Back in 2009 we started this tradition on SimplePlan.cz to recap the entire past year and remind ourselves of all the good and bad that has happened over the course of it. As we all know, 2021 has been just as challenging, if not more, as 2020 but we made it through and even despite the lack of news in the beginning of it, the guys more than made up for it in the second half of this year.
You can check out all the past reviews from 2009 later on over here – 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 – but right now, let’s go ahead, take a deep breath and have a look at everything that happened in 2021!
Another wave of the covid pandemic has hit the world in the winter of 2020/2021, which meant more social distancing and more isolation. It was no surprise then to not hear from Simple Plan much in the first month of the year. The first news that we got ahold of in 2021 was about We The Kings releasing a brand new song called ‘The Light’, which was co-written by Pierre and Chuck from Simple Plan, and which dealt with mental health issues. Over March and April, another two members of the band – Seb and Chuck – joined Pierre on the platform Cameo and allowed their fans to reach out to them for a small fee to receive a personalized video message from them. To this day, Pierre is still the most active out of them on Cameo.
Things started to get going a bit more in May, when Italian singer GionniScandal released a new song ‘Nicotina’ featuring Pierre Bouvier, who helped Gionni with his music during the pandemic. Simple Plan were also refereced in a new song by young talented singer Chloe Moriondo called ‘Favorite Band’. Pierre and Chuck also appeared in her music video later that year. Pierre definitely wasn’t a stranger to collaborations – as he also appeared in a new ‘Felt Emo Might Delete Later’ skit by Matt Cutshall, where Pierre played the role of Tony Hawk’s Dad. And finally at the end of May, Simple Plan finally announced the rescheduled dates of their long-awaited Emo’s Still Not Dead tour with New Found Glory in the U.S. Unfortunately, in August, Simple Plan decided to pull out of this fall tour due to fears of the covid situation still not being stable enough – taking in consideration the health of both the fans and the band & their crew.
June was the month when the fans finally got to see Pierre and Chuck getting together for the first time since the pandemic started. Summer was rather slow when it came to major SP news, but then in August, SimplePlan.cz celebrated 14 years online right before things became interesting again. September came around and American singer Chad Tepper released first a new song and later also a music video featuring Pierre Bouvier called ‘I Hate Everybody’. The duo got very close over the summer and has been seen spending lots of time together over the following months as well. In September 2021, all four members of the Simple Plan finally got together for the first time since February 2020 when Jeff and Seb came to Los Angeles to start working on some promotional materials for the fall before the release of their first new music in years. They also performed their very first “post-pandemic” show in Chicago at Riot Fest in September.
Things started really picking up speed from then on. In October, we finally found out the release date, artwork and the title of the very first song from Simple Plan’s upcoming album – ‘The Antidote’ would be released on November 5th. Pierre however gave fans a little preview of the song ahead of that date when he performed a bit of ‘The Antidote’ on TikTok Live with Papa Roach. A couple days later in October, Simple Plan also announced a big Canadian tour with The Offspring in early 2022.
November 5th was finally the day that so many fans have been waiting for for years – Simple Plan’s new song ‘The Antidote’ was out on all the streaming platforms. And it has been received very well both from the media and from the band’s fanbase. The song brought in lots of nostalgic elements but with a modern pop punk twist to it and within the first week, it has already reached over a million streams on Spotify. With the promotional frenzy around ‘The Antidote’ going full-speed, we also got to have a look at the brand new promotional photoshoot as well as many new interviews with the band.
In November, another artist referenced Simple Plan in their song – this time the band As It Is in the pop punk anthem ‘I Miss 2003’. Pierre’s long-time collaboration with his neighbour, talented young singer Beckett McDowell paid off when he released themusic video for the new song ‘Weirdo’ from his new album, that was produced by Pierre, who also had a little cameo in the video. Simple Plan became very active in November: they launched a brand new merchstore with some new merch items, filmed the music video for ‘The Antidote’ and also finally made their old Christmas song ‘My Christmas List’ available for streaming on Spotify just in time for Christmas. Finally, in December the band got back together again in LA for a number of promotional things, as well as to perform a full concert for Mola Chills and to become the special final guests at Emo Nite‘s 7th anniversary event.
2021 has been a very challenging and with the pandemic still not being over and new variants popping up, the future is still not very clear. As far as touring goes, Simple Plan are being positive about the situation: From end of January till beginning of March, they are heading out on a cross-country tour in Canada supporting The Offspring. Of course, since Canada has put a number of restriction in place in number of its provinces recently to help stop the spread of the Omicron variant, it is unclear whether this tour will be able to take place. As of right now, no changes have been announced and the tour seem to still be on. We will keep you in the loop if anything changes. The band’s plans for the next few months then include a bunch of festival dates – in April (Mexico), May (Texas, US) and June (Canada). Also, according to the band’s TikTok replies, it seems that they are working on some U.S. dates too.
2022 should be a big year for Simple Plan no matter what, though – the band is finally ready to release their new album but before they do, they aim to release at least two more songs. One of them could be the theme song to the reality show The Fashion Hero, which should air in January. So far it looks like the album could be out in the first half of the year. Finger’s crossed. Before any new song comes out however, the fans should finally get to see the new music video for ‘The Antidote’ which will be released very soon – either by the end of 2021 or in the first weeks of 2022.
Of course with new album comes lots of new content, so we cannot wait to keep you up to date on all things involving the release process. There will be an artwork to look forward to as well as the title, the tracklist and lots of other content that will give us more information about the songs that Simple Plan have been impatiently sitting all for the entirety of this pandemic.
2022 will be our 15th year online and we welcome all of you to join us on the ride.
As always, stay tuned for more! We promise you have so much to look forward to!
