TORONTO – When Simple Plan first approached Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo about writing a song together, the Montreal rockers’ motivations weren’t purely about crafting a great tune.
Cuomo was one of the band’s “childhood heroes,” as bassist David Desrosiers describes him. He remembers Weezer’s “Maladroit” blaring from the band’s Winnebago when they toured with Sugar Ray nearly a decade ago, in the days before the iPod reached ubiquity.
So when they first dialled up the 41-year-old geek-rock hero, there was a certain level of starstruck curiosity fuelling the phone call.
“It was really like, let’s just see what happens – we’ll write a song with him, who cares if it’s bad or good, we get to meet him, we get to hang out with him, we get to see how he works,” frontman Pierre Bouvier said during a recent interview at a Toronto bowling alley.
“We had a house we were renting in L.A. to write songs, he came over for the day, we wrote a song, and that was it. I recorded a demo after that, and sent it to him, and he was like: ‘I love the song. It’s great! I don’t know if it’ll make the record, but if it doesn’t make the record, it could always be a Weezer song.’
“We were like: ‘Ahhhh!'” added Bouvier, letting his voice crack with awe.
But the fact that the Cuomo collaboration, “Can’t Keep My Hands Off You,” did make Simple Plan’s new record is not to be taken lightly – the band wrote roughly 70 tracks for “Get Your Heart On,” which hit stores Tuesday.
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It’s their first album since 2008’s self-titled third disc, which was a stark, dark departure (by this blithe pop-punk outfit’s standards, anyway). While the band has nothing but positive words for that disc, they also wanted to put aside its alt-rock gloom in favour of the more cheerful confections for which the group was always known.
“After playing the darker songs and more serious stuff, we just felt like: ‘Hey, we kind of feel like getting the party back on and getting some live songs going,'” Bouvier said.
But as it turns out, trying to recapture that “fun-in-the-sun” vibe of the band’s youthful early output was hard work.
“For whatever reason, I don’t know why, we just really got obsessed with this (album),” Bouvier said. “We feel like every album we make has to be better than the previous ones.
“And we didn’t want to stop until we thought it was going to be an all-star, amazing record, from top to bottom. And it takes a lot of time, you know.
“We just got carried away in trying to make an amazing record.”
In doing so, the band recruited a bevy of guests. British chanteuse Natasha Bedingfield and Quebec’s Marie-Mai sing on English and French versions of the long-distance relationship lament “Jet Lag,” All Time Low frontman Alex Gaskarth lends his talents to the chugging “Freaking Me Out,” while Juno-winning Toronto’s K’naan drops in on the easygoing “Summer Paradise” – even though the rapper worried his verse would be unnecessary.
“He came in and said: ‘Guys, I really love the song. I don’t think it needs my part at all,'” Bouvier recalled. “We were like, ‘No, trust me, you have to do this part.'”
It’s been more than nine years since Simple Plan issued their hit debut, “No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls.” If their last record was a step toward maturity, “Get Your Heart On” could be seen as a regression to the more juvenile sounds of the band’s beginnings – consider bratty opener “You Suck at Love,” for instance, which Bouvier says is about misguided attempts at forging a relationship out of a one-night stand.
The members do acknowledge that as they get older, it can become a difficult balance to evolve as a band while giving fans the sugar-rush hijinx they expect from the group (as they did last weekend, arriving at the MMVAs in barely there pink workout gear).
“It’s very strange, ’cause being in a band kind of allows you to be immature,” said guitarist Jeff Stinco, only a minute or so after a couple members of the band had finished idly flirting with a nearby waitress.
“It’s that licence to stay young for the rest of your life. You’re always around boys, you’re always travelling, so there’s a bit of that, definitely. But I think it’s important to keep a maturity in what you do, too.”
Grown-up or not, Simple Plan has remained commercially successful over the years despite the fluctuations of the industry.
Each of their previous three records reached platinum status in Canada, and the band has built a steady following around the world.
Still, they aren’t taking anything for granted this time out.
“Every record we put out, we’re always up for another fight,” Stinco says.
“We always think it’s the end for us, so we’re fighting,” adds Bouvier.
“That’s a very French-Canadian thing to do,” Stinco replies with a laugh. “Like: ‘This is the end. I gotta fight it! I gotta keep it!'”
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