By MATT PEIKEN

By MATT PEIKEN
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
The members of Simple Plan had a simple goal -- copy their favorite pop-punk bands.
Today, barely out of their teens, the five members of Simple Plan are painting a Canadian face on what most people perceive as wholly American music.
"Toronto is where all the labels are, but Montreal has the more interesting punk scene," says Chuck Comeau, drummer for Simple Plan.
"Every band from California would come to Montreal and play for 2,000 kids and then go back to the States and play for 400. Maybe it's the skating or snowboarding scene here, but Montreal kids have always been into this music."
In the vein of NoFx, Face to Face and No Use for a Name, Simple Plan delivers heavy harmonies and pop melodies with a punk-lite aesthetic.
The band's self-titled debut has attracted enough attention to earn Simple Plan an invitation to perform on Jay Leno's show, to open Avril Lavigne's American tour this spring and then hop onto the Vans Warped tour. This is in addition to the international touring already under the band's belt.
To Comeau, the string of fortune almost seems too good to be true.
"We're basically the kids in the crowd who got lucky and got pulled on stage, and we try to bring that vibe to the stage," he says. "Bands like NoFX and Pennywise made us want to learn how to play drums and guitars and made us dream it was possible."
Comeau and singer Pierre Bouvier, who grew up together, were only 13 when they played together in their first band, aping Elvis Costello, Cheap Trick and other pop-rockers of the '70s. Within three years, Simple Plan was opening shows for touring bands passing through Montreal.
The teens crafted plans to take their act to the next level, calling record labels listed in the Yellow Pages of Rock and pretending to be the band's manager. Andy Karp at Lava Records, who had signed Kid Rock, was the first to bite.
"Starting young is a plus," Comeau says. "Bands that start out when the guys are in their 20s, maybe things don't happen right away and they think it's maybe time to move on. But we were in high school and maybe had more time to get there, and we were willing to sacrifice everything."
How band is different
Comeau was 20 and had finished a year of law school when he and his band mates dropped out of college to devote full-time attention to Simple Plan.
"Our parents were not stoked about it. I made my mother cry," Comeau says. "But now they understand what we're doing and see we're not just playing music, that we take this as a serious business."
Simple Plan is still working to find its own voice within the crowded pop-punk realm.
Comeau defines the immediate differences between Simple Plan and its peers as this: "We don't have a number in our name, we're five guys, not four, and we speak French." He also cites the band's approach to fans.
"One of our goals was to be one of the nicest bands ever, and that's still our goal," he says. "We're one of the most accessible bands anywhere. We're in the streets, outside the club, inside the club. We spend hours signing autographs and now we even know the names of people in every city.
"Deep inside, we're still the same guys with the same insecurities and issues, and in some ways, I feel the same way I did when I first wrote the first record," he adds.
"We waited so long for this that the fire's not going away."