Simple Plan played a majority of the dates on the 2011 Vans Warped Tour this summer, but PropertyOfZack had a chance to catch up with Sebastian on an off-day. Emily and Sebastian discussed how it is being back on Warped Tour after a few years, the reception to Get Your Heart On!, what the band has planned in the future, and a lot more. Read up and enjoy!

Hey, for record could you state your name and role in Simple Plan?
For the record, I am Sebastian. I play guitar and sing background vocals in Simple Plan.

You guys are out on Warped Tour, which is just past the halfway mark. How has the experience been, on and off the stage?
Oh it’s honestly really good. The funny thing about Warped is it doesn’t change, ever. It’s our fifth time doing it and it’s the same as the first time we did it. It’s still all about the music. There’s a bunch of bands, there’s a lot of fans that come to watch and support and scream and dance. And crowd surf and mosh pit and it’s a really fun time. The shows have been great. We’ve been seeing a lot of familiar faces and people that we haven’t seen in a while as well. It’s good we have signings every day. We’re trying to make the most of it. It’s been a lot of fun this summer.

You just mentioned that the tour doesn’t change at all but is it at all different to be playing with these newer younger bands than it was to be out 5 years ago?
Well I mean yes that all is a little different. For the first time we’re almost like the “cool” band on the tour. We’ve always been like the new band or the young band or whatever, like we did it in 2001, 2002, and 2005, and now in 2011 it’s like “Oh these guys, they’re still here? Cool!” We have a lot of fun. A lot of the bands on the tour this year, I don’t know them. I had no idea they existed so finding out about them is kind of cool. The essence of the tour is the same but it’s with different bands. New people come every year.

You’ve grown since Warped but in the US you’ve also fallen a little, so what’s it like to get back to this festival that’s at your roots?
Yeah I feel like it’s almost exactly what we needed and it’s the best tour we could be on off of this record. It’s got a lot of energy and it’s a lot of fun so when we’re on Warped we play some old songs and we play a few new songs and it totally fits. Yeah I mean we haven’t been to the States in a while and doing Warped Tour is pretty much the best way to come back for us.

The album before last had more of a poppy sound, but Get Your Heart On! is a return to your older sound. What’s it like to come full circle, especially timed with your return to Warped?
 Yes a little bit of a comeback but at the same time I think it’s just putting together everything that Simple Plan is good at. There are definitely some elements of the first record; it’s fun and young. Then the second record with all the energy. And there’s still some deeper songs like “Astronaut” or “This Song Saved My Life” that kind of resemble the self titled and when you put that all together then you’re stuck with a Simple Plan record that we’re really happy with and really proud of and we feel like it’s the best record we ever did. Once again Warped Tour fits perfectly.

Get Your Heart On!was released in June. How has the fan reception been to that while out on tour?
It’s been great, you know? A lot of songs are getting a great reaction. We started playing “You Suck At Love” last year when we were on the Bamboozle Road Show and now we’re playing “Can’t Keep My Hands Off You” as well on Warped Tour. People are singing and people are into it.

Can you talk a little about the writing process for Get Your Heart On!?
It was a little bit different in the sense that for the first time we decided to finish every idea that we started. On the past record that we did we needed 12-14 songs so we would write over 40 songs. This time around with every idea we have even if we don’t think it will make the record we’ll finish it. So we just ended up with like 70 songs, which is a lot. A lot of them didn’t even have a shot but they were still worth finishing. So we brought it down to 11 and we really took our time writing. We’re just the kind of band that always wants to put out the best record we’ve ever made so we take our time doing so and we feel it is exactly that and we’re proud of it.

Are there any tracks that were recorded for Get Your Heart On! that weren’t released that we might see soon in some form?
Yeah that’s definitely possible. Most of them are just demos still because we only recorded the ones we were going to keep for this record. But yeah definitely there’s a possibility.

You released a track with Rivers Cuomo and one with Natasha Benningfield. What was it like to collaborate with those artists?
Well for Rivers being a Weezer fan since The Blue Album it was kind of an honor so we figured out he was writing with a bunch of other people so we thought we’d ask him if he wanted to write with us and he did so we wrote the song and it came out great and he really liked it as well. We asked him to sing on it and he said yes so we have Weezer on one of our records forever and that’s pretty awesome. As far as Natasha goes well it’s all about the song. “Jet Lag” was written as a duet between a guy and girl that miss each other and are far away from each other so we needed to find somebody who had the voice to pull it off and was into it. She knows how that goes and she definitely made the song better with her performance and shes a really cool girl.

Do you think that collaborating is something you’re going to want to do more?
Well we kind of 5 on this record and that’s a record for us. We kind of like when you pick up a rap album there’s featuring on every song, we’d like to get to that. So hopefully we’ll have more in the future.

You were on an international tour in the spring before Warped. Can you talk a little about those dates?
Yeah right before the record came out we started doing a little bit of promotion. We were in Japan, we went to Singapore, we went to Europe and played some shows, played some TV shows, and some festivals. Pretty much it’s just what we do. We tour a few months before a record comes out and tour for a year and a half after.

And after Warped you’re going back to Europe and Canada through September. What’re you plans after that?
Just more touring. After Warped is over we go to Korea, China, and Japan for some festivals and all over Europe again. Then we have a show for the Simple Plan Foundation. We’re actually planning a Full US tour in the fall. Then next year we’ll do a Canadian tour, a South American tour, and a European tour.

When do you think we’ll hear an announcement about the US tour?
As soon as we know, you’ll know. Right now we’re still in the phase of talking about it but it’s what we want to do.

The last album didn’t do phenomenal here. How important is it for Get Your Heart On! to hit hard in the United States for Simple Plan’s career and for you to want to continue on as a band?
As far as us being a band and career-wise we’re doing pretty well around the world so I’m not sure that we’re really worried there. Obviously like the States are awesome. We’re neighbors, it’s so familiar to be here and people are so nice. It’s extremely important for us. We’re definitely going to make up for it on this one.

Thanks for your time, is there anything you’d like to add?
Just keep checking out SimplePlan.com!