Full recording and recap of Q&A at Librairie Monet

In November, right after the French version of the Simple Plan book was released, the guys attended a Q&A session at Librairie Monet in Montreal, Canada, where they answered some questions about the book. Librairie Monet has now released a three-part video recording of the whole session which you can now check out on the videos below and thanks to Charbel and his French-translating skills, you can also read an English recap of what was going on in each of the videos:

Part 1

1st question: Difficult moments in the book
Seb replies with the 3rd album’s (4th chapter) lack of success in the US. Jeff adds that when you start off, things are difficult, you question yourself a lot if you’re gonna come out with another album or not, but you learn by making mistakes, it’s the only way, this is how they (SP) wanted to tell their story. Chuck adds the fact that at the age of 16, he kept arguing with Pierre and that he’s still uncomfortable talking about it, but it’s history

2nd question: Do you feel bad that you stole 2 members of Reset? (Pierre and David)
Seb jokes that SP would ruin any band in order for them to succeed. Pierre adds that he was more inspired by SP’s plans and Reset was getting boring, there was only one tour per year with a couple of shows there and there. Chuck adds that they did the reunion show with the original members of Reset back in 2008 and it kinda wrapped things up. Pierre jokes that Chuck was like a girlfriend to him, they broke up, felt sorry, got back together.

Part 2

3rd question: Moments they will never forget.
Pierre says it’s their first Bell Center show, and the whole band agrees on it, it was by far the biggest show of the tour. Chuck adds, that these moments aren’t always big shows and all, for example a moment they will never forget is when they first heard “When I’m With You” on the radio in Toronto, they were in their old smelly car that cost them 40$ per month, Pierre thinks there used to be a cadaver in there. Anyway they freaked out when they heard the song, Chuck mentions a scene in the movie “That thing you do” that was similar to that moment.

4th question: Was it hard to choose the right subjects to talk about in the book?
Seb says it was mostly hard to choose the pictures, from 45k to 1,5k. Pierre says that the book at first was supposed to be only a photo book, filled with pictures and captions. Then it became two projects, a photo book, and a traditional book, no pictures just the story, {David arrives} but now the book is the best of both worlds, it’s really cool to read. Pierre jokes it’s also fun for the people who don’t know how to read.

Part 3

5th question: Did you ever take a step back, slowed down because things were going to fast?
Seb says it was after writing the third album, they all went back home and quite funny enough, people started recognizing them on the streets. Pierre says it’s tiring when people don’t even do their jobs well for example when you’re ordering a sandwich from Subway, the dude whose making your sandwich is just staring at you not paying attention to the mustard he splattered all over the table. To that, Pierre adds that it’s not like they’re Justin Bieber or One Direction, that they grow gradually.

6th question: Where did David come out of when the whole band started out?
Pierre introduces the answer for David by saying that David replaced him on Reset, that’s how they first met the boy. Chuck asks David here to tell us his whole childhood. So David says he first got the call from David Gagnon to sing in Reset, before that he only sang in the shower. So all he needed to join Reset was a bass. On page 50, you can see David’s bass he rented for a show. So he auditioned to replace Pierre, and got it after the first shot. Chuck adds that he and the boys went to Jam Des Neiges to make fun of Reset’s new member, but ended up getting really impressed. Jeff was actually the one to push the band to recruit David. David jokes that Jeff liked his hair, Pierre jokes that David sang better than him. Before Pierre, Seb was actually doing all the vocals for SP, but once Pierre came along he focused on the guitar.