Bowling for Soup
(also abbreviated as BFS) is an American Rock band which originally formed in Wichita Falls, Texas in 1994. Now based in Denton, Texas, the band is best known for its singles "Girl All the Bad Guys Want" (a 2003 Grammy Award nominee) "Almost", "High School Never Ends", and "1985".
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BOWLING FOR SOUP TICKETS
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History
Bowling for Soup was formed in Wichita Falls, Texas in 1994 by Jaret Reddick (vocals, guitar), Erik Chandler (bass, vocals), Chris Burney (guitar, vocals) and Lance Morril (drums, vocals). Morril left the band in 1998 (on good terms) and was replaced by Gary Wiseman of Gary and the Wisemen. The band's name was derived from a comedy act by
Steve Martin.
[1] In 1998, the band relocated to Denton, Texas and recorded their third studio album ''Rock on Honorable Ones
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(a reference to S.H. Rider's motto "ROHO"--Ride On Honorable Ones) in 1998 for Denton music label FFROE. Bowling for Soup released their first EP,
Tell Me When to Whoa!, through FFROE later that year. The album sold over 10,000 copies, prompting Jive Records to sign the band.
Let's Do It for Johnny!'' , Bowling for Soup's major label debut, was released on
Jive in 2000. The album mostly contained re-recordings of their previous material along with a few new tracks and a cover of
Bryan Adams' song "
Summer of '69."
[2]
2002: Drunk Enough to Dance
Drunk Enough to Dance
is Bowling for Soup's second album with Jive Records, released August 6, 2002. It was recorded at Tree Sound Studios and Sonica Recording in Atlanta and Big Time Audio in
Dallas,
Texas. One of the album's singles, (the other single was called Emily) "Girl All The Bad Guys Want", was nominated for a
Grammy Award in 2003 in the "Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal" category.
A re-release in 2003 added "Punk Rock 101", a cover of 1980s
new wave band A Flock of Seagulls' "I Ran (So Far Away)", and "Star Song". An acoustic version of the song "Belgium" exists at the end of the album, as well as at the very end of the initial release. The cover of "I Ran (So Far Away)" was used as the opening theme song of the
anime television show
Knights of the Zodiac in North America.
2004: A Hangover You Don't Deserve
A Hangover You Don't Deserve
followed two years later, and has become the band's only
Top 40 album. Sales of the album were driven in large part by the
radio airplay of the single "
1985", a song written by the band
SR-71.
Mitch Allan, lead singer of SR-71, contributed background vocals to the song and appeared in the music video. "1985" became Bowling for Soup's biggest hit in the U.S., reaching #23 on the
Billboard
Hot 100. A second single from
A Hangover You Don't Deserve
, titled "
Almost", did not chart on the
UK Singles Chart, #46 on the U.S. Top 100, and #23 on U.S. Pop 100.
Ohio, better known as "Come Back to Texas", was released as a radio single in the U.S., but was not as popular as "1985" or "Almost", reaching only #59 on the U.S. Pop 100.
Bowling For Soup appeared briefly in the 2005 film "
Cursed". They appear at the start of the film, playing the song "
Li'l Red Riding Hood".
Bowling for Soup Goes to the Movies
, a compilation album of cover songs and contributions to movie soundtracks, was released by the band in 2005. Later that year, Jaret Reddick and Chris Burney made several appearances on
VH1's "I Love the '90s: Part Deux".
2005: StarJam
They went on the
Star 102.1 StarJam tour with
Simple Plan in 2005 and were the opening act. Performing "
Almost", "
Trucker Hat", "
Girl All the Bad Guys Want", "
1985", "
Punk Rock 101", "
I Melt With You", and more. Their cover version of
Modern English's
I Melt With You was used in the
Disney movie
Sky High and was on the movie's soundtrack. A music video of the song was made for the movie, was aired on
Disney Channel and can be found on the movie's dvd. Once more Bowling for Soup was at starjams 2007 with Quitedrive and Army of Freshmen.
2006: The Great Burrito Extortion Case
Following the release of their covers album, Bowling for Soup spent most of 2006 readying their seventh studio album, entitled
The Great Burrito Extortion Case
, which was released on
November 7,
2006. They released the first single off of that album, "High School Never Ends", to
iTunes on
September 19,
2006. The UK release of the album was February 5, 2007.
The band released "
I'm Gay" as the second UK single in early 2007. The release was on Cd and 7" vinyl. A music video for the single was released in the UK, made up of live performances of the song from the "Get Happy Tour", of which the band had performed on in the UK during February 2007. On September 25, 2007 it was announced on the official Bowling for Soup forums that "When We Die" would be released as a download only single in the UK on the 22 October 2007 as the third single. Following this, the music video was added to the Kerrang television playlist, and was played on Scuzz TV.
