25 years and a documentary later

It doesn’t matter what generation you’re from — you’ve likely heard of at least a few of Simple Plan’s songs on the radio, in some of your favorite films, or on social media. 

Just teenagers then, Simple Plan’s current four members, Pierre Bouvier (vocals, bass), Chuck Comeau (drums), Jeff Stinco (lead guitar), and Sébastien Lefebvre (guitar) had come together to make music in the early 2000s — spending much of their time rehearsing in a small basement in hopes of booking any gig. 

Several awards, chart-topping hits, and two and a half decades later, Simple Plan is still here, going stronger than ever. 

The band’s 25-year journey was anything but simple, though. While it had started out of raw passion, there were also several heartbreaks in between — moments that were painful, yes, but an absolutely necessary part of Simple Plan’s timeline. 

The best way to chart it all? A documentary titled Simple Plan: The Kids in the Crowd. 

In this documentary, we’re given a front-row seat to the makings of the pop-punk band, how they’ve made the genre truly theirs, and how they grew their brotherhood despite the pressures of sudden fame. 

Rappler spoke with Simple Plan’s lead guitarist Jeff Stinco to learn more about what it was like for him and the rest of the members to look back on their 25-year journey through Simple Plan: The Kids in the Crowd, and why this documentary is worth watching. 

Why did you guys decide to put out the documentary at this specific point in your careers?

It felt right to celebrate 25 years of being in this band. It felt like we needed to celebrate a landmark that’s very important. And you know what? Sometimes things just happen the right way. We were approached by Amazon to do this documentary and we were like, “Wow, what an honor.”

And it is very exciting to tell our story. At first we wanted to do a sort of documentary that showed how big the band was still in 2025. And eventually it became so much more than that. It became less about a glorification of our career and more about our history and the story of our relationship as four guys who started playing music in their teenage years in a basement in Laval, through now, 25 years later. 

That history is actually very touching, very human, and I think it’ll inspire a lot of people.

Was the documentary something you had been planning for a long time? How many years in the making was it?

It was about two years in the making so it’s a long process. We had a camera in our faces for a year and a half which was very challenging. I did not like that experience at all. 

I enjoyed looking back at the archives. I think we went very deep to find stuff that people hadn’t seen before. And it was wonderful to go through that process. I’ve learned a lot. I loved it. I thought it was very beautiful to see us as kids with eyes filled with wonder and just going for it. It was really touching.

How would you describe the process of filming the documentary? Would you say that getting to talk about the makings of Simple Plan was therapeutic in a way, or were there any parts of it that opened up old wounds for you guys?

Oh, definitely. I think seeing ourselves reproduce some of the dynamics that we had as teenagers now was definitely very, very hurtful. We had to think about that and readdress certain things. It was not an easy process.

Now, I think that we did really well. We’ve been talking a lot since, and we’re a band that basically communicates a lot. So I think we managed to really learn a lot from this documentary now. 

The process of having someone film you all the time is good because it’s it brings a lot of vulnerability and a lot of authenticity for the viewers but on the personal level it’s very, very challenging because you kind of feel that you don’t have anything you can hide anymore, and you can’t have anything private. It’s a challenging thing. I probably wouldn’t do it again. 

Were there any moments that you think you hesitated to include in the final cut, given the challenge behind being tailed by a camera all the time and having to go back to all of those like painful memories?

They’re not painful memories necessarily. It was just interesting to learn from the footage that we saw. I mean, it’s challenging in the sense that we have four views of, you know, what the story of Simple Plan is. But the archives are basically telling us this is the real story. You have it, right? It’s on film. The challenge, I think, was just more like balancing all of the members, in the documentary.

I’m slightly ambivalent about the representation of my role in the band. I wish certain things would have been more exposed. So I have some frustrations about that. But I think it’s still a very human and very touching story. I think a great work of art could be very flawed and amazing at the same time. This documentary is exactly that.

When you were in the planning stages of the documentary, was there a part of Simple Plan’s history that you guys knew right off the bat that you wanted to show to viewers?

I think we wanted to tell the viewers that we are still very active and that we are playing the biggest crowds that we’ve ever been playing. We wanted to show that we have support from our scene as well because there are appearances in that documentary. 

Mark Hoppus, Mark McGrath, Jacoby from Papa Roach, Fat Mike from NOFX, Joel from Good Charlotte… there’s some very, very big celebrities talking about Simple Plan. I think it’s pretty sweet to have all of our friends congratulate us in our documentary.

That said, did anything about what they said surprise you or change your perspective about how you see some things or how you see certain experiences you had with a band?

Yeah, I thought Mark Hoppus was very intuitive in saying that I wish I could have told those guys that they should enjoy being in a band a little more. And it’s true, we are not the type of band that celebrates all that much and takes time to just take it in. 

I thought it was very surprising that Mark Hoppus had seen that even if he’s very removed from the daily thing of Simple Plan. 

What I noticed when I was watching the documentary is that you guys spoke a lot about the criticism you got throughout your time as a band. How did you learn to come to terms with all the criticism and just embrace or being who you guys were?

I don’t think we’ve ever accepted it. I think at some point, even when I was younger, I almost wanted to jump in the crowd and make it stop. It was so violent and so hurtful, you know? But I think when you stick to your guns for a very long time, at some point, people are just forced to accept you as you are.

This is also a story about resilience and about confidence, sticking to your ideas, and to who you are, because why would someone have the right to tell you what you should and what you shouldn’t be? That’s just not right. I wish I would have had more confidence even when I was younger.

Jeff, I remember in one part of the documentary you said that you lost your mind when you started being successful. How did you guys take everything in when all of the recognition had started to pour in all at once and how are you guys faring now? 

It was a lot to take in. It was a very big success story. It came really quickly and it was a big tornado. It caught me by surprise. I did not have enough faith in myself and I was insecure enough to tune out everybody’s opinion about me.

It was very important to be liked by everybody. And when I wasn’t liked by someone, I just didn’t understand it. Now I care a little less about what people think. I feel I have a right to be here. I have a right to express myself and to be in a band, a band that I love, and that’s it. 

It’s about building true, deep, secure confidence, and I’m proud of what we achieved. I’m proud of the person that I became. 

Do you still remember your knee-jerk reaction to watching the documentary for the first time in full?

I mean, truthfully, we watched about four or five iterations of the documentary. And the truth is, the first one was really bad. The first version was really bad. And I was like, why are we even doing this? This is not what I want to show and it became better with time but it took a lot of work before it actually got to the place where it’s at now. 

Now I think it’s really good how different the first version was from the one that everyone gets to see now. It’s drastically different, like completely a world of a difference. 

It’s funny, I look at the footage of young Jeff and I like that he was sort of crazy, that he was intense, that he was trying so hard to stick to his value as a musician and heart of gold, really working hard.

I would tell him, learn to set boundaries, learn to tell people, “No, it’s too much.” That’s what I would change. But the rest was actually wonderful. There’s something really special about being naive and not knowing what’s ahead of you and still going through at full pace. There’s something really special about that, and I’d say it’s also the power of youth. 

Watching the documentary, I felt like I was seeing you guys grow up with your fans.

It’s wonderful. There’s a song at the end of the documentary, a new song of ours, and it’s called “Nothing Changes.”It’s exactly that — the more you do, the more you go around, the more crowds you see. 

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Humans are the same everywhere, nothing changes. When you get to a rock show and you get together in a community, it’s crazy. It’s a magical thing. Smartphones, rich, not rich, young, not young, people are still singing their hearts out. They’re loving the music. It’s pretty magical. – Rappler.com