Yesterday, Simple Plan’s Jeff Stinco and Chuck Comeau gave away a number of interviews to media outlets in Quebec City, as a part of their promo for the upcoming Canadian Taking One For The Team tour in March, as well as their 15th anniversary No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls tour which will kick off in the U.S. also next month.
Besides posing for a Le Soleil photoshoot (which you can now check out in the gallery), Chuck and Jeff also revealed a number of interesting things during the many interviews on Tuesday including their upcoming trip to China, their tour in Canada and the possibility of a NPNHJB tour there, Simple Plan’s next album, David’s return on tour and Chuck also delved into the topic of the current U.S. political scene.
Let’s have a closer look at all these topics now:
As we’ve already heard from David, next week should be devoted to practising for the upcoming tours. Shortly after that, in the beginning of March, the band will be travelling to China, to play the song ‘The Heroes’ at two early screenings of the Canadian animated movie ‘Snowtime!’ in China. In an interview for Radio Canada, Chuck said: “We will do 30 hours of plane for a song and four days later, we will be in New York! It’s a bit crazy!”
Before the No Pads, No Helmets… Just Balls tour officially starts, Simple Plan have one more Taking One For The Team our on their schedule, and that is the rescheduled Canadian tour from November. At that time, the band was forced to cancel the original dates due to Pierre’s strained vocal cords, but decided to make it up to their fans at home with a rescheduled tour in March. Because of this reason, this tour will not be a No Pads tour, unlike the one in the U.S., which follows right after the Canadian one, but it will be a TOFTT tour instead. Good news for the Canadian fans is that the band does want to come back for a No Pads tour too. According to Chuck, they are aiming for the end of the year.
One of the most interesting news from the promo day came from a paraphrase, which can be found in the forementioned Radio Canada article. The article states: “[…] Speaking of studio, Chuck Comeau already hints on a possible return to work on the 6th album before the end of 2017.” As always though, we should take this information with discretion, as Simple Plan already have many plans they want to achieve by the end of 2017 – most importantly, all the remaining No Pads tours all over the world. It is however reassuring that there doesn’t seem to be plans for a long time off, as there usually is in between albums. In long term, that could mean the fans would not have to wait 5 years for a new album, like last time.
Another very important topic of discussion was the fact that after his absence on the last Simple Plan tour (South America in December 2016), David Desrosiers will be back in full strength with the band on all the upcoming tours. For the first time in an interview, Chuck discussed David’s decision to stay home, as he was in need of a short break:
It has been a pretty painful year in terms of travel, fatigue. Plus, it’s pretty intense in South America … So David said, “Listen, boys, things are a bit too much, it’s been a big year, I need to be home and rest for a bit.” We’ve been together for 15 years, we’re partners; so when one of the guys tells you: “I need a little break,” it’s sure that we’ll understand that and we’ll give him a chance to catch his breath. I was with him a couple days ago in L.A., where he’s on vacation right now, and he’s looking forward to doing shows, he’s 100% ready, he’s feeling physically ready.
Simple Plan does not consider itself to be a political band, but since two of its members (Pierre and Chuck) reside with their families in the U.S., the topic of the recent presidential elections in the United States was unavoidable. When answering a question whether he would consider moving back to Canada due to the current political climate in the U.S., Chuck said:
“You cannot say that one feels like that in cities like New York, L.A. or Chicago. These cities are still very progressive. There were even 3-4 million more votes for Clinton than for Trump, so it’s very progressive, very liberal in terms of social causes and everything. But surely, this is an important moment in the history of this country and surely, as I now have a baby, I do ask myself these questions for the future. Do we want him to grow up there? For me, it’s important that he has its francophone roots. I am in contact with his grandparents every day, my wife speaks English to him, I speak to him only in French. If we stay in the U.S. longer, we’ll send him to a French school. My wife is 100% in agreement with that. She is of Cuban origin, so she also speaks to him in Spanish, so we try to give him as many assets as possible…”