Can you even believe that 2012 is almost over? It feels like yesterday that I wrote last year’s recap (or the one in 2010, or the one in 2009). Simple Plan had an extremely busy year but at the same time one of the most rewarding ones! So let’s remind ourselves of all the biggest things that have happened this year in the SP world!
Here is the recap of 2012:
Simple Plan kicked off 2012 by playing at the New Year’s Eve celebrations at Niagara Falls right at midnight. And just a couple days after that, the boys headed over to Asia, where they toured for a couple of weeks. January 14th was a very special day for the Simple Plan fans who like to enjoy the social media, because that day they managed to get 9 Simple Plan-related topics trending on Twitter. When on their way back home to Canada, Pierre and David dropped by in France to attend the NRJ Music Awards, where along with Marie-Mai Simple Plan won a NRJ award for Frankophone duo of the year for their French version of Jet Lag.
In early February, Chuck and Pierre first started working with Sean Paul on the new version of Summer Paradise, although at that time, the fans only knew about it as a “secret project”. In this month, Simple Plan also released a Simple Plan hockey stick, with the proceeds going to the Simple Plan Foundation and held a couple of hockey-stick signings. Most importantly, though, February was the month of the long-awaited Canadian tour, which turned out to be Simple Plan’s biggest tour up till then, with a number of surprises and their biggest production. Simple Plan introduced every show with a very entertaining intro video, performed their new cover medley featuring songs by Maroon 5 or LMFAO and also played Freaking Me Out for the first time live with Alex Gaskarth from All Time Low. At the end of the month, Simple Plan surprised their fans by releasing the Sean Paul version of Summer Paradise.
After the end of the Canadian tour, the boys flew to Barbados, where they filmed the music video for Summer Paradise with Sean Paul. The rest of March was then mostly about Europe: the guys kicked off the first part of their European tour. And although some of the shows were crazier than others (e.g. the crazy crowd in Spain or the security incident in Italy), the guys had a lot of fun and for the first time introduced the “No Pads medley” featuring some of their oldest songs as a part of every concert, to celebrate the 10th year anniversary since the release of their first album. Towards the end of the month, the music video for Summer Paradise was released and Simple Plan also received the Allan Waters’ Humanitarian Award at the Juno Awards for their charity work with Simple Plan Foundation.
In April, SimplePlan.cz got to interview Randall RT! Thorne, the director of the Summer Paradise music video. At that time, the boys took a little time off before they went on to hit Europe with the second part of their tour there. This time around, the fans surprised SP with paper airplanes in Russia and with some more fans’ signs in Sweden. In the meantime, Pierre and Sebastien both reached a very significant number of Twitter followers, which they decided to celebrate in highly entertaining videos entitled I’m A Ninja and Pierre’s Day Off. Also in April, two new French versions of Summer Paradise came out (one for France and one for Canada).
Simple Plan finally announced their biggest project to this date in May, by revealing they would be releasing a biography book documenting the past decade (and more) of their career. At the end of May, the band flew to Vietnam, where they attended a special free concert for MTV EXIT, to support their efforts to stop exploitation and trafficking. Right after Vietnam, Simple Plan headed Down Under for a tour in Australia, where they also filmed some shots for the upcoming live DVD. Unfortunately Pierre suffered from vocal strain there, so a couple of TV/radio performances had to be made into acoustic sessions without Pierre, but he bounced back quickly and finished the tour as planned. From Australia, the band returned to Europe again to play a couple of local festivals – unfortunately not playing the Prague City Festival in the Czech Republic, as the organizers had to cancel the whole event due to financial reasons just two weeks ahead.
Simple Plan kicked off summer by playing at the Canada Day celebrations in July and continued playing at a few more Canadian festivals. In this month, the guys had some time to concentrate on their own projects which resulted in Sebastien releasing his third solo EP, entitled “More Sake Por Favor” and Jeff opening his new Italian restaurant Mangiafoco in the Old Montreal. August was filled with more festivals across Canada and SimplePlan.cz also celebrated its 5th birthday. Also, Summer Paradise turned into Simple Plan’s biggest hit in Europe by becoming the most played single on the old continent. The space fanatics among the Simple Plan fans were screaming with joy after finding out that a Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who would be launched into space in December would be bringing Simple Plan’s single “Astronaut” with him to actually play it in space.
Chuck reached his 100K followers on Twitter in September and also celebrated it with an entertaining video – called “A Serious Man”. October was a big month for all the Latin-American fans of Simple Plan – Simple Plan played in Mexico and most of South America, where they were greeted by hundreds of passionate fans. And while touring South America, Chuck worked very hard on the final pages of the upcoming Simple Plan book.
In November, MTV EXIT released the music video for “This Song Saved My Life” that was produced in Vietnam and Australia and which once again brought up the important issue of human trafficking. At the beginning of November Simple Plan released the French version of “Simple Plan: The Official Story” – the long-awaited biography/photobook and gave countless interviews and held many autograph sessions. In the meantime, Pierre (along with a few other Canadian artists) lent his voice to a new cover version of Cindy Laupner’s classic “True Colors” to support a campaign against bullying. In the middle of November, the band went to Spain for one festival and then right back to host the annual Simple Plan Foundation benefit event. At the end of the month, the English version of the Simple Plan book came out.
The final month of 2012 started with the video shoot of the new version of the music video for “This Song Saved My Life”/, to which later on fans from all around the world were asked to participate in. That day Simple Plan also performed at a Christmas event in Toronto, called The Big Jingle. In the midst of December, David got into a minor car accident, fortunately without any harm and at the end of the month, Simple Plan traveled all the way to India for the first time, to play at a local festival just two days before Christmas.
And what can we expect from 2013? In the first couple of months, the guys will be taking a little time off from all the touring they’ve done in 2012, but will soon be hitting the road again, playing Japan in March, Europe around June and Canada in July. As far as bigger Simple Plan project goes, in the first half of the year Simple Plan are planning on releasing an EP with 6-7 songs that they have left-over from the writing process of Get Your Heart On! and we can be also expecting a live DVD, featuring the shots from their Australian tour. Eventually, the band should also be releasing a full-on “A Big Package For You”-like DVD and at the end of the year Simple Plan should start working on their 5th studio album, which is expected to come out either at the end of 2014 or early 2015.
