DENVER — Simple Plan has witnessed the rise — and hard fall — of pop punk.
"It was quite traumatic," drummer Chuck Comeau said of the shift in tone toward the genre. "It was hard to always be told, 'Oh man, this band sucks.' And you read all these comments and these message boards."
Now, low-rise jeans are back in style, digital cameras are all the rage, and pop punk is once again on the charts, with Simple Plan riding the wave a second time after achieving fame with hits like "Addicted," "Perfect," and "I'm Just A Kid."
Twenty-five years ago, Comeau, Pierre Bouvier, Sébastian Lefebvre and Jeff Stinco were just teenagers with a dream and some instruments in a Montreal basement. Now, the band is on its biggest tour to date — the "Bigger Than You Think!" 25th anniversary tour — and released a documentary on Amazon Prime last month.
Their shows are bigger and feature more video and stage elements, but the heart of the performance is still the same as it was when they first started out. If you look out into the crowd today, you'll see fans old(er) and new.
"It's exciting to see the crowd just keep getting bigger and more diverse," Comeau said. "Seeing these young kids are coming, these old fans are coming back, it's so exciting for us."
The pre- and post-show routines have altered with age.
"There's a lot less partying than there used to be from back in the day," Comeau said with a grin. "Now we're doing yoga and we're getting ready and going to bed early, you know... to make sure that we can put on the best show that we can."
The genre they qualify under has also changed, depending on who you ask.
"Some people come up to us and are like, 'Oh, yeah... I love you guys. You guys are classic rock.' And you're going like, 'What do you mean? [We] cannot be classic rock,'" Comeau said. "But I guess to that generation, that's kind of what's happening."
Ahead of their Denver show on Sunday, Aug. 17, Denver7's Sydney Isenberg sat down with Comeau to discuss the band's documentary, the resurgence of emo/ pop punk music, and what it takes to make it 25 years in the music industry. You can watch the full conversation in the video player below:
Simple Plan will be performing at The JunkYard in Denver with Bowling for Soup and Denver's own 3OH!3 on Sunday, Aug. 17. The show starts at 6:30 p.m., and you can purchase tickets here.
Their documentary, "Simple Plan: The Kids In The Crowd," is available to stream now on Amazon Prime.
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