These Are the Days of Our Lives

Teenhood has its cathedrals. Founts of spiritual deliverance that proffer transcendence. A sanctuary where communication and understanding are sanctified. Pop-punk is one of them, and within its shrine, Montreal's Simple Plan is among the most-decorated idols. When a band's music is so precision-engineered to mesh within the soundtrack of a man's life, you don't deny its infectious pull. You give into it-you love it.

- Indran Paramasivam

For more than 20 years, Simple Plan has been loved for making songs about love. This year, the quartet—consisting of Pierre Bouvier (lead vocalist and bassist), Chuck Comeau (drummer), Jeff Stinco (lead guitarist) and Sébastien Lefebvre (rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist)—lifted the shroud on their sixth album Harder Than It Looks into the cultural bloodstream, and affirmed the tenor of their trajectory. Comeau tells us why everything and nothing has changed since he first sat at his kit in his basement.

You left the punk band Reset to start Simple Plan with Pierre. Looking back now, what do you think about that decision?

It was a very wise decision. We played in Reset from the ages of 13 to 19 and we loved it. At that time, we believed that band was going to be our career. We were going to make it our lives. Musically, Reset was harder, more skate punk. But after seven years, we just found new influences, discovered new bands and realised that bands that we knew were making different-sounding albums. That was when we wanted to do something out-of-the-box and maintain the energy of pop-punk. In a lot of ways, everything we do at Simple Plan comes from Reset. We just wanted to expand our sound, try new things and reach more people. So, it was the right decision that came at the right time.

Each band member has been awarded the Meritorious Service Cross, which is a great public honour in Canada. Isn’t it wild that you received that distinction for playing punk rock?