Sitting on a Simple Plan (from left)
Pop-punk is all grown-up.
Realizing they couldn’t cruise the mall wearing Vans and making fart jokes forever, some of the genre’s forever-adolescent have cleaned their rooms and changed their ways. Take the dudes from blink-182: They donned formal wear and featured an upright bass in the video for 2003’s single, “I Miss You.” And never as lowbrow but equally snotty, Green Day returned last year with American Idiot, an ambitious political rock-opera.
Now Montreal’s Simple Plan, which will perform tomorrow night at Nation in Washington, can be added to the list of punk-rock boy bands making a run for maturity. The band is now even taking interviews seriously, this one included.
“We would goof around in interviews and no one would ever pay attention,” guitarist Jeff Stinco says. “Then, as soon as the band grew bigger, well, people started noticing more, and quoting us … we should be careful about what we say.”
Far from a buffoonish tone, Stinco discusses his band’s development with enthusiasm in a conversation beginning at the un-rock star hour of 10 a.m.
“Our lives have evolved,” Stinco says. “So we wanted to portray some different issues on this one. So I think the issues are … more mature.”
“The sound is definitely tougher sounding and, overall, it’s just a little bit more mature record. The first record was great for us. It’s been an amazing record for us, but this one, hopefully, I think it’s better. I think it’s much better than the first one,” he says.
The release in question is last year’s Still Not Getting Any, the follow-up to 2002’s Atlantic Records debut No Pads, No Helmets … Just Balls. That album flung the quintet into considerable pop success on the strength of singles like “Addicted,” “Perfect” and “I’d Do Anything.” Heavy rotation on pop and modern rock radio ensued, along with nonstop touring both independently and on the Vans Warped Tour.
All that elbow grease led Simple Plan to a perch alongside Britney Spears and Clay Aiken as idols for MTV’s teeny-bopping Total Request Live cult. With the release of the more hard rock-oriented Still Not Getting Any, the band’s demographic is expanding.
“It started out pretty old, actually. Then it got younger as TRL came in, and I think it’s changing now,” says Stinco of the age of the band’s fans. “We’re getting a credibility that’s a little wider age-wise.”
“Obviously being on MTV brings a demographic that’s … a little younger,” the guitarist says. “We don’t want to limit ourselves … but we’re embracing it. Those are our fans; those are people who were supporting us. I think it’s possible to have both. Both a younger crowd and also appeal to a wider audience.”
This wish for a broad fan base is mirrored in the band’s (relatively) far-reaching palette of influences.
“We’re a mixture of everything we listened to and we definitely listened to a lot of punk rock when we were kids,” Stinco says. “You know … new-school punk rock that came out of Southern California.”
“You got a mixture of that with our popular influences: the Beach Boys, Cheap Trick, the Beatles, Elvis Costello,” he adds.
Dropping heavy influences gives way to revealing even heavier ambitions.
“We look up to bands like U2, Weezer, No Doubt, bands who manage to reinvent themselves, bands who are able to reinvent themselves from album to album, and hopefully Simple Plan will be that band someday too,” Stinco says.
Reinventing themselves isn’t the only likeness the band members share with U2. In the vein of Bono and Co.’s frequent rock ‘n’ roll charity work, Stinco and his bandmates will perform at the MTV Asia Aid tsunami benefit event. But whereas U2’s contributions often border on the self-righteous, Simple Plan makes no effort to portray itself as an “out-to-save-the-world” outfit.
“With our music, we’re not necessarily trying to change the world, we’re mostly trying to help out and entertain people,” Stinco says. “With the tsunami disaster, it’s important for us to help out because those people who got really touched by this event we knew about. A lot of people we knew were living there.”
“We’re not trying to overly publicize the fact that we’re trying to help out. We’re just doing it,” he says.
This brand of humility manifests itself throughout Stinco’s speech, especially when discussing his contemporaries.
“A lot of people say, ‘Ah, the industry’s dead.’ I say the opposite,” he says. “I buy CDs all the time that are great. Finally I get to hear music that I want to hear.”