2007: DirecTV and Download Festival 2007
Bowling for Soup produced an hour-long special that airs on
DirecTV's concert series and made an appearance at the Download Festival at Donington Park, England. Bowling for Soup co-wrote and sang the theme song for Disney's
Phineas and Ferb, "Today Is Gonna Be A Great Day." "Today Is Gonna Be A Great Day" was the opening song to the Nickeleodeon film "
The Last Day of Summer."
2008: Bowling for Soup: Live and Very Attractive
The band's first live
DVD, filmed over the course of the UK Get Happy Tour October 2007, premiered at the AFI Dallas International Film Festival. Advanced screenings took place on March 31 and April 2, with the DVD being released in the summer. The release date for the two disk uncensored, and the single disk censored edition for the UK is set to be the 7th of July. There is currently a limited edition pre-order deal for the DVD which includes a T-shirt, drinks mug, exclusive poster and more besides the DVD. Jaret sang lead vocals and Erik sang backing vocals for the song "Endless Possibility" for the video game
Sonic Unleashed.
2009: Sorry For Partyin'
and Bowling for Soup: My Home Town
On January 20, 2009, Jaret released a video onto the web via their Myspace page and both Youtube accounts about their new album. According to him, the band's eighth full length album is set to be released in September 2009,
[3] [4] and that the band has very recently started recording. He has released the name of the album, saying that it is to be titled
Sorry for Partyin'
. The video was the first of a few that will be released during the recording process of the album. Also in one of their youtube and myspace videos you can hear part of one of the songs on the album called "I Don't Wish You Were Dead Anymore".
[5] Two more songs were revealed on the bands website called "I Can’t Stand L.A" and "America (Wake Up Amy)." Another song is called "Choke." On February 25, Jaret Reddick posted a blog on Myspace announcing they were almost out of the studio and the album would be released soon.
Bowling for Soup decided to give out a new song titled 'Amateur Night' for free on their street team site for a limited time, it is unknown whether it will make it on the new album. However, when opened with
iTunes the album comes up as "Sorry For B-sides"
[6]
Sorry For Partyin' is set for release on October 12, 2009 according to a phone call by Jaret Reddick. "My Wena" is the first single from the album. The single was first previewed on May 5, 2009 on the
Lex and Terry show. A music video for the song was filmed and the video was released on July 21, 2009.
[7] The song was released to iTunes on July 28, 2009.
[8]
The band is also set to film a three-part documentary titled
Bowling for Soup: My Home Town
.
The Get Happy Tour
The Get Happy Tour was set up as a joint venture with Bowling for Soup and Army of Freshmen. The original tour was planned with Bowling for Soup headlining, Army of Freshmen opening and two other bands (
Punchline and
Lucky Boys Confusion) playing between. The tour kicked off in Austin, TX on June 23, 2006 with The Vanished taking Lucky Boys Confusion's spot for the first three dates. They toured the U.S. over the summer and autumn of 2006 with the
Get Happy Tour and ended on August 27, 2006 in Amarillo, TX. This was followed by a UK tour in early February 2007. Coinciding with this UK tour was the UK release of "High School Never Ends". The tour included Bowling for Soup as main headliners,
Wheatus,
Son of Dork and
Army of Freshmen on the 12 date trek, which concluded at
Hammersmith Palais in London, on the 18 February.
Bowling for Soup confirmed during the Get Happy Tour that they would be performing another tour of the UK in October 2007, called the Get Happy Tour 2, gracing the U.S. over the summer and featuring support acts
Melee,
Quietdrive, and
Army of Freshmen. The UK tour bands were confirmed at the
Download Festival (Army Of Freshmen who played in the morning announced it first, and Bowling for Soup announced it later that afternoon), along with the line-up in
Kerrang! on an advertisement poster for the new tour. The line up consisted of Bowling for Soup,
Bloodhound Gang,
Zebrahead and
Army of Freshmen.
Associations
The members of Bowling for Soup are good friends with the band
SR-71. In fact, Bowling for Soup's hit song "1985" was originally written by SR-71's Mitch Allan. According to Reddick, Allen showed the song to him and instructed him to take it as his own, as it seemed more of a Bowling for Soup song than an SR-71 song. Bowling For Soup are good friends with the members
Army of Freshmen. In the video for "High School Never Ends" the boy clapping can be seen wearing an Army of Freshmen t-shirt, and
Army of Freshmen themselves can be seen as part of the BHS Marching Band. Reddick does guest vocals on four tracks on
Army of Freshmen's album
Under the Radar
.
