How Simple Plan perfected the sound of teenage angst

When Simple Plan released Still Not Getting Any… in 2004, they had no idea the album would become the soundtrack for a whole generation of teen pop-punk fans.

Hot off the heels of the band's seminal debut album, 2002'S No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls, this second album would cement Simple Plan's legacy as one of the biggest bands in pop-punk.

"We had so much success with our first album, but we always felt like we were the band of the people," frontman Pierre Bouvier said.

Simple Plan stepped onto the scene in 2000 as a quintet, with the lineup consisting of Bouvier on lead vocals, Chuck Comeau on drums, Jeff Stinco on lead guitar, Sébastien Lefebvre on rhythm guitar and David Desrosiers on bass guitar (Desrosiers left the band in 2020). 

Over the last two-plus decades, the band has put out six studio albums, an EP and two live albums. Its latest LP was 2022's Harder Than It Looks, and the band just announced it will be releasing a new documentary in 2025.

For the 20th anniversary of Still Not Getting Any…, CBC Music sat down with Bouvier and Comeau during their summer tour with Avril Lavigne to chat about the making of the album, their knack for writing angsty teenage anthems and why they've never written about hating their hometown.

'Solidified a sound for us'

The making of Still Not Getting Any… was helped immensely by the success of No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls. Because people enjoyed the album so much, Bouvier said it informed the decision-making process for their sophomore offering.

"I think a lot of times when artists aren't so successful with the first album, they chase what it is they [want to] sound like. And it can take a few albums to figure it out," he said. 

"Whereas for us, people really enjoyed what we came out with. It really solidified what Simple Plan sounded like."

He explained that although they felt fortunate to already have solid ground to build their second album off of, it was still a challenge to come up with fresh material. 

"It's tough to reinvent yourself every time, but it gives you a direction of where to go," Bouvier said.

In the lead-up to their recording sessions, Comeau recalled the band feeling nervous and fearful over whether they were capable of replicating the same amount of success, or if they were destined to be one-hit-wonders.

"We just sold three million records. [No Pads] was a huge success, and our band was playing big shows. It felt like a 'You're just about to make your second record and who knows what's going to happen' moment," he said. 

According to Comeau, the first few months of writing the record were a little rough, but once he and his bandmates struck gold on a few songs, their confidence came back swinging. 

"We felt really confident that we could make something even better than the first album. We started to write all of these songs back to back, which became the core of the album," he said.

The band tapped legendary Canadian rock music producer Bob Rock — who has worked with the Tragically Hip, Jann Arden, Metallica, Joan Jett, Our Lady Peace and Michael Bublé — to produce the record. Comeau said Rock both believed in and reinforced their confidence that Still Not Getting Any… would be a success.

"We thought he was going to change everything and be nitpicking, but it was quite the opposite. He just said, 'I love these songs. Let's make them sound amazing. We don't have to change anything.'"

A knack for teenage angst

There are few bands who can write a song about being pissed off at the world quite like Simple Plan. 

The band proved it could perfectly capture how it feels to be an angsty teenager on No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls with singles "I'm Just a Kid", "I'd Do Anything" and "Perfect," which are still fan favourites today. 

On Still Not Getting Any…, Simple Plan followed up with a bang — literally — on opening track "Shut Up!," which still resonates with anyone who has a controlling, know-it-all figure in their life. The album also spawned cult classics "Welcome to My Life" and "Untitled (How Could This Happen to Me?)."

"We've all been in those dramatic situations," Bouvier said. "Even into adulthood, when you're going through something difficult, it might seem like, 'Oh you'll be fine,' from an outside perspective. But when you're going through it, it feels like the end of the world."

He explained that the purpose of writing these kinds of songs is to relate to the fans who are going through tough moments — when you don't know if things are going to work out and it truly does feel like everything is going to implode. 

Comeau explained that the songs were also written to connect with difficult moments in their own lives, and trying to remember what it was like. 

"Even as we were writing it, we might have been going through some of that stuff," he noted.

He said as Simple Plan got more famous, fans started telling him how much songs like "Welcome to My Life" and "Perfect" meant to them. 

"They can look at their favourite band and say, 'They know what I'm feeling. They know who I am. They can see what's going on in my life.'"

'Mecca of punk rock'

In pop-punk, artists love writing about how much they hate their hometowns — it's such a well known trope that it's practically a meme. 

From A Day to Remember's "All Signs Point to Lauderdale" to "The Great Escape" by Boys Like Girls, it felt like bands in the scene couldn't collectively get out of their hometowns fast enough. 

But not Simple Plan. Despite having released six albums and more than 75 songs, their love for Montreal has never wavered.

"Montreal was the mecca of punk rock at the time. In '94, NoFX came out with Punk in Drublic and [they] were the first show that we ever saw," Comeau said. "Montreal was literally the core city for this kind of sound. So every week we could go see a show."

Comeau credits the city's vibrant punk-rock scene in the '90s for inspiring him to start a band with Bouvier in 1993. He says being from Montreal really informed who he was musically, and who Simple Plan was as a band.

"We formed a band called Reset and that band got pretty popular in the Montreal scene. Had we been born somewhere else, like in the U.S. or whatever, I don't think we would have had that kind of career."

Going on 22 years

More than two decades later, Simple Plan is as tight-knit as ever. 

The band just completed a 17-date North American tour with Avril Lavigne — who they first toured with back in 2003 — playing for over 10,000 fans each night.

"The fact that we're still doing the same thing: playing shows and seeing the longevity of these songs that we've written … sometimes when I listen to 'I'm Just a Kid,' I feel more connected to it now than I did back then. So that's pretty cool. I feel very fortunate," Bouvier said.

"It's very surreal. I'm not the kind of person that projects myself that far ahead. So I bet you, if I would [have] asked myself 22 years ago — since our first album — what we'd be doing at this age, I wouldn't be able to answer it."