SIMPLE PLAN returns to the Czech Republic! The Canadian pop-punkers, holders of several music awards and dozens of nominations, certainly need no introduction. From their teenage years, their hits are etched under the skin of practically every music fan of any genre. Their roots go back to 1995 to the band Reset, where the later members met, recorded two albums together and later became one of the biggest rock bands of the current young generation – SIMPLE PLAN. Simple plan, right? The band name was only supposed to be temporary, but after the quick success of their first studio album “No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls” and their first hits “Perfect”, “I’m Just a Kid” and others, there was no time to waste. With each successive album, the band’s success grew, and the number of hits the whole world recognised as well – Welcome to My Life, Shut Up!, Jet Lag, Boom, Untitled, Astronaut, and many more.
Colson Baker, better known by his stage name MACHINE GUN KELLY or MGK, is an American musician from Cleveland, Ohio. His career can be divided to the rap and pop-punk parts, where he’s nowadays collecting music awards, chart numbers, and sold-out shows throughout the whole world.
His last rap album Hotel Diablo was released in 2019. The next, very successful album Tickets To My Downfall, which came out in 2020, was pure pop-punk. His latest album Mainstream Sellout (2022), is a bit of both worlds – a bit of rap (at least with tracks where he has Lil Wayne or Yung Thug on feats) and a lot of guitars. To step outside of the rap scope has paid off – to this day, he’s been selling out shows successfully, his work has pretty big success among his fans and the music critics as well, and no one seems to have a problem with his genre/sonic transformation. On his last two albums, artists like Halsey, Yungblud, and Bring Me The Horizon took their parts.
ASHNIKKO is the blue-haired pop provocateur whose music ricochets around themes of empowerment, vengeance, and sexual positivity. She released her debut mixtape DEMIDEVIL last year, which swung punches at the patriarchy and turned the male gaze on itself again and again. Taking inspiration from trap, hyper-pop and gossamer, over-saturated imagery to formulate ASHNIKKO‘s character, her genuine, bubble-gum persona has seen her infinitely shareable tracks rise to fame.
If you like Yungblud, Machine Gun Kelly, Twenty One Pilots, or Avril Lavigne, there’s a chance you might like this fella from the USA. MOD SUN even did a track called Flames with the legend herself (by the way his life partner). Who Derek Ryan Smith aka Mod Sun is?
For those who don’t know who MOD SUN is – he’s an American musician whose roots go back to the pop-punk realms (which is still pretty obvious in his late work) with his band Semester and post-hardcore Four Letter Lie and Scary Kids Scaring Kids. In 2009 he embarked on a solo career and has since released four studio albums, three EPs, countless singles and many collaborations. Among mentioned single Flames with Avril Lavigne, there is a single Down with Travis Barker (blink-182) or most famous hit Stay Away, with Machine Gun Kelly on the feat. Another one, KARMA, with MGK as a director.
Metalcore band POLARIS (Australia), composed of frontman Jamie Hails, guitarists Ryan Siew and Rick Schneider, bassist Jake Seinhauser and drummer Daniel Furnari, thrilled music critics early in their music career. After the release of their debut album The Mortal Coil in 2017, they were nominated for an ARIA Award in the Best Hard Rock category. With their latest album The Death of Me, they build on previous success and immediately earned further ARIA nominations for Best Hard Rock or Heavy Metal Album. They won the Australian AIR Awards in the Best Independent Heavy Album category of 2021, sold their headline tour of Australia three times, and shared the stage with bands like Architects or Parkway Drive.
They have finished a successful European tour for their latest album The Death of Me, during which we had the honour to experience the POLARIS show at the MeetFactory in Prague. In a recent interview, the band confirmed that they have been working on new material during covid break, but it will see the light of the music world after the tour for the previous album is finished.