Jeff Stinco is happy to be a relative nobody.
“We can still walk the streets and not be recognized. We lead normal lives,” the Simple Plan guitarist said during a recent telephone interview from his native Montreal, where the Canadian punk-pop quintet began.
“It’s funny, because we’re still kind of underdogs in our hometown, but we’re in a good position now.”
Saying that Simple Plan is in a good position is like saying winning the lottery would be kind of nice. Since releasing their Lava Records debut, “No Pads, No Helmets … Just Balls,” in 2002, the group has sold more than 3 million records, toured the world and become mainstays on MTV and the radio. Now they’ve embarked on their first-ever U.S. headlining tour, which stops at the Riviera on Friday.
“This is something we’ve been planning for a really, really long time,” Stinco said. “We didn’t know the magnitude, but it’s been a very healthy rise. It wasn’t some overnight success story. For two years straight, we played over 300 shows a year. It’s great to see how far it has come.”
Simple Plan came together in the mid-1990s, when singer Pierre Bouvier and drummer Chuck Comeau founded the punk group Reset as 13-year-olds living in Montreal. After releasing an album in 1997 and touring with bands such as MXPX across Canada, Bouvier and Comeau parted ways to go back to school full time.
Comeau eventually put his studies on hold to create Simple Plan with Comeau, guitarists Stinco and Sebastien Lefebvre and former Reset bassist David Desrosiers.
“No Pads” is still selling well, having moved 300,000 units over the recent holiday season, outperforming contemporaries Good Charlotte, Trapt and Pink. Simple Plan rode that momentum into 2004 as a featured performer during MTV’s New Year’s celebration in Times Square.
The band spent much of the winter back in Canada writing songs for their next album, which Stinco said they’ll record after coming off the road in the spring. “Every Simple Plan show is just a good party, with a good vibe,” he said. “For us, every show we play we approach like it’s our last show. That might sound cheesy, but that’s really the vibe. “
Show stop
Simple Plan plays a sold-out show Friday at the Riviera Theatre.
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Victoria Rodriguez (vrodriguez@tribune.com)