In 2003, fellow Texan punk rockers
Junior opened for Bowling for Soup when they played the club Trees in
Deep Ellum. Reddick later co-wrote the song "She's So Amazing" for the band's album
Are We Famous Yet?
, and lends vocals as well. The Irish pop rock singer
Lesley Roy lend her vocals for Bowling for Soup's song "Much More Beautiful Person" from the
The Great Burrito Extortion Case
album. Both Roy and Bowling for Soup are assigned to the same record label. Reddick is friends with
MC Lars. Reddick has lent his vocals for MC Lars' single "
Download This Song", and MC Lars is a part of Reddick's label Crappy Records. In 2009, Bowling for Soup cameoed in the music video "Telephone Operator" by The Leftovers, who are also a part of Crappy Records.
In 2001, Bowling for Soup performed the theme song for the
Nickelodeon movie
Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. Their version of the theme was based on the previously written TV series theme song written by
Brian Causey of
Man Or Astro-man?. Bowling for Soup performed the theme "Today is Gonna Be a Great Day" for the
Disney Channel cartoon
Phineas and Ferb, Reddick stars in the episode "Dude We're Getting The Band Back Together" where he is the lead singer of a fictional band called "Love Handel". On
Cartoon Network, Reddick and Erik Chandler both played an acoustic show in 2006. And in August 2008 Reddick and Chandler filmed an exclusive video for
Total Guitar magazine in the UK called "How To Write A Song In 5 Minutes." In 2008, Reddick teamed up with
SEGA to work on the theme song for
Sonic Unleashed, entitled "Endless Possibility".
New Zealand band
48May ran into legal issues and decided to take their song "Leather and Tattoos" off their debut album. The album was replaced with a "tour edition" of the CD with the questionable song missing. The melody was very similar to
Punk Rock 101.
Music Videos
It has become a running gag in Bowling for Soup's music videos to feature previous songs of theirs as an introduction for the video. This can be seen in "Girl All the Bad Guys Want", "Emily," and "High School Never Ends," which each feature music from "The Bitch Song," "Girl All the Bad Guys Want," and "1985" respectively.
Members
Current members
- Jaret Reddick — lead vocals, rhythm guitar
- Erik Chandler — bass, vocals
- Chris Burney — lead guitar, vocals
- Gary Wiseman — drums (1998–present)
Former members
- Lance Morrill — drums, vocals (1994–1998)
In concert
Bowling for Soup never prepares a set list. In 2007, Jaret said they decide what to play as the show progresses. "It's been that way for 13 years," meaning that they've done it for as long as they've been a band. The band now often plays a cover of
The Ramones song "
I Wanna Be Sedated" replacing the word "sedated" with "naked," similar to the
Screeching Weasel song "I Wanna Be Naked". They have played this at the first UK Get Happy tour and Download Festival in the UK. Bowling for Soup has been known to perform
Fergie's "London Bridge", sometimes as part of a medley, also with "
Enter Sandman" by
Metallica. Bowling for Soup has covered the
Britney Spears hit song "
…Baby One More Time" during live performances. Now a studio version appears on
Bowling for Soup Goes to the Movies
, and the movie
Freaky Friday. Bowling for Soup has been known to play a pop-punk version of
Johnny Cash's "
Ring of Fire" and
Surrender by
Cheap Trick as an encore to their show.
Chris has a front tooth that was knocked out at a Playland concert (Rye, NY) August 9, 2007 the band decided to call the prosthetic tooth in its place, "Byron." Other choices included "Bartholomew" and "Stevie." And during slow periods on tour, the band passes time by playing
washers.
They are also now touring the UK (2009) in the 'Party In Your Pants' Tour.
Discography
- Bowling for Soup
(1995)
- ''Rock on Honorable Ones
|'' (1998)
- Let's Do It for Johnny!
(2000)
- Drunk Enough to Dance
(2002)
- A Hangover You Don't Deserve
(2004)
- The Great Burrito Extortion Case
(2006)
- Sorry for Partyin'
(2009)
References
- http://www.bowlingforsoup.com/bio.html
- Bowling for Soup - Virgin Radio
- Bowling For Soup SXSW 09 Interview Music Video on Roxwel
- Soupers serve it hearty with anniversary concerts, new CD
- http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=dX2FvIBKYvc&feature=channel_page
- http://bowlingforsoup.fancorps.com/headquarters/forums.php?topic_id=992479&page=1#post_992479
- Bowling For Soup - My Wena
- Bowling for Soup on Myspace Music!