Even if you’re not familiar with who Simple Plan are, you’d surely have heard the band’s songs at a party playlist, film soundtrack or school gathering (if you were in your teens during the 2000s). Or, perhaps, you might have come across the viral “I’m Just A Kid” Tiktok challenge that surfaced sometime mid-pandemic, which got the likes of big names like Will Smith and Usher pulling out dusty old childhood pictures and recreating them over the audio.

No matter your connection with the Canadian pop-punk icons, they’ve had an undeniable reach and influence on the way millennials and older Gen Z’s have come into themselves, spending the past 25 years navigating equal amounts of mayhem and momentous milestones to grow a space where misfits could feel at home. But their story has not been told quite as fully as it has been in their most recent Amazon Prime rockumentary, Simple Plan: The Kids in the Crowd, where it is evident that it has always been their passion for music that has given the resilience to shine through impossible seasons of challenge, to get them to where they are today.

Men’s Folio takes this moment of reflection to speak to frontman Pierre Bouvier, to understand better what it means to have spent life living as a dedicated artist for a quarter of a decade, celebrating in its midst the connective power of music; here is a heartfelt conversation that showcases why Simple Plan will always be a band that sings to and for the youths of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

Charmaine: Hi Pierre! What was your first reaction to having this documentary project confirmed? Were you excited or nervous to intentionally walk through athose 25 years again?

Pierre: For me, it was mixed with excitement and a bit of terror because I knew that doing a documentary of that scope was going to involve being a lot more vulnerable than we have been in the past and show that it’s not just a fluff piece. You want to show the good, the bad, the ugly, the tough times, the good times. So I was excited to have a sort of, basically a video photo album of my life and all that I’ve worked for.

But at the same time, it was like, all right, can we handle this? We’re on tour all the time. We’re gonna have a camera crew follow us for like a year and a half. And we’re going to have to take a real good look at ourselves. So it was exciting, and a total and utter terror.

C: What was one particular memory that you’re happy is now out there?

P: I was happy to see all the archival footage that we forgot about. The stuff that was shot, especially the early days, even the band before Simple Plan. To me, that was so precious because I have kids now that are 12 and 13 years old, and I feel like that’s the age that I was starting to do what I was doing. I feel that was really cool to be able to see that and to be able to show them too. And then making the first album, stuff that’s like further away in the past. It’s so bizarre to look at and to think how long ago it was, yet how recently it feels, but seeing the footage, it’s a very clear indicator that it has been a long time. You know what I mean? So it’s cool.

C: The fact that you guys started recording everything from band practice to early performances was what struck me the most when I watched your documentary. It’s not something everyone would have the foresight to do — how did you guys decide to document right from RESET days?

P: We were very, very inspired by Blink-182 because at the time, we were big fans of theirs. They were shooting a lot of that stuff and putting a lot of it out on DVDs, and we had a buddy of ours, Patrick, who was in that DVD in the documentary. He wanted to be that guy. So we were lucky to have him. We didn’t have to pay him. He was just like, yeah, I’ll come and like tag along, you know, so it was great. And then we eventually started paying him, of course. (Laughs)

C: The best things always start of passion projects, and I’m so glad you had so many of these people around you. And they’ve stuck around; just like your new track Nothing Changes says, 25 years is long but not at all. How similar or different do you feel you are as an artist that still speaks so strongly to youth of all generations, despite you going past that phase of life? I imagine becoming a dad has changed the nuance of the way you deliver your lyrics to a crowd, or even change the essence of what you guys are singing about, even if the actual words are the same.

P: When I’m on stage singing, I see so many faces out there. I see some young people, some older people, some people with their kids. I see people crying, hopefully happy tears, not like, oh my God, you guys are so bad. But I see all these people experiencing things with the songs, reliving the emotions from when they first heard them. That’s when I feel that what I’m doing is singing those songs as a service to them. Of course I love doing it, but the biggest satisfaction I get is knowing I’m making them feel. I feel like I don’t want to compare it to like a preacher, but I feel like I’m giving them a moment. I’m doing it for them and I feel the duty to sing these songs well and with emotion, because I know that they’re reliving the emotions from all those years ago. So I’m like, I want to make this as powerful as possible for you, and I want you to walk away and feel like time just reversed for a split second.

C: Now before I continue, I have to admit I thought I would have to do up a bit more research going into this exciting opportunity because you guys are legends, but I wouldn’t dare to say I was diehard fan that knows your discography by heart. But combing through your albums had me singing along to your hits at my own surprise, unearthing forgotten moments where I first listened to them. One of these songs was Happy Together, which brought me back exactly to when I first watched Freaky Friday, on a cold, rainy Sunday morning. It’s really been a while since nostalgia really took a hold of me like that, and I feel like that’s when music is at its most powerful — when it takes a life of its own, becomes a time capsule, and goes on to affect the listener in ways beyond the artist’s intention and knowledge. What does it feel like to author such moments? To see your music bridge generations of “kids” and heal so many people’s inner “kids” not just with word, but also sound — even if it’s through TikTok? 

P: It feels incredible. And I love your question because I feel like it’s exactly what music does. When I hear a song, I immediately get transported to this place, whether I was on vacation with my parents, and I can see where I was sitting, or if I’m with my first girlfriend in my car just chilling. Whenever I hear some cheesy 90’s dance music, I will remember being in my brother’s car and sing, “I saw the sun and it opened the eyes”. So the fact that we can be that for people is incredible.

Hopefully, the lyrics also hit home in a good way. Maybe if they’ve helped them, if there’s some tough times they’ve overcome, then they can relive those moments in a positive way. It’s like a therapeutic thing, right? I also think this role can only be positive. If the song did not impact them, this role would be empty, but the fact that I’m creating this moment for them is because the memory of that song is meaningful. And so the work is already done. All I have to do is play a good version of it for them tonight so that they can relive it, and we can have this moment together. There is really such a thing as a real, tangible relationship between the fans and the band and the energy of those moments are pretty amazing.

C: I can only imagine the feeling. It takes a lot to say things that everyone is thinking, but wouldn’t dare to say.

P: Yes, exactly. I’m grateful we were able to channel those songs at those times, write things like Perfect, Welcome To My Life and Jet Lag. But I have to say that as much as we’ve always wanted to write those songs, it’s also about catching the lightning in a bottle. You try and try and try. I’ve written, I don’t know, hundreds of songs in my life, and a lot of them are kind of like, eh, whatever. But some of them are like, oh, my God, this is amazing. And why? It just happens. So you got to keep showing up and be there and, like I said, I’m just grateful that I decided on that day to write a song and that it became those ones. Just three minutes away from another deep connection.

C: Wow, that’s beautiful. Thanks for settling the title of this story. (Laughs)

P: (Laughs) My pleasure.

C: There’s still so many heartwarming things I want to touch on in the documentary. One of it is your bond with your peers in the industry then — I feel like the whole “under-dog” spirit of punk united you and your peers in a very familial way. How has this kinship with bands like Good Charlotte, Sum 41 and even Blink-182 become a safe harbour for you guys when the rest of the world wasn’t? 

P: I think there was a whole large community that was also a safe harbour for us, but it just wasn’t the mainstream. It was just this community that would go shopping in Hot Topic, look different and want to show their emotions. I find that before the year 2000, it wasn’t as popular for everyone to share their emotions, and that’s why people coined pop punk into emo stuff. Now I think we’ve completely bridged that gap because now people are doing therapy. They’re open to talking about it, you get online therapists, discuss your emotions as a fireside chat. And I’m just so glad to be part of the generation that saw that shift. And hopefully in some ways, we were part of that shift.

Perhaps it was just from singing, “I’m just a kid, and life’s a nightmare.” Maybe when that came out in 1992, we would have been laughed at. And sure enough, many did. But there were enough people out there that felt it and were ready to show that they felt it. And now we have a lot more freedom to express ourselves. You can be whatever you want to be. You can talk about your anxiety, you can talk about your depression. You’re not going to be ostracised by society. So I think it’s cool to be able to be part of that shift and see it happen.

C: I believe it’s also really interesting to also learn about the favourite artists of your favourite artist because you get to learn so much more about their artistry and how they transform that into their own colour of music. Sometimes, they could even be clues to someone’s potential next steps without them even knowing. Given the open access to music from all over the world, have you become fans of any other artists/music that wouldn’t have in the past?

P: I met my wife 20 years ago and she’s from California where she grew up listening to country music a lot. Not exclusively, but it was a lot more prevalent in California than it was in Canada. And I really like country music now.

C: That’s new.

P: Yeah. I like people like Morgan Wallen. There’s actually so many good country artists out there. She introduced me to that kind of style. When I was younger, if you would have asked me what I thought of country music, I probably would have said it sucks because I was a dick. I was a dick. (Laughs) But now I like it, and that was something that I’d never expected.

But actually it’s funny. I find that Simple Plan is very country without the country style, in the way that we write lyrics, the way there is a story and it’s very understandable. I’ve said this before, but a lot of bands will write stuff that’s very cryptic and artistic, or poetic in a kind of cryptic way. But we tend to write a story that you read it or you listen to it and you know exactly what we’re talking about — that’s kind of how country is too. So maybe it makes sense that I like it. I just didn’t know it yet.

C: You’ve probably been asked music-related questions the entire evening, so I wanted to ask about how you spend your time outside music. What have you been a fan of over the years — could definitely be music too or outside that — that has kept you going when you needed a break from Simple Plan?

P: Back in the day when we were younger, there wasn’t as much things that you could get into because you’d have to go to a physical place like a magazine store or a record shop to get exposure. So for us, music was one of our very few outlets. But I also like video games, the NHL, and skateboarding — that was my escape for me. I was a big skateboarder and snowboarder in my youth, and that was the way that I could express myself outside music. Skateboarding was kind of a counterculture, and you were kind of a punk when you were skateboarding and you listened to crazy music. So I liked that. (Laughs)

But now I look at my kids who are 12 and 13, and my daughter’s really into anime and they’re into so many different TV shows. My oldest daughter’s a really good amazing artist. She likes to draw stuff on an iPad with a crazy pen and she’s incredible at it. The times are just really different.

C: To the point that people say everyone is now quote unquote an artist, which leads me perfectly into my last question. What’s a message or piece of advice you’d like to offer to a budding artist now, as someone who has been making art for 25 years? Whether or not they’ve decided to pursue art as a career or not.

P: I would say that today you have so many more tools at your disposal than we had growing up, so it is really up to you. You can you can literally learn to be an incredible photographer for so much less money than it was 20 years ago. You can buy a decent camera and you could do it on your phone. You can even record songs with just a laptop. I’ve produced albums from my house with a laptop, one good microphone and some guitars. Maybre need some money to buy some plug-ins, but it’s not that much. So,don’t blame anybody else. It is up to you.

There’s also a lot of talented people that are very driven out there. So if you are trying to get somewhere, don’t be afraid to go out there and try and just get better. You’re going to suck at first. It doesn’t matter. If you’re trying to be a content creator, your first videos might be terrible, but you will learn every time. So every time you fail, you will learn. Then you fail better. And get better. Social media is an incredible tool. The ability to go viral with a video and reach 10, 100,000, a million people is at your fingertips. You just got to be creative and try it. You gotta jump in.

Watch ‘Simple Plan: The Kids in the Crowd’ here. Once you are done with this story, click here to catch up with our June/July 2025 issue.