Simple Plan’s Chuck Comeau dishes on FIFA Fan Experience launch, new music & more!

By Marriska Fernandes on April 29, 2015 | Leave a Comment


Simple PlanWhether you grew up to Welcome to My Life or spent your summers singing to Summer Paradise, you can now watch Simple Plan perform live in Toronto and sing along with your favorite hit singles. Over the last 16 years, Simple Plan has continued to be a worldwide phenomenon, releasing chart-topping singles. Coca-Cola has partnered with the Canadian band to launch the FIFA Fan Experience in Toronto, which will unveil the first-ever glimpse of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Trophy.

The band will be performing Thursday, April 30 at 8 p.m. at 299 Queen Street West free of charge but fans can get the full experience by clicking here to score tickets to enter the tent, which will also not cost you a dime. The full experience includes hanging out at the FIFA locker room, getting a photo with the official FIFA Women’s World Cup Trophy, going head-to-head with the Coca-Cola goalie and much more!

We chatted with Simple Plan’s drummer Chuck Comeau, who told us why he’s excited to perform and when fans can expect to hear their next single!

How did Simple Plan get the opportunity to launch the FIFA Fan experience?
We got asked to come in and perform and we are absolutely stoked to be a part of the whole experience of the trophy tour. We are really happy, on top of everything it is a free show for our fans so, I mean, that’s just a no brainer, like a win-win for everyone and we are really proud to be a part of it.

What do you have planned for the launch next week?
We are going to come in and do what we do, which is put on a great show and have a great time with all the people, make them jump around and sing and dance and have a great time. We are going to be on stage jumping around like crazy and having a great time, playing new songs, classic songs, everything, so it’s going to be fun!

What songs will you be performing?
Basically we are making our fifth album right now so we have a lot of new songs. Fortunately we are in the studio and we are super focused on that right now so it’s not like we are going to come in and play the whole new record because that would kind of ruin the surprise of the album, but we are going to play some old favorites and some more recent ones and it’s going to be fun. It’s just a cool day, there’s a bunch of stuff that’s organized by FIFA and by Coke. The trophy tour is really awesome, you get these cool activities during the day, you can go and play against this robot goalie and you try to score on him so I’m kind of stoked about that, I’m going to try that for sure. You can see the actual world cup trophy, I’ve never seen it and I want to take a picture of that. It’s like a whole day of cool stuff and then you get a free show at night so it sounds like a good day to me.

How have you managed to remain at the top of your game and continue selling records but at the same time maintaining the band’s style?
That’s always a challenge, you know it’s kind of crazy, we look back and we realize that we started in 1999 and when we started out there was no Spotify, we went through so many different things and as a band so many different styles of music. We are just really proud we are still there, the five of us. We are still the same lineup, we are still great friends, we enjoy what we do a lot and actually probably even more than we ever have before so that’s great. It has been really fun to evolve and to incorporate new influences and styles into what we do. We are working on our new record right now and it’s really coming together. I wouldn’t say it’s a new direction, it’s more like everything people like about the band, enhanced even better with some new influences, we are really excited about it.

When can we expect the new album?
We are still in the studio so we’ve probably got another month left on recording it so I think we will definitely have new music out this summer, that’s for sure, that’s the goal we’ve been working super hard towards. As far as the actual record release, we don’t have an official date yet but I’m thinking end of summer, early fall is our target so we are working every day making sure we can meet that deadline.

Do you have any advice for aspiring musicians in the Canadian music industry?
I can only go from our experience and I would say, for us, the key has always been hard work, it’s always been sort of being the underdogs and not thinking that everything we do is the best thing ever, kind of questioning everything and making sure that we always push ourselves and that we never take anything for granted. As far as when we started, I would say play everywhere, go and do it the old school way, go on tour, play in bands. It’s very different now because you have all this social media now that we didn’t have when we started out. At the heart of it all, what really matters, is that you do it yourself and you find the ways to promote yourself, you don’t wait for other people to do it for you. Sit down and write your own songs and make them amazing and write them until they are great. I think that’s the key, it’s always been about the songs, it’s always been about the quality of the show so it’s like practice, spend the time on it. It’s not going to be easy, you have to be ready to deal with the fact that it’s not going to happen in five minutes.

What do you love most about Toronto?
I love Toronto. There’s this whole thing with people in Montreal not supposed to like Toronto and we are different. We really enjoy it, I think the city has grown so much in the last 15 years. We actually made our first album in Toronto in 2000, we were there for almost two years. I just feel that it has changed so much, even in 15 years, there’s so many new and amazing restaurants now and new places, new venues, it’s just totally blooming and it’s just a cool place, people are really friendly and we enjoy it. Every time we go to Toronto we have a really good time, we have a lot of friends there and we always enjoy it. The only thing I wish is that your hockey team was a little better but aside from that you guys are cool.

Have you had any crazy fan experiences?
We’ve had a few of those, it’s kind of crazy. What really blows my mind is when we have people coming up to us and they’re like “Hey, I need to show you something” and then they show me their tattoo of the band, that always kind of blows my mind. They have our lyrics on them and we had this fan who had our five faces tattooed, like huge in huge five faces, with all of our autographs next to it. That’s real commitment, that’s kind of crazy so that always impresses me and it’s very humbling and it makes you want to make sure that when you put out a record, you put out the best one that we can because you have all these people counting on you and they want it to be great and they want to keep loving your band so I think that’s always inspiring.

What’s your favorite song from your albums?
Jump and Crazy!

Thank you so much for chatting with us!
Thank you!

~Marriska Fernandes

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