Twenty-five years into their career, Simple Plan are the biggest and most successful they’ve ever been. As they celebrate their latest band milestone with new Amazon Prime doc The Kids In The Crowd, frontman Pierre Bouvier talks support systems, social media, and forever sticking to their guns…
“I think everyone should have a documentary made about their lives,” Pierre Bouvier begins. That’s easy for him to say, of course, as his band Simple Plan are massively successful, with the story of their career to date covered in the documentary, The Kids In The Crowd, available for viewing now on Amazon Prime.
The singer has a point, though – we can take our ability to record things for posterity for granted. Pierre is sad that the technology wasn’t available when his father was growing up, for instance, so while there are a few black-and-white photos of his dad with his brothers to be seen, they offer limited insights; Pierre regrets not knowing what his father’s voice sounded like as a younger man, for instance. Capturing ourselves as we grow up has a useful function when you become a parent, too, suggests Pierre, especially when the kids become teenagers and, like all teens, assume their parents couldn’t possibly know how they feel.
“My daughters are 12 and 13, so at the age when they can see the documentary,” explains the fresh-faced Pierre, aged 46. “And what I love most about it is that it shows my kids that not that long ago, I was a 13-year-old kid. They can see footage of me, playing a little show, screaming in someone’s basement, and be like, ‘Holy shit – that was you, dad!’ And I’ll reply, ‘Yeah and that’s who I feel like I still am.’”
Whether that’s what production company Sphere Media had in mind when they approached Simple Plan about making a documentary is anyone’s guess, but the band evidently weren’t convinced of its value to begin with.
“I was asking, ‘Why would we do this now?’” admits the frontman. “We’d been asked about doing it, so I wanted to think of some reasons to have a documentary. We’ve been a band for 25 years, which is incredible, and over the last couple of years, we’ve felt it’s bigger than it’s ever been.”
Indeed, having endured early knock-backs, credibility issues, and the apparent death of guitar music, Simple Plan actually thrived during the pandemic. This was thanks to the ‘I’m Just A Kid Challenge’, in which people recreated old family photos soundtracked by one of the band’s most popular songs and shared them on TikTok – a lot.
“We decided to focus more on social media and becoming our own creators,” explains Pierre of capitalising on that successful piece of pivoting. “That way we could become our own marketing and promotion tools, getting in touch with our fanbase and the people of the world more directly. Our reach became bigger, so we became bigger.”
Simple Plan drummer Chuck Comeau was an early advocate of embracing social media, which we see in the film, to the dismay of Pierre, who bemoans the additional workload it creates. It’s one of many fights the two men have had over the years. In fact, even in their early days, back when they were in their first band together, Reset, their diametrically opposed personalities resulted in Pierre discussing firing Chuck, which Chuck overheard, quitting immediately.
With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that Chuck would ultimately go on to form Simple Plan with guitarists Jeff Stinco and Sébastien Lefebvre, before realising he needed Pierre’s charismatic wattage. Reflecting on it now, the singer considers that early falling out necessary for the longevity of a relationship still characterised by their differences – which, in the context of the band, boil down to Pierre’s artistry and Chuck’s bulldozing forward momentum.
“Once I kicked [Chuck] out of [Reset], there were parts of me that were missing to become a successful artist,” reveals Pierre. “I need that drive part and Chuck is 100 per cent drive. That guy never lets off the gas pedal, to a point where it’s hard to be around him, as he always feels it’s never enough and it’s exhausting to be around all the time. We were 18-19 when that break up happened, which was the best thing that could have happened, because we know we’re not going there again. I need him and he needs me. That tension is what makes Simple Plan.”
Chuck’s inability to rest on his laurels is given context in The Kids In The Crowd; the son of a successful lawyer, Chuck got into law school before dropping out to pursue music. While the decision can’t have come as a huge surprise to his folks, given that the his basement had long been requisitioned for band practices, they were nevertheless disappointed and concerned. Not these days, though, as Chuck’s choice has long since been vindicated by Simple Plan’s extraordinary success – even if he’s now unable to stop trying to prove himself.
Chuck’s parents are so much on board, in fact, that they run the Simple Plan Foundation. In the early days, back when people bought physical records, the PO Box number would reach the home of Mr and Mrs Comeau, who’d take delivery of huge amounts of correspondence from the band’s ardent fanbase, drawing their attention to SP’s importance in people’s lives. Simple Plan take it seriously, whether that’s writing This Song Saved My Life to incorporate messages from fans, or their philanthropic endeavours in communities helping young people in need. The inclusion of this element in the film is clearly less about self-acclaim than it is a reminder to fans that if they get successful and have a platform, it’s their responsibility to use it for good.
“We were really blessed with good parents, while a lot of our fans didn’t have that support system,” says Pierre. “For the first few years we had the foundation, I thought it was a good idea to do good. But then when we started hosting these events where the people we had helped would come and speak up, it really hit home for me.”
For all the positives on display, The Kids In The Crowd don’t shy away from Simple Plan’s detractors over the years. There’s the former magazine editor who suggests they were “never cool”, and NOFX’s Fat Mike claiming SP’s debut, No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls, has the worst album title ever – which seems rich from a band with an album called Heavy Petting Zoo, with artwork featuring a man interfering with a sheep.
“I think part of our success has come from building this armour around ourselves, sticking to our guns,” says Pierre, ever the pragmatist. “It solidified our relationship with our fans, because throughout those years, luckily for us, there was an army of people who supported us, so we focused on them and took care of them, and they took care of us.”
Some of the sweetest moments in The Kids In The Crowd are the more understated ones, such as a moment when Pierre goes to buy poutine – a dish of french fries, cheese curds and gravy. Pierre always goes for this ‘classic’ option, he explains now, forgoing the addition of bacon some people opt for and, worse, the white sauce and shrimp option favoured in eastern Quebec. For Pierre, having poutine is always the perfect follow up to a hometown show or an evening of drinking, though now he’s in his 40s, the antacids must be kept close by.
Anyway, while picking up his food, a fellow diner speaks to the singer. He’s also from Quebec, and has listened to Simple Plan for years, assuming they were American as Pierre doesn’t have a discernible Québécois accent, having learned French and English at the same time.
“I’m touched that you’re Québécois,” the man says with obvious pride.
“I loved that interaction,” smiles Pierre. “Everyone out there that is famous is just another human being, so I love it when people can break down that wall. And I think that’s another great thing about this documentary. I hope it humanises us and shows that we’re not different from most people. We just really just never stopped pushing and had some luck!”
Simple Plan: The Kids In The Crowd is out now via Amazon Prime
Read this next:
