Sebastian Lefebvre - Simple Plan ‘It Feels Like Our Band Is Bigger Right Now Than It's Ever Been’

Is there a more iconic band than Simple Plan? Whether you’re sitting down for an intense episode of Scooby-Doo, or lamenting on the roughest patches of your adolescence, the Montreal-born punks have been the soundtrack of many people's lives, and it is a legacy that continues with each rotation the Earth makes.

The band’s fondness for Australia is becoming all too well-known, especially as they touch down for another tour supporting the flyest white guys, The Offspring. 

I was lucky enough to sit down in the freezing server room of my work, and plug in to chat to guitarist Sebastian Lefebvre about all things legacy, the essence of nostalgia, and of course, what it feels like to have written the best soundtrack song ever made (it might not be what you think)! 

Watch the interview or read along below! 

‍Welcome back! Australia very much seems to be Simple Plan's second home at the moment. You guys were here last year playing at the Hordern, and now you're obviously here touring with The Offspring, and you've got some headline shows as well. That's a pretty present place you've got here in our hearts. What do you do to keep these shows fresh and exciting for the diehard Simple Plan fans that keep coming out for you?

‍Well, hopefully we try to stay on top of our game! But the main support vibe is a completely different thing for us because we ask almost every night, Pierre asks on stage, “Is there anybody here that has never seen Simple Plan before”? And it's always the majority. Okay, do we throw out a super rare B-side to please the 15 people in the front row, or do we try to keep it interesting for the people that maybe have never heard of us, and then they'll be surprised saying, “Oh, that's them. Oh, I know this song”. We keep our set list a little bit more catered to the mainstream fan, I guess. Even if we do add a few more of the fast songs on this specific tour because of The Offspring. It's fun to play fast when we're on tour with them.

But we do have this one headliner in Sydney, where we decided we were going to play the whole Still Not Getting Any top to bottom. And we've never done that. So that's going to be really fun. And that's definitely something special for the fans. I think that show sold out in 10 minutes.

It was definitely a tough one to get to! It's interesting because you have all this back catalog, so many amazing songs- I'm here just a little bit early, but in the next few days, Simple Plan is actually releasing a song with Avril Lavigne. How did that collaboration come about?

Honestly, it was as easy as last summer when we were on tour. It was like, “Hey, we should have a song together”! And that was that. And then it took a while before we actually made it happen. But that's how the conversation started. So we did that when we were on break just now at the beginning of our winter. So that's the end of your summer, I guess. We just got in the studio and wrote a cool song. And it's a really fun song. Honestly, I love it. Super catchy. My daughter sings it all the time. And that's coming out May 9th, which is Pierre's birthday, funny enough. So it's a nice birthday gift for him. And we haven't had anything new, really, since our album, I think, 2022. So it's a welcome new song featuring Simple Plan.

‍When you look at it on paper, Simple Plan and Avril Lavigne, you guys ruled pop punk within the 2000s. Did it feel like a bit of a nostalgia trip seeing your two names combined for a song to come out now?

‍Definitely. I think we toured together back in 2002, and just a tour last summer felt like a ‘finally’ moment for a lot of our fans that have been fans of hers and ours. As soon as she hits the stage, it's unbelievable the amount of great music she has. Every song, I'm like, “I love this one”. It just won't stop. We're very honored and very grateful of her generosity to bring us on tour with her. And I like to say she's headlining for us. It sounds cool. But I mean, it's amazing. And now, obviously, having a song together is just the final stamp on the Simple Plan/Avril team-up that a lot of fans, I believe, have been waiting for.

Absolutely. Well, in terms of a legacy, the Simple Plan legacy and career spans miles and it's still something that's being affirmed today. You celebrated 15 years of No Pads, 10 years of Still Not Getting Any, all these moments. But I guess for you personally, what in your career felt like your ‘made it’ moment that still rings true today?

Oh, that's very interesting! I think as far as I'm concerned, the moment I was able to move out of my parents and just pay for my own apartment or when I got my first place, I was just like, Oh. I don't know that it was a band-specific moment because I don't know that there ever was a big tipping point. I don't know that there ever was one event where we all went like, “This is it”! It's always been a couple of things. We've had some surreal moments. But for the most part, it's just like, “Oh, this is a life I can have”. When we all realized that, we're like, “Okay, I think I made it”. Now in a twisted turn of events, our touring is bigger now than ever.

To all of us, it feels like our band is bigger right now than it's ever been, even though we don't have a hit record, even though we're not going platinum, which was the metric 20 years ago. It feels like there is a love and a loyalty for this band that, for some reason, maybe can't go away anymore unless we really mess it up, which is unlikely at this point. This whole moment right now in the band feels like the, Oh, we've made it again, moment.

I think it's really interesting because obviously, Simple Plan seems to keep having this longevity of fans, new and old alike. There are very few bands with an iconography and attachment to a cartoon. But obviously, you're very intertwined with the themes of Scooby-Doo. You sing the theme song, you get the dogs out on stage. Do you feel like there is this never-ending stream of new fans because the cartoon is so well-received even by young people now?

Yeah, I think so. That's a two-parter. I think a lot of people found out about the band through social media, whether that's the ‘I’m Just A Kid’  challenge on TikTok or just scrolling on your Instagram. Seeing stuff and going “Oh, this is a fun video. I know this song”. And then you get into a band this way. And now there's a whole wave of fans of people who grew up listening to us and now bring their kids to the shows. So there's some of that as well. I'm going to be 44 in a few weeks. So people who were maybe five, six years younger than us. They're in their late 30s now, so they're bringing their kids to the shows. And it's a whole new group of fans that have never heard of us before. And maybe people who were ten or twelve back then couldn't come to shows, and now they're around 30 years older. They're going to the show now. So it's a mix of new fans, old fans who have never seen us, people that are bringing their kids, and people that are just finding out about us, and they have no idea what's new, what's not new. They just like this song and like that song.

And is that a pretty interesting thing now for you? You see these young faces in the crowd. I guess it's very different if you played the tours and festivals way back when. This is a very mixed crowd. Do you ever feel like you have to rein things in a little bit, or you're not afraid of that?

No, actually, no. It's fun. The fast songs are fun to play because they get a rock crowd going. The ballads are fun to play because they get a great sing-along when the song's going. The hits, if you will, are fun to play because that's what brings people back in time. We just have this show that we've been doing for the past many, many years, and it holds up. I think people still enjoy it. We still enjoy getting on stage and doing what we do. Honestly, we're just having a good time, and we're grateful to be able to still be here and to be able to live this moment in time right now.

Well, this next one… It's a very selfish and personal question. 

Do it. Are we going to play ‘Crash and Burn’? Is that the question?

No, but it's a different request. 

Okay…

Simple Plan recorded probably the best soundtrack song ever made, and that is, ‘Don't Wanna Think About You’ from Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, one of the best songs ever made, and you NEVER play it.

Why? I know. It's not very popular.

*It was at this moment that I gasped so aggressively I almost broke my jaw *

Not a lot of people know it. I think it's a cool song, too. I think if I were to pick the list of songs titled “Hey, fans would like this”, I think it's probably at the bottom of that list. I think there are a lot of songs that are like, “Oh, my God, you rarely play this one. You should play it. You rarely play this one. You should play it”! 

To be honest, I've forgotten about that song. So tell you what, I'll bring it to the next band meeting, and I'll let you know how quickly everybody says no.

I was going to say, you have to be responsible for giving me a buzz if it does get a yes, though.

Got it!

Like we said, you're here with The Offspring. You're both very important bands in a lot of people's lives and legacy. But you yourself, do you have a favorite Offspring song that you'd love to hear live?

I mean, yes, I'm a huge Offspring fan. They were extremely important to me. The album, Smash, and then they did it again with Americana five years later. Smash the first CD I ever bought. I think before that, I would just listen to whatever my older brother was listening to, and we'd copy, make mixtapes of songs I liked by whatever band he was listening to. But when I heard The Offspring for the first time, that's when I got my money and I bought the album, Smash. So ‘Self Esteem’, I'm going to say, as soon as I saw that song go on TV with that video, I was blown away. I thought it was so great. And so that would be my song. And then from there, I went back in time to Ignition and then obviously kept up with everything else they've been doing since.

So it's pretty surreal to be on tour with them right now because of so many things. We did the Warped Tour Australia, I think it was here in 2012. Does that make sense? And back then, they were 25 years in, and we were about 10 years in. And now we're 25 years in. And so that's incomprehensible math that I can't even begin to count for them, but for ourselves. So now that we're 25 years in, it's like the way I used to look at them on that tour is maybe the way some of our fans look at us now. So some of those feelings I'm starting to understand. I'm like, “Okay, this is legit”. I understand that our music has meant a lot to people, and I understand how that works. There are a lot of songs by The Offspring that I'm absolutely a big fan of.

Continuing to be these full-circle moments! Looking at it from another perspective, Simple Plan has influenced so many bands. Are there any Australian bands you're keeping your eye on at the moment?

Oh, not enough. I wish it were more. Honestly, it's funny. I was walking around Melbourne yesterday and I saw a poster for Kisschasy that's going to play in the Forum and I was like “Oh, my God. We talked with those guys. They were awesome”.

Right now, Erin Reus, formerly from Stateside, jumped on stage with us yesterday to sing ‘Jet Lag’. She's going to do it again tonight! So it's really fun to see some friends.

But I need to be made aware of more amazing Australian artists because since Gotye blew up the world, there hasn't been that much that I’m like, “Oh, they're Australian”. I don't think it matters a lot anymore, either. I'll find out about where people are from way after I'm a fan of the music. But please, if you have any suggestions, forward them my way.

Easy. It's lovely to see Erin pop up for ‘Jet Lag’ too, which is probably one of the coolest songs to see performed live. It's such a ballad. Finally finishing up for you, what is the Simple Plan song that makes your night to perform it and see other people scream it back to you?

I think it has been and will be for a while, ‘Welcome to My Life’. The Australian version, which is ‘Welcome to My Loooife’. But it's a banger. And you can see all the ranges of emotions in the front row when we play that song. And you could see people in the way back, waving their hands and singing along. You could see people in the front. That obviously means a whole different thing to them. I love that song. I think it's great!

Interview by Georgia Haskins @ghaskins2002

Simple Plan continue tour Australian Tour supporting The Offspring + a SOLD OUT headliner in Sydney.

Final tickets here