ARTIST

Simple Plan

This Montreal-based punk-pop five-piece came together in the mid-'90s when singer Pierre Bouvier and drummer Chuck Comeau founded rowdy punk outfit Reset at the age of 13. Reset released a highly-lauded debut in 1997, gained moderate success in Canada, and toured the country with bands MxPx, Face To Face, and Ten Foot Pole. Soon, the two left the band to go back to school but two years later, Comeau put his studies on hold to start making music again with high school friends and guitarists Jeff Stinco and Sebastien Lefebvre. Bouvier and Comeau reunited at a Sugar Ray show in late 1999 and it wasn't long before Bouvier and another former Reset member, bassist David Desrosiers, joined the newly-named band, Simple Plan.

The group played the annual Vans Warped Tour in 2001 as well as Toronto's Snow Jam and headed back into the studio in 2002 to make their Lava Records debut produced by Arnold Lanni (Our Lady Peace, Finger Eleven). It featured 12 spunky tracks about adolescent issues like the teen angst-ridden "I'm Just A Kid," the MTV TRL favorite "I'd Do Anything" which features Blink-182's Mark Hoppus on backing vocals, and "You Don't Mean Anything" with added vocals by Joel Madden of Good Charlotte.

After the debut release, Simple Plan rocked five continents and played more than 300 shows within a year's time, even selling out their first-ever tour of Japan. Since then, the band has picked up a load of fans, appeared on MTV's TRL, and gone gold in their home country of Canada as well as Japan. Simple Plan is all about sticking to their simple agenda of working hard, playing hard, and connecting with the fans who are their very own peers.

Written by Minnie Chi