Artist Friendly with Joel Madden - Pierre Bouvier of Simple Plan - Part 1 (Rerun)

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

On this week's episode of Artist Friendly, Joel Madden is bringing you an encore episode of his conversation with Pierre Bouvier of Simple Plan. ⁠Simple Plan⁠ grew from pop-punk underdogs to genre heroes over the course of six studio albums. In addition to racking up collabs with members of blink-182, Sum 41, and Weezer, the Canadian vets have played on over a dozen Warped Tours and created pop-punk essentials through early tracks like “Welcome to My Life” and “I’m Just a Kid.” The latter experienced a viral moment through TikTok at the beginning of the decade, challenging people to recreate childhood photos as adults and post the results, which featured participation from Will Smith, Ed Sheeran, and beyond. Given that their friendship stretches back to the 2000s, the duo get into it all across a nearly hour-long episode. ------- Listen to their Artist Friendly conversation on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify.⁠⁠⁠ ------- Follow Artist Friendly! IG: @artist.friendly TikTok: @artist.friendly YouTube: youtube.com/@artist.friendly ------- Host: Joel Madden, @joelmadden Executive Producers: Joel Madden, Benji Madden, Jillian King Producers: Josh Madden, Joey Simmrin, Janice Leary Visual Producer/Editor: Ryan Schaefer Audio Producer/Composer: Nick Gray Music/Theme Composer: Nick Gray Cover Art/Design: Ryan Schaefer Additional Contributors: Anna Zanes, Neville Hardman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, what's up? I'm Joel Madden, and this is artist-friendly. On this episode, I'll be talking to producer, singer-songwriter, and frontman of the multi-platinum band Simple Plan, Pierre Bouvier. Let's go. Smoking on gas and smoking on piv. That's my kind. I don't want to bad times. I don't want to have bad. Well, I was talking to your team about the whole podcast and how well it's doing. And I see all the clips on your Instagram and stuff. And saw you had the rock. Yeah, he was awesome. That was amazing. I love him. Yeah, it looks great. Sounds great. Thank you. Thanks for coming.

Would expect nothing less. I'm glad you're here. Yeah. I actually wanted you last year, but you guys were like touring and Simple Plan feels like it's busier than it's ever been. It really is. Yeah, it's kind of bizarre. But yeah, I was watching the clips on your Instagram and I was like, when's he going to

call me? When can I get on this podcast? It looks so good. You have an open door. Awesome. Well, I know that. Thank you so much. Yeah.

I just saw Zach outside there. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's here. Yeah. This place is amazing. You've had it for, what, like 10 years? 10 years. Yeah. It's amazing, man. We feel lucky. It's good vibes, good people. I was just in the studio on the way back here. I stopped in because Jordan Fish works out of Studio C here. And he's in there with Poppy. And I'm a fan of both of them. And they're also amazing people. Of course. So like there's always like some artists that you love here. Yeah. And you generally like everybody's just cool as shit. Yeah. It's a great space. You guys have built.

something really cool and I think it's it's got to be inspiring to come out here and see all this stuff and thanks man people happening all this kind of stuff thank you I respect that that that entrepreneur ship that you guys have you know I feel like that's something that I've never really kind of tapped into it myself but I look at you guys doing that and I'm like then you know what good for those guys that's amazing would you say you've never tapped into it ever I feel like not outside of my band right you know like I've I've focused everything on I am simple plan I am in the band and like whenever whenever time off came between being busy doing that, that's all I got. You know what I mean?

It'd be like, I need to step away. Recharge. Yeah. Where you guys, I think, would come back and like do more stuff and plan, you know, just do some cool stuff. And I'm proud of you guys. Thank you. But I feel like the life of an artist, especially a successful band, like simple plan,

is an entrepreneurial endeavor the whole way through. Totally. And a successful one. So it's not like you guys tried and failed. certainly there's people that have had to pivot out of trying to be in a band into some other facet of music right yeah everyone you know from the labels the managers they all like half of them were in bands or right we're songwriters so i feel like there's something about the creative entrepreneurial thing that it is to be in a band

that does take all of you uh you guys have been working for i mean i was thinking like okay where do I start with Pierre today? We've known each other for so long. Yeah, first time Montreal, when you guys were opening for MXPX. On the bus. We were driving in my dad's old Mercedes taking you guys out. Yeah, it was fucking awesome. It must have been what, 2001?

2001. Yeah. Crazy. That's 23 years ago. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. What were we, 21?

I don't know. We're the same age, right? I'm born in 79. Are you born in 72? We were 22. Yeah. Depending on the month. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it's crazy how young that is. Yeah, I've been thinking about that a lot about just life in general. Not the MXPX record, life in general. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Funny, there you go. You know what, there's a little segue right there. But yeah, like how things, how it seems so long ago and now how time is going by so fast. You know what I mean?

Yeah. And like it's crazy. Now we have kids and, you know, my youngest is going to be 10 in a few weeks. Crazy. Yeah. And like, it's, it's, how old's your oldest? She's going to be 13. So they're two years apart.

Yeah. Yeah. Not even. They're a year and a half. Yeah, year and a half part. My oldest is 16. What? My youngest is 14.

That's crazy, man. He's going to high school in September, so they're both going to be in high school. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. It just flies by. You don't necessarily feel older here. Mm-hmm. But, like, you look at your kids and you're like, oh, goddamn, I'm old.

I got fucking teenagers. Yeah. I'm old as shit. Yeah. Yeah. That's how you feel when you look at your. your life, but I still feel young in my head. I just like, yeah, still act young, I think. Totally. And I think what's funny is that, you know, when I look back and when we were, when we were little kids or when we

were, you know, teenagers, 15, 16, someone who was 30 was really old to me. Yeah. And I wonder if, you know, I know, I know times have changed and like parents that would pick up their kids back, you know, and they were maybe in their mid 40s. I don't think they look like I look like. And maybe that's just me. They don't. You know, I don't think so either. They looked older when we were kids. Yeah, I mean, look at, look at movies we used to watch, you know, the parents and movies that just look like so much older. Even the like teenagers in the movies look over. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You're like, you're 28. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's a little man child. I agree. I don't feel like I'm that. But to my kids, I wonder if I'm that. I wonder to, you know, if my kids come over with

their friends. Yes, you are. If Mr. Bouvier is, you know, you know, a great hair and Grave-haired. Yeah. It's good last name. Yeah. Strong French name. Yeah. No, you do.

I ask the same thing because I think I'm cool. I've talked about a million times. Like, I think I'm cool. And then I'll go around my kids. They're like, Dad, just don't come in. Just stay in. Stay in the car. And I'm like, what are you talking about?

You really loves me. Yeah. I'm the cool dad. And they're like, not actually, you're not the cool dad. Not to my friends. Yeah. No, that's crazy. In this generation, I would say we're probably on the younger side of parents, though.

At least in like, so I think that. So I think that if we're being really real, we had success building our own businesses of the bands. And it's a creative space. So there's a lot more freedom in that to like the lifestyle is a part of the brand. So you're living not the average lifestyle, right, no matter how you slice it. And you're living in a more affluent circles. Mostly other creators likely successful in their own different creative endeavors and entrepreneurs and people so self-made people.

So it's a crowd that kind of, I think, finds itself. Even though we're all different, likely our kids are going to good, you know, like you're certainly picking your kid's school. Yep. You're not like, I mean, when I was a kid, they just put you on a bus and you ended up at a school. That's the school that was around the corner. That's the one you're going to.

I've never been here before. And now you're like picking schools, which school should our kid be in? That one learns different or that one. And you're like, so you have these like rich choices to make. We're just being honest. Yep. Right. Like where I'm from.

And we made this for ourselves. So it's a choice. So I'm happy to say this. But it's not the average lifestyle. No. No. With that, I think comes a freedom to kind of like build out life the way you want it to be. Yeah.

Versus kind of like, listen, anybody listening could say, yeah, easy for you to say. No, I know. It is easy for me to say. Yeah. I'm not saying it's not. Uh-huh. So I actually. come from the school of you get a good job that pays enough for your rent and you take care of your

kids and you put food on the table and that's that's success yeah i respect that yeah that's how my parents were hardworking um struggled to make it but to make make ends meet but that i think idea it's not that i look down on it at all i just was like that's not for me i want to like go and see if i can do better yeah get after it yeah and live how i want to live you know and whatever that dream is, all of us is different, but it's not necessarily about money, but money affords you the freedom to live the life you want to live. Yeah, yeah. It's funny to make money from being in a band, too, because it's very, you know, people are so attached to, you know, you're in a band and this is, you know, what you create, what you make is like very attached to who you are. It's not like

starting a business or even I would say like even being an actor or being like someone that's going up on stage and doing like, you know, musical. People don't look at that, person and judge them for, you know. Their life. Yeah, that's like what you said on stage, how you moved, what you look like in pictures, that is you. So for us, that's what a band is. You know, you're building a brand that is you.

And then when you start making money doing that and you start being successful, it's hard because then people have trouble disassociating. Like, they love you for your music. They love you for who the band is. But then you're also making money doing it. And it's like, there's the whole sellout thing, right? Yeah, yeah. And I'm so happy.

And I'm so happy. happy that that has gone away a little bit and people are, or people are embracing success. Yeah. You know, that came more from the hip hop culture, I think. They were quicker to embrace success and be like, look how much I've made. Look at my car. Look at my stuff. Yeah.

And that might be a little too much, you know what I mean for me. But like I, you know, it's okay to be successful. And it doesn't mean that, you know, that you're necessarily doing it for the money. But hey, we all need jobs. You know what I mean? Everybody out there, I don't care what you do in life. You're going to need some money to buy food to, you know, to pay your rent.

And though if you can do it while you're doing something that you love doing and you're good at it, you know, that should be a good thing. I don't see it any other way. And if more people like you, if more people like your music, if you've been able to convince millions of people that they love your music, I think you're on to something. You know what I'm and screw the naysayers. And that's what, I think that's where pop punk kind of came from, you know what I mean? Like at least the early 2000 generations like you and us, you know?

It was a real moment of like this kind of. idea. Yeah. Like, where do we fit in? I don't know where I fit in, but I know I want to be successful. Yeah. I know I want to make money. I never, ever minced words about that in my whole career. Yeah. I think the difference is wanting to do well and make money is a bit of a scorecard. So that's fine. If money's your God, that's different. So like, I think we all serve some God and there's good gods and bad gods, whatever your understanding of God is, anyone of the people listening, they all have their own ideas, but I just think you'll replace God with something. Some people it's money. Some people it's nature. Fine. That's probably a better version.

You know, everybody has something that they're like fixated on. To me, the money is always just a sign. Yeah. Of the times. It also gives you freedom. Like you were saying before, money gives you, money gives you time. Yeah. Money gives you freedom. You know what I mean? If you don't have, if you have very little money, you're going to spend all of your time chasing more money. Yeah. And you're going to do whatever you have to do to achieve it. And it's not necessarily what you want to be doing at the core of your person.

Not always. When you have more money, then you can think about, well, what is it that I want to do? What is it that I want to spend my time on? You know, and that it gives you more freedom. And you can find like the balance of I do need to go make a living, whatever I'm doing. But I also want to be there for my kids. Yep. I want to be there at every moment, every birthday.

I'm not missing a birthday. Fuck that. So I don't think there's a price you could pay me to miss a birthday. I just don't, because I think it's like some childhood shit. I didn't really have special birthdays. And I find myself in my adult life like not really wanting to make anything out of my birthday.

And I know it's related to it was never a big deal anyways. Right. But for my kids, I'm like, it's your birthday. It's a big deal. Yeah. to me anyways. And I'm not missing it. So there's the balance of like, yeah, no, I care about money, but not at any cost.

There are certain things that I just care about more. And like, I think that's the healthy balance of every person they got to find their different for everyone. Some people, birthdays are a big deal. I respect that. It was my wife's pretty a couple days ago and she was like, please do nothing. I don't want you to do nothing. That's how I am.

But then my wife wants to have a party. So we do a big party for her. I'm happy. I'm happy just watching her. have the thing, whatever that party is every year. It's like a theme of some kind. She loves that. She loves to have fun. I always enjoy it and I always feel a little bit like, this is kind of how I celebrate my birthday. I celebrate hers. Mine, I'm like, I don't do anything. Just want to hang out with you. Like family dinner. That's what I want. I just want the

whole family to be together. But then, you know, everybody's got to have their thing that you can't buy from them. I think we all need it. We all need like something at our core or whatever our value system is that like doesn't have a price. And then and then I think that separates you from ever being like a, a money worshipper. I think it's simple as that. Yeah. And there's plenty of those out there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're good at it too. Make a lot of money. I'm not even mad at them. Yeah. No. Different animal. Yeah. Sometimes I see those guys and I'm like, that guy's a fucking animal. And it's a certain kind of animal. And I just like respect it for what it is. That's the cool thing about life, I think, is just like all the different types of animals we are.

Yeah, totally. Yeah. And there's only a few, there's only a few different types where, you know, there's not like, you know, a million different types of people. No, yeah, yeah. You'll encounter them all. Then later in life, you kind of start categorizing them a little quicker. Yeah, yeah, you get to know the type. You're like, yeah, I've seen a kind of a person like you. Yeah, I know that type. Yeah. Yeah. Which could be a good thing. Yeah, yeah. And you'll come in contact with them in passing. I don't need them to be. different. I just let them go on their way and gather some more information about that thing. I thought I was, you know, thought I knew what that was. Yeah, so I was thinking about talking to you today because I was like, we've known each other for so long. We've done so much together in our career. I was like, do I start at the beginning? I start at the end. Do I start at the middle?

I mean, we've done tons of shows together, tours together, songs together. Crazy. Yeah. It's kind of weird. Even my wife yesterday last night, she was like, you're on the podcast tomorrow. She's like, what's the theme? What are you guys going to talk about? I'm like, I don't know. I think it's going to be like, let's just talk about, you know, everything. It's kind of like, you know, it's just kind of a wherever it takes us because there's so much to talk about because there's so much that has happened, how we met, when we met the scene that we're part of, that was seen that we, to a certain extent, you know, the early 2000s, bands like a charlotte and simple plan, we help build that what it is.

Yeah, it's a little world. Yeah. And I think at the time, it was, I don't know how seriously it was taken by everybody. You know what I mean? Well, it certainly was taken serious by the people making lots and lots of money off of it. Right. You guys made the Atlantic system hundreds of millions of dollars. And we made the Sony system hundreds of millions of dollars.

Yeah. So it was serious. I never thought about it in that sort of scope. Oh, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Make no mistake. your masters are are valuable property yeah and they've been making money off of her decades god bless them they uh they signed us so we were young and we we we didn't know what anything was

yeah i'm not even mad at it no i agree but yeah so it's serious business but it's music that is young and the energy of it it's easy to dismiss it as not as deep as it is but there's layers to it and it all comes from a place of trying to make sense of life and of the experiences we had. But at the time, yeah, we were made to feel like it wasn't that serious, even though we were making a lot of people, a lot of serious money. Selling tons of records. I just don't think they realized how deep the impact of that music was having on the generation of kids that was listening to it.

And I think now they're coming to the realization. It's, you know, here's the way I look at it. I think that, you know, because we sold, our first record sold close to $3 million just in the U.S., second one, 2.5 in the U.S. I don't remember. Sold a lot of records. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're probably close to $10 million, you know, worldwide.

Easily over $10 million. I guarantee it. And I think that they all saw that opportunity, and so did we all and capitalized on it and sold really well. But I think the whole joke of like, you know, it was never a phase. we're seeing that now. You know, like we're in 2024 and there's, you know,

this whole genre is coming back in such a strong way. Why? Because the connection that those songs have with the fans is so big and so deep that I don't think

it's ever going to go away until those fans until we all, you know, go to our graves one day. You know what I mean? I'm gonna'amena. And,

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they're but the new the young music fans are into it So we played the other night and it was a crowd from like 18 to 30, 18 to 40.

When you were a stage coach or were we at stage coach? Yeah, yeah, I saw that. That was awesome. Every person there was like new good charlotte. Yeah. And I was a little surprised because it's not our. I was like, oh, it's kind of a country festival. Let's see how it goes.

It's all country music. But the modern country fan listens to everything. Totally. Just like the modern music fan period, they listen to everything. I think the fan base. is bigger than it was. I just think like we're seeing it. The shows we've played,

the crowds have been bigger. Everyone knows the words to everything. That's been the like pleasant surprise. You don't know. We haven't done a ton of touring. You know, it's been hard for us to figure out our touring behavior.

Yeah. We don't know what our, we don't know what that is yet. But when you're ready, yeah. You let me know. Yeah. Because I've always said a good Charlotte symbol plan

reunion tour. They would be insane. It would be, this would be amphitheaters sold out. It would be insane. It would be insane. I don't want to jinx it, but I think it would be great. You're not jinxing it.

Yeah. I think it would do great. Yeah. I've always thought like the, the trifecta of bands that are exactly that came out like right around us to me is like Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, Sum 41. Those are the three to me. That like, you know, obviously there's Green Day, Blake 182. Those are in the category apart.

Yeah. And then there's like, you know, Newfound Glory and there's a yellow card. But I think there was a time when if you went to Hot Topic, it was like, Good Charlotte, some 41 simple plan and those were the three yeah and we toured together like all of us toured together yeah i remember touring with you guys and some and like it was always good yeah we just did some 41 uh in uh europe with them and we did uh offspring sum 41 simple plan how is that i was insane it was bigger than anyone had anticipated so the offspring uh locked us in as uh too support acts so some 41 simple plan and we flip flopped every night and uh they didn't know how well

the tour was going to go and it basically almost sold out every amphitheater across America. Sick. Last summer. Yeah. I suspected that's how it would go. I think that everyone had high hopes, but nobody expected it to be that big. Right. It was like the, according to, you know, CAA and Live Nation, it was like the tour that everyone was

like, oh my God. Wow. Yeah, it was a good ticket. Yeah. It was great. How many shows did you guys do? How many shows exactly? I don't know.

We did like a month and a half or so or like five weeks, five weeks maybe. Good. Yeah, it's good. 30 shows? Yeah, five shows a week or something like that. Wow. Yeah. How's that with family life?

You know, it's hard, but I think that, you know, talking about success and all that stuff, I feel like I have an obligation, of course, you know, to my family. And I feel like the music, as you just said before, like I think that bands like us, we're doing it was so much better than I thought we'd be doing. I know we've done well. I know we've sold millions of records. I know that we've had, you know, big spots on MTV and Z100 radio and Kiss FM or whatever. Yeah, yeah.

But I didn't expect that to be, you know, headlining a festival down in Brazil for 50,000 people. Yeah. A few, you know, a couple of months ago. And then playing Australia in Melbourne selling out 10,000 tickets. Yeah. And doing the tours we did in America, Europe. I didn't expect that. So I feel like.

At 45. Yeah. I feel like I was planning on like managing. a career that would slowly decline and I feel like now it's like skyrocketing up again. So how do I deal with it with my family? I feel like I have an obligation because I, you know, I've got a wife, I've got kids, you know, I want to provide for them. And as you said, when you get to a certain level, now I can choose the school they go to. Yeah, yeah. So, and am I, am I not going to do that if I know I have the opportunity? No, I will. Well, it costs a lot of money. I live in a beautiful place. It

cost a lot of money. I want to go on vacation with my kids. I cost a lot of money. So I see these opportunities now and I see the band doing well and I'm like, yeah, dad's got to be gone for three weeks here and there, four weeks here and there, five weeks here and there. And it sucks, but I feel like it's worth it because, yeah, and I want them also, you know, this is all that I do. All that I do is music. I'm a singer and simple plan and I like to do outside productions when I can, but the bulk of what I do is simple plan. So I want to show my kids. So I want to show my kids that like dad works hard because I'd love to just say at home and surf and play golf every day but I don't know if that's setting the right example to my kids of like you know take the opportunity

that you have and build on it so there's a professionalism yeah and there's like a maturity to it yeah but it's fun you know the first half when you don't care about shit it is fun I've had some great times you know I had some wild times but I think it's this is this is the human experience right we're going through the human experience it's very unlikely to be where we're at now in our lives spiritually, emotionally. It's very difficult to imagine being there 20 years ago. You have to go through this. Yeah, you have to live the life. Yeah. I do think we're at a time where our generation of like dads and guys are more sensitive to it. Totally. So, which I think is good. The societal thing. Yeah. And so there's a thoughtfulness to it that wasn't there. But there's no way I could have been to

me that I am now at 25. I was so immature. I was way underdeveloped. I had so much stuff to unpack and work through, but I couldn't have done then. I would have fucking imploded. Yeah. I had to wait to get to the other side of the whole thing and then unpack it all for like 10 years.

Therapeutically speaking, like therapy-wise, I'm at like 10 years, 11 years in, and I'm like going to the next level. But I've finally unpacked it all. And now I'm like, and there's some old stuff that still pops up that causes me to behave a certain way, because there's a hopelessness that I got that I always had. It moves around. You have to track it. So if that starts doing well, whack them all. Right.

Exactly. I never thought I'd be married with kids. Well, we did that. 18 years in. So the hopelessness moves to work. Well, work just keeps going well and well and well. Okay. So it moves to the next category. And you have to just keep tracking like where it rears up where you're like a bit hopeless. Like, why even try. Maybe it's around fitness. Maybe it's around whatever. So that's where I'm at now where I'm like, I can actually track it and keep an eye on it and remind myself not to be that way.

That's good. But it took me 10 years to get there because I used to kind of be hopeless about most things is weird to say. So I feel like I'm a pretty positive person. But a lot of that was me overcompensating for what was going on inside. So not to say it wasn't genuine because I was really trying my best. But I think coming to terms with the shit. that I personally went through was like the big mission.

And that was what I was able to do. Our conversation continues in part two.