From teen movies to streaming. While Canadian band, Simple Plan turned 20, the music industry has completely changed. Q&A with guitarist, Jeff Stinco.
Jeff Stinco /// Photos by Sinco / Ígéretes titánok / Promising Titans
Canadian band, Simple Plan is touring in Europe right now, they played in Hungary at Budapest Park as well. So, we sat with the band’s guitarist, Jeff Stinco to talk about the beginning, so the ‘90s, teen movies, boybands and one of the most interesting question in their galaxy: why Jeff thinks ‘they are probably the biggest smallest band in the world’? (With 9 million Facebook followers?)
Simple Plan shortly turns to 20. Did you ever think the band would live and be on stage for so long? Or did you think ‘happens what happens’, we are jamming and nothing else matters?
There needs to be something naive in you when you start a band. It has to be immature, it has to be ambitious and somewhat unrealistic. We were talking about touring the world. We were in the era when you would see music videos and DVDs of bands, you would see Metallica playing in Austria, playing Moscow, you would see Pearl Jam touring the world, and you would say ‘I want to do this, you know.’ We really did believe that we could tour around the world. But the thing about being around for twenty years is that, when you are young, you don’t even want to be 25. When we started this band, we were 18, 19, so for us being 30 was old! We were like, those are old men, you know, they are not supposed to be on stage. So that was the philosophy back then. And I think it’s pretty amazing. If anything, the fact that we’ve been around for that long, actually it changes a lot of things for us. I think in the early days a lot of people wanted to label us, ‘what is this band? Is that pop band? Is it a rock band? Is it pop-punk?’ And now, people just know what Simple Plan is and either embrace it or don’t. I think the fact that we’ve been around for so long proves that we are doing something right. And there is less of a discussion about ‘what is this band?’, ‘what does it represent?’, it’s more about people now know what we represent, what we present.
You sound like a band from right under the Californian sunshine, or from Southern USA, but you’re from Canada actually. Does it really matter where are you from anyway? How is it possible handle the situation that in one way or another you are/were outsiders? Was it harder being a success in that scene as a band from Montréal?
When you grow up, you stumble across bands. Growing up twenty years ago, thirty years ago is not the same as now. We wouldn’t have the internet. So you heard about the bands that came to your city and it just happened that bands like Lagwagon, No Us for a Name and Face to Face as well as Green Day would drop by to Montréal and play gigs and that really motivated us. I remember going to a Doughboys concert, you don’t know them, it’s a local band, but they played some very aggressive punk rock, and I was like ‘Holy shit, this is what I want to do!’ Growing up in Montréal was interesting because there is no scene. We come from a French place, where most people speak French. And then there is a separatist movement as well so you’re not supposed to sing in English when you speak French, that’s frowned upon. Now that’s different, the younger generation doesn’t care, they don’t give a shit, but our parents cared! ‘Why the hell are you singing in English?’ ‘Well, we’re listening to these bands and our genre of music is really tied to the language.’ So interestingly enough, we had to leave Montréal to actually have a career. So, we started in New York, Buffalo, Toronto and made our way towards the States gradually. And that’s how it worked. We basically had to exile from Montréal, in order to work but it was a good thing for us. Out of necessity, came something great, but we had to leave.
Have you ever had a situation when you felt that American guys spotted you, whispering that ‘Hey, these dudes are from North, from Canada, but they are playing Southern kinda pop-punk music, how weird is that?’ Did you experience any disadvantages because of that?
Our singer, Pierre Bouvier sings with no accent, whatsoever, his first language is English, so for a long time, people didn’t know that we were from Canada. Except you spoke to Sebastian, our other guitar player, who barely spoke English. Now he does, but then he didn’t, so you could actually hear his accent and tell that he wasn’t from the US. When Pierre talked in interviews, it’s not something we marketed, like ‘yeah, we are from Canada’, we were just kinda pushing our music. It was really interesting. It took years for anything to happen. During those years touring in the US the question about us being from Canada didn’t really come up. It took many years before people actually asked: ‘Where are you from?’
A few days ago, I read an article on Vice’s Noisey about ‘Remember When Every 00s Film Had A Pop Punk Band In It?’ You are on that list. It was so funny remembering those days when this was actually true, every teen movie needed a so-called ‘teen band.’ However, it’s also fascinating that the whole music scene changed in a very short term. So what happened that time it seems to be a galaxy far away now. What do you think happened in the past 15 years?
The best thing that happened to us were the boybands because people were so tired of hearing them. Two things happened actually. People thought that after Offspring and Green Day, that scene was over. And then the boybands became really strong, and people wanted to hear the real thing, so bands like Sum41, Good Charlotte and us really did super well. I think it was an answer to all of this. We were boys in bands, but we were not a boyband. I think it served a purpose in a sense. People wanted melodies but they wanted something more real. Over the years, the internet changed everything. People started downloading music illegally, and that kinda killed the industry. It wasn’t too bad for us because we didn’t really make that much out of record sells, we made some, but that wasn’t the bulk of what we did. We were touring a lot and that never changed throughout the years. But then, the streaming services came in and I think that gave us a resurgence. Suddenly we were on playlists, and suddenly all these young people who had no clue what Simple Plan was, heard about us. So now, the thing about the age differences in the concerts, I think it has a lot to do with this, the playlists, the streaming services.
How can a band adopt in a world of the streaming universe? How can you live through these changes, turning from analogue to digital?
What changed a lot is, that hip-hop artists would not tour before, they would sell 10 million records and buy mansions in New York. Now suddenly they are touring. Now we are competing against each other, there is so much entertainment out there! Circuses, variety shows, so much going on! People are more critical than ever. If you gonna buy a show ticket, they better be really good! And they can check you out on Youtube, say ‘this band sucks’ or ‘this band is good’, which band is for real or not. And to be fair, this has played in our favour. We recorded a show in Melbourne about 5-6 years ago and then gave it away on Youtube and that show did wonders for us! People were like ‘shit, yeah, that man can play!’ And a lot of people were telling me that ‘I saw that show on Youtube, so I wanted to see you for real.’ It’s an interesting time. The fact that we’ve been around for twenty years is giving us some kind of credibility, given us some kind of stamp of approval over time. We are a real deal now. Ten years ago, that was still a discussion. Now we are a real deal. You know now, there are so many young bands around, maybe when you are buying a ticket, you’d say, ‘I’m gonna go see Simple Plan, because I know they will put a good show on.’
No doubt fewer people want to buy records in a physical way, more people prefer streaming, torrenting. What do you think about this whole free-downloading phenomena? Are you for or against it?
I have nothing to say about it. If I took you to a McDonalds’ and there would be a BigMac for which you pay and one for free, which one would you choose? Yet, your government would never allows you to steal your BigMac. But: every government allow people to steal music. The reality is, that what the f..ck are governments doing? Who am I to reinforce that? I am just a guy in a bad. It’d gotten so easy now to download over streaming, and now they are spending I don’t know, 15 dollars on streaming a month and that is probably more than people would spend on CDs. When I was young, I was spending like 500 dollars a year on CDs or even tapes, but people don’t do that anymore. Of course, streaming services cut off a big chunk of it, but if you have good numbers, it actually comes back to the artist. Taylor Swift was avoiding from streaming services, and now she’s coming back because she’s not selling any records.
Yeah, you can see something similar about Radiohead. Thom Yorke made some harsh statements about Youtube, he said ‘they are like Nazis, stealing art’. But we’ve seen even if Radiohead tried and seemed to be deleted, they appeared again in the streaming universe. Even them cannot escape this.
It’s good that people with big names are taking a stance. Of course, they are hypocritical about it, but at least it slows down the thing. It allows a transition to happen.
What about the newcomers, young bands who were born into this?
I fear for them, I’m scared for them, it’s dangerous.
Not long ago Iron Maiden bassist, Steve Harris has voiced his concerns about the lack of opportunity for young bands today. He said ‘it’s tougher than ever to earn a crust doing it’ even if they can be streaming, torrenting, whatever. I guess he’s right, but why is it so hard?
Yeah, impossible even. Back when we started the band, you went on the road and your records were just an excuse to tour. And when you played, it was a deal. Take the Police. When they went to America, it was a f.cking event! Iron Maiden was built that way. Now you are competing with all those bands! How do you cut through the noise as a young band? There are so many great bands out there, how do you make your way through them? It’s impossible. All Time Low were smart, when Twitter and Instagram came up, they were one of the first to join and use it. And it started as a sparkle, and it grew and it grew and that’s how they ended up in like a social media phenomenon. That’s how it started. But now it’s almost impossible to do the same.
We’ve seen in the ‘90s that even bands who were not extremely cool could attract thousands, now, even if you are a genius, it’s hard to motivate hundreds. What happened?
It’s the internet and production! Back then, it was expensive, now you can make a record for 500 dollars, f.ck that, you can make a record for nothing! That’s great. It’s the democracy of art. But it’s hard now to get your name out, it’s super f.cking hard. And I don’t know if that is going to change, but I see a lot of places like Hungary where local bands are heroes. Take Biffy Clyro. In the UK, huge, in the US, aren’t nearly as big as they are at home.
Do you have any advice for a young band breaking out of unknown?
They have to be social media moguls and they have to keep an eye out for what’s coming next. Because bands like us, we’re always gonna be a step behind. You gotta understand what is going on. And you have to understand that everyone has at least six friends and they have the potential to convert six other people to your band. Every single person you meet. That’s the same advice what I got from my producer, Arnold Lanni. He said: ‘As soon as you step out of your house, you’re a rockstar. You’re not yourself anymore, you gotta be a rockstar and convince yourself and the others that you are!’ The concept is that you have to live the lifestyle of being in a band. That means you gotta push your band and gotta be aware of what going on, what are the trends. There is no simple answer or simple solution. Be on social media, answer, follow and talk with your fans!
Is there anything you want to do that you couldn’t so far?
Sure. I think that this band still has potential to grow. We are probably the biggest smallest band in the world. We’ve always toured with all these crazy bands with like Black Eyed Peas, Linkin Park, Metallica, but we were always almost there. We probably have the potential to become a festival headliner over the years. We had it in Asia, in South America, but in Europe it’s different. In Rock am Ring even compared to legends like Liam Gallagher, we had a huge attendance. It was huge. So, conquering Europe in a way like that would be nice.
EDITED by Károly Gergely
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