling albums was still a thing (it isn't any more in this age of streaming), and if anything they're becoming more popular now, thanks to a surprising renewal of interest in the punk-pop movement of the late '90s and early 2000s that they were part of.
Simple Plan just played a show on the Plains of Abraham last Friday night along with Avril Lavigne, another bright light of that same punk-pop wave, as part of a joint North American tour. The Montreal band also recently wrapped a jaunt in Australia and Japan with The Offspring, another throwback band from that era, and now Simple Plan embark on their 25 th anniversary tour in the U.S.
'We feel remarkably grateful for the fact that we're still here,' said Comeau. 'Being able to have that kind of longevity in a career, it's what you dream of or hope for.'
Their current renaissance was aided in part by a TikTok phenomenon in the thick of the COVID crisis in 2020 when people all over the world posted photos of themselves or their family as kids and then recreated the scene as adults, all to the soundtrack of the song I'm Just a Kid from Simple Plan's 2002 debut album, No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls. Suddenly Simple Plan were TikTok stars, through no work of their own.
'It landed on our laps without trying,' said Comeau.
But the resurgence is not just about social media trends, he added.
'People are reconnecting with the band, they're rediscovering the music,' said Comeau. 'Maybe they were fans of the band in the early 2000s and all of a sudden they want to relive these teenage memories of our music being part of their lives. So all these people are coming back.
'Plus there's the hardcore who've been there since day one and they have kids. And now they're bringing their kids and their kids were raised on our music and Blink-182 and Green Day, all that. So we're seeing this convergence of people, which makes for an exciting time in our career where we're playing bigger shows than ever.'
Simple Plan: The Kids in the Crowd isn't just a chronicle of the band's chart-topping successes. Produced by Montreal's Sphere Media and directed by Didier Charrette, it is a surprisingly moving film about a group of close friends who stuck together to pursue their dream. Comeau, in particular, fights back tears on a number of occasions during his interviews, like when he's talking about when he and Bouvier had a major falling out near the end of the run of their previous punk band Reset.
It also includes some moving sequences with the band members' parents who, naturally enough, weren't sure initially that their kids were following the right career path. Comeau, for example, went to law school at McGill, but soon dropped out to focus on the band.
'I've watched this documentary more times than I can count and I still get choked up,' said Comeau. 'I get these moments where I get a little tear in my eye. I mean more than a little tear. I get really emotional because that's my life. Since I was 13 years old, this is what I wanted to do. This is my dream. I've never been the most talented musician at all. I know there are so many better drummers out there; so many better musicians than I am.'
Comeau said he 'just wanted it so bad and there was nothing that was going to stop me.'
'So it was the sheer amount of effort, time, and then to see that it came through, and to see that 14-year-old version of myself,' he said. 'It's emotional to see how our families have supported us. But also how it was hard for them to understand, to grasp, to wrap their heads around what we were trying to do because we didn't have any reference points in Quebec.
'For French Canadians, there wasn't any band that had done what we did. For me and all of us and our families, to see that it panned out. Like my dad didn't want me to f--- up my life. Well I didn't f--- up my life. With that perseverance, with that resilience, we got through it. So I'm really proud of what we accomplished.'
Simple Plan: The Kids in the Crowd debuted Tuesday on Amazon Prime.
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