Simple Plan

Simple Plan guitarist Jeff Stinco has taken on management for a girl-dominated retro-wave group from Vancouver called the No No Spots and is trying to finish up more songs for them just after Christmas.

"They are a cross between Depeche Mode, the Jam and the Clash," says Stinco. "We actually started working on new material and I started shopping them and the response is really amazing. And we have offers on the table that we're going to visit in January."

About a year ago, Stinco flew the band -- vocalist Adrienne, drummer Lana, keyboardist Marta, guitarist Kara, and, the lone boy, bassist Conal -- all of whom don't use surnames -- to Montreal, where he produced four songs at his home studio, a full Pro Tools rig he calls "better than your normal home studio."

In January, The No No Spots will finish recording an album's worth of material, either with Stinco or a stand-by producer if the guitarist is too busy. "It depends on my schedule at this point, so we might be shopping other options too," says Stinco, who will be touring Europe/U.K. with Simple Plan Jan. 20 to Feb. 19.

"There's another producer enlisted in case I can't do it. We're going to start working on new material and the interest right now is so big that I might just give the production away and keep the rights to the songs that I worked on."

Initially, Stinco says he only wanted to produce the No No Spots, but the five-piece "needed a little help" with management so he took it upon his shoulders. "It's probably something that I'm going to let go at some point," he admits.

Stinco, whose own band has sold some 6 million albums worldwide, first planned to foster a record label called Milagro, with distribution through Fusion 3, but that fell through in May after six months.

"The basic idea was very simple -- to allow musicians that I love to record their music and then start shopping it, and if the industry was too conservative towards some of those projects, I was going to release it myself," he explains.

"I actually released one project and I was really pleased with the results. Her name is Lauren Posner and she's a world music artist, very talented. But I had some problems with some business partners of mine. I'm not part of Milagro anymore."

Still wanting to work with talent he came across through his production company, Stinco Productions, a friend alerted him to the No No Spots when the band was the support act on Tegan And Sara's tour in September of 2004.

"I heard really really rough demos. They were pretty bad recordings, but the songs were amazing," Stinco says. "I like their melodies and they were a fun band, but they had a really cool dark side too. I started recording with them as soon as I had the opportunity."

Since then, the No No Spots has been writing and demoing new songs and also opened for Simple Plan on three B.C. arena shows this past November "The response was fantastic," Stinco reports.

The guitarist says he gets tons of demos given to him while on tour, but few catch his ear. "I usually listen to one or two tracks and I get a pretty good idea of what the band's about. Surprisingly, the quality of the demos has become really great over the last few years, but what's lacking is good songs. That's what I'm looking for. That's all I'm looking for."

Unlike some recordings artists who don't accept demos or CDs because of the potential for lawsuits down the road by songwriters claiming their material has been ripped off, Stinco isn't worried. "I'll deal with it if I have to deal with it. I'm not really nervous about that."

He says Stinco Productions is simply a way to provide an opportunity to other artists like the one Simple Plan has been afforded.

"What I'm doing right now is helping bands that I love and I'm giving them all the knowledge that I could about the industry, about music, about what I think should be a good show, and just giving them the financial means to record," he explains. "And I think that the deal that we cut with them is a pretty artist-friendly deal and I have access to a record studio and I have access to a vast amount of people that I've worked with through Simple Plan."

As for Simple Plan's next album, the European and U.K. jaunt will be the band's last full-scale tour behind "Still Not Getting Any...," besides a few dates in South Africa in March, before he and his bandmates -- lead singer Pierre Bouvier, drummer Chuck Comeau, bassist David Desrosiers, and guitarist Sebastien Lefebvres -- start writing for it.

"We've been on the road so much. We've been so busy. We're gathering ideas. It's a necessary stage and we're talking about the direction of the record mostly. I think we'll have a record by the end of 2006. More Lowdown stories