Year 2015 is slowly heading to its finish line and we are all excited about what the next one is going to bring. But let’s slow down a bit and have a look at all the things 2015 brought us in the world of Simple Plan. It’s been quite an eventful year, so let’s continue with SimplePlan.cz’s tradition of annual recaps [2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014] and check out the whole of 2015 in one post!
Here’s the recap of 2015
Chuck and Pierre kicked off the new year by finally overcoming their writer’s block, which was prominent to the final few months of 2014 and got back on track by writing more new songs for Simple Plan’s new album. Photographer Adam Elmakias paid a visit to their song-writing sessions a couple times, producing a number of great shots of Pierre and Chuck. During January, Simple Plan also finally acquired their name on Instagram and have been posting lots of photo updates via this online social network ever since. In February, Pierre and Chuck spent a couple days writing songs with the members of 5 Seconds of Summer for 5SOS’ new album (however the two songs didn’t make the final cut).
Simple Plan then finally entered the West Valley recording studios in LA on March 1st under the supervision of producer Howard Benson. During his stay in LA, David officially became vegan. In March, SimplePlan.cz had the opportunity to collaborate with Canadian program Accès Illimité and released a number of sneak peeks of the show’s Simple Plan special in advance of its airing. In the special, Simple Plan for the first time teased a part of their song “Everything Sucks”. The first SP show of the year took place in Moncton, Canada, where Simple Plan performed in April. During this month, the band also started announcing summer shows in Europe and also their short appearance on Warped Tour in the US. The band kept recording and mixing their new record until May.
The first song that came out of the recording process, “Saturday” was released in June, however the band later declared it was just a teaser track (a “buzz single”) and would not be featured on the new album. Due to the birth of his first son (London, born July 1st), Chuck wasn’t present at the recording of 
the song “Heroes” for the soundtrack of the movie La Guerre des Tuques 3D, for which he band used David’s drumming skills. In July the band got back together for the photoshoot for the album cover, which was once again taken photographed by Champan Baehler. After touring rehearsals, the band returned to Warped Tour for a couple of selected dates, where they recorded the live parts of their music video for “Boom”. In between these dates, the band also attended the Alternative Press Music Awards, where they had one nomination for their charitable efforts and where they performed their new song “Boom” and also a cover of a MXPX song with Mike Herrera (MXPX) himself. SP finished recording their music video for “Boom” at a free concert in Montreal with the help of their fans.
Simple Plan returned to a music video set again in August, when they filmed the music video for “I Don’t Wanna Go To Bed” feat. Nelly. Shortly after that the boys made a grand return to Europe for a number of festival appearances and regular shows. It was there in Antwerp, Belgium, where SimplePlan.cz filmed the 4th interview with Simple Plan (Chuck, Pierre and Seb). In August, Simple Plan also finally released the long-awaited music video for “Boom”, which featured a number of cameos from various bands from the alternative music scene.
The band suffered a minor bus accident in France, where they were playing two shows in September; luckily nobody was hurt. A couple days later, Simple Plan released another song from their new record – “I Don’t Wanna Be Sad”. The release was accompanied by a number of “sad no more” vlogs, 
showing the band members in various happy situations. The following month (October), Sebastien was awarded with the Anglophone Song Award for co-writing the song “Never Gone” with Andee. The first official single from their new album, “I Don’t Wanna Go To Bed” feat. Nelly was released in October along with a Baywatch-inspired music video which not only featured Nelly, but also a surprising cameo by David Hasselhoff. SimplePlan.cz also interviewed the music video’s director Mark Staubach about his work with Simple Plan. Throughout fall, Pierre and Chuck went back to their home studios to work on some more tracks for their new album. At the end of the month, the song “Heroes” from the La Guerre des Tuques 3D soundtrack was finally released.
In November, the band reunited in Montreal, where they started their band rehearsals for an appearance at We Day Ottawa and promo in Europe. This promo was supposed to kick off in Paris, however due to the terrorist attacks on the city just three days prior to their planned performance, Simple Plan were forced to cancel the show and only arrived to London, Milan and Zurich, where they appeared in numerous radio stations and gave a number of interviews. After Europe, the band’s next appearance was in Mexico, where they performed at the Telehit Awards, 
after which SP headed back to Los Angeles to record 4 more songs for their new album. At the end of November, Simple Plan finally announced their new album’s title “Taking One For The Team”, its album cover and the first leg of their European tour. Unfortunately these very exhausting trips in November had a negative influence on Pierre, who’s suffered vocal haemorrhage and was not aloud to sing for three more weeks. Because of that, Simple Plan’s performance at 24h Tremblant in December was filled with additional singing guests, who generously helped the band out. And finally – Simple Plan had a couple early Xmas presents in store for their fans in December – firstly, a new Christmas song/cover of “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” featuring Pierre (SP), Alex (ATL), Ashton (5SOS), Joel (GC) and John (Goldfinger) was released and a few days later the band showed up with a full tracklist for their new album and the start of the pre-orders.
And what can we expect from 2016?
After many years of hard work and recordings, Simple Plan will finally be releasing their long-awaited fifth studio album on February 19th [all info about the record can be found here]. We are still yet to learn about all the exciting collaborations that will be featured on this album, which includes the most songs of any of the previous SP records (14). After the release of this album the band will take off for the first leg of their European tour. For the rest of the year (and at least the following one too) we may expect more tours to be taking place all over the world, as the band wants to see their fans on all the continents. So be patient, SP will come to your country too! We also know already that SP plan on releasing a new Xmas song called “Christmas Every Day” just in time for the next Christmas, so there’s another thing to look forward to. All in all, next year is gonna be massive – so keep checking back on SimplePlan.cz for all the latest SP news!
