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 Bowling For Soup have built a huge name for themselves over the last few years of a fun band going out and having a good time, and entertaining the crowd while they do it.
From monster hits 'The Bitch Song', 'Girl All The Bad Guys Want' and '1985' they've climbed into the upper echelons of music, building a UK fan base that started following them in 100 capacity clubs, to where they sit now selling out 2000+ capacity venues.
The band are currently headlining their Get Happy tour in the UK alongside The Bloodhound Gang, Zebrahead and Army of Freshman, and Komodo Rock's Mike Elliott caught up with frontman Jaret Reddick to find out more.
Mike Elliott: So howÂ’s the tour going? You have been on the road for quite a while now.
Jaret Reddick: This particular tour ends
on the 10th October. For this record weÂ’ve been on the road since June
last year, so around a year and a half on the road. This is kinda
finishing things off. After this run we are done.
ME: Going to take a break?
JR: A little break yeah. A little recess. A long nap.
ME: Well I think you deserve it after that long.
JR: WeÂ’ve never really taken breaks.
Usually we go right from tour into making a record. This time we arenÂ’t
going to rush. ItÂ’s kinda the first time that we donÂ’t have to. Just
the way timing is right now. We could either go into the studio right
now and then release another record in like September, or we could take
our time and have it out early next year, or the year after, so I think
thatÂ’s what we are going to do.
ME: With the Get Happy tour how do you go about choosing the bands that come with you? Whose decision was that?
JR: Army of Freshmen and ourselves are
the ones who started the tour. I started the tour with Chris James, who
is the singer for that band, juust on the vibe, we wanted happy bands,
you know, a whole night of fun. Just everybody who puts a smile on
everybodyÂ’s face. Cos nobody was doing that.
So yeah, we get to pick the bands and we had made friends with
Zebrahead, through other bands. Just basically through email and stuff
but we had never played shows with them. We just really hit it off on a
personal level and we asked them come along and then put on a wishlist
of bands out for the main support slot, and Mich, she runs the street
team, she emailed me and said we should get The Bloodhound Gang and I
thought like, yeah whatever, IÂ’ll type it up and put it out there, and
I didnÂ’t think they would ever do it. Then sure enough they accepted
and here they are, so itÂ’s pretty cool man. Originally it was to be New
Found Glory and we were really disappointed when they backed out, then
we got The Bloodhound Gang and it was like Wow, you know.
ME: IÂ’ve got to say The Bloodhound Gang, they win.
JR: For me too as a fan, but I think
either one of them would have been great for the show. As itÂ’s worked
out, now that the show has been going for a week you couldnÂ’t have a
better night. You just couldnÂ’t. ItÂ’s just great. All the bands just
have such a cool vibe. As the night goesÂ….
ME: It builds and builds and explodes at the end?
JR: Usually when we are about 90% done
with our show the kids have been in there for about 4 hours. They are
getting pretty tired but they are still into it, but itÂ’s like, ok we
are going to pass out I think.
ME: Well you are giving them value for money then, and thatÂ’s important.
JR: Absolutely. ItÂ’s important to us. If it wasnÂ’t for them we wouldnÂ’t be here.
ME: You are at Manchester in a couple of days time and I hear that you are doing a DVD there?
JR: Yeah we are filming the whole show
for a live DVD that will come out sometime next year. ItÂ’s the first
actual full on dvd that we have ever done. We had a one come out that
was called 'Punk Rock 101', that was just a few of our videos and
stuff, but this one will be a full on show.
ME: And will that be just the one night with no editing of things together?
JR: No, we are just going to put it out
there and see what happens. We have such a great time when we play that
I think itÂ’s going to be great. The last few nights IÂ’ve been thinking
“I wish we were recording this show” cos something funny will happen
and think gosh “I wish we had that” but it’s like, you know, I’d rather
it were real. It would be like; this is what itÂ’s like to go see them.
 ME: I hear that the show is sold out already as well?
JR: Yes Manchester is always the first to sell out for us.
ME: You played Download this year as well. How was that?
JR: Great. ItÂ’s always intimidating to
play Download when you are a funny band. Especially when you get your
time slot and itÂ’s like after you is Machine Head, and then Slayer you
know. People tell you that you are going to get eaten alive, and for
some reason, especially in this part of the world, people just get us.
ItÂ’s amazing. The crowd was just huge!
ME: Yeah 70,000 or something around that. ItÂ’s a big show.
JR: It was BIG. The promoter was very
happy with our performance, cos for that many people to be at the stage
that early in the day is just unheard of. It was a good experience, a
lot of drinking over those couple of days that we were there. I met
Slash and I donÂ’t really remember it, but I know what happened because
I have the photo. It was pretty exciting.
ME: Excellent. So you donÂ’t know how it came about?
JR: No I actually do know how it came about but IÂ…
ME: But it sounds better that way?
JR: Yeah thatÂ’s a better story. I could think of anything funny to say
at the time. No I actually do remember meeting him and it was pretty
funny. The story itself was pretty funny. We had just come from the
festivals in Germany and we had come in a day early, I guess the night
before we played, and we were just hanging around, and of course we had
been drinking the whole ride and got there, and we were all trashed and
hanging out with Dragonforce. Each of us was just getting ridiculous.
So I went into where the press area was and Slash was just standing
there by himself so I was just like Man IÂ’m going, IÂ’m going to go up
to him and whatever and I was stopped by this HUGE English guy. He was
like, alright mate. I said I just want to get a photo with Slash, you
know if that’s cool and he was like “no photos right now he’s about to
do an interview” and I’m like yeah but he’s just standing there. I just
want to go say hello and take a picture of the guy. The guy was like
no, no you need to walk away or whatever.
Then I say well heÂ’s going to want to meet me. Do you know who I am?
And the guy is like no I really donÂ’t. So I go, well he will. And of
course I was just kidding at that point. Trying to make my friends
laugh. So I waited patiently until the interview was done then I got my
picture. I smiled at the security guy and he smiled back. So it was a
successful adventure to meet Slash. I was real happy about that.
ME: Yeah, heÂ’s the kind of guy that a lot of people would like to meet. HeÂ’s one of THE legends.
JR: HeÂ’s a legend yeah. HeÂ’s one of
those guys that you see a bad drawing of him and you know exactly who
it is. I could hand you a pencil whether you could draw or not and you
could draw something that looks like Slash. You couldnÂ’t do the same
with someone like, say, Steven Tyler.
ME: Yeah Slash is the big hair, the hat.
JR: Yeah then you would know exactly who it was.
ME: So, you donÂ’t play with a setlist?
JR: No we never have. We jokingly say
that itÂ’s because we are lazy and nobody will ever make it, but the
truth is that, when we first started our set time was changing all the
time. We were doing some cover band nights and other nights where we
were playing Bowling For Soup you know, and it was too hard to keep up
with. So we would walk on stage with not a set list but a list of the
songs that we knew that we could pick from. Now the list is committed
to memory and now the show just is what it is. ItÂ’s great because it
keeps it spontaneous for us and spontaneous for the crowd.
The thing about our band, and this is still strange to me but itÂ’s
true, is that there are kids that are coming to every show on this
tour. There are kids that come to the United States or are in the
United States and they go to 15 or 20 stops on a tour. ItÂ’s important
to me that they are entertained every night and they get to see a
completely different show every night.
There are a few things that we borrow from night to night like we have
a photo opportunity where we basically play David Lee Roth over the
speakers. Then we come out and pose for photos while we get to drink.
The kids think itÂ’s hilarious and they get pictures of the band and we
have a few recurring bits like that. For the most part though whatever
happens happens.
 ME:
IÂ’ve also heard in a few places that you that you play Ring Of Fire as
part of an encore some nights. Does that make you a Johnny Cash fan?
JR: We are very big Johnny Cash fans. We
are from the south and country music and that whole, you know, era. We
are into Buddy Holly, Willie Nelson. ItÂ’s pretty broad but that was
pretty much the whole focus of music where we grew up. So it was pretty
born in, you know what I mean? You sort of come out of the womb and you
love Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash. ThatÂ’s just the way it is. He was
one of the great poets of music and itÂ’s just that voice and then the
guitar.
ME: He was one of the first great rock stars. He might have played country music but he could have been Motley Crue!
JR: He was yeah, and he lived like that.
It was an amazing movie to watch. The movie that they did about him was
dead on. They put it all out there and they didnÂ’t tip toe around the
fact that the guy was actually a wreck, a total doosh bag, but you
know, you still love him throughout the whole thing because he was just
a messed up guy who had a hard life.
ME: But still goes out there every night and plays his music.
JR: Yeah, provided he could stay standing up.
ME: Well fingers crossed you will be playing that one tonight then.
JR: Yeah that will be happening tonight.
We will be doing that on the DVD, so we are sort of keeping that one
going as an encore. WeÂ’ve been trying to figure out if we will be
playing a song before that or just that so we are sort of just going on
the reaction of the crowd.
ME: You have a special spot for the UK because when you first started coming over here you were playing dead small venues.
JR: Yeah, 2003?
ME: Yeah either 2002 or 2003.
JR: The UK is an amazing story for us because itÂ’s where everything has
always happened first. We got seen by a man named Steve Hummer. He used
to work for Mean Fiddler, he now works with Live Nation. He saw us in
Austin, Texas in a South By Southwest show, which is a big music
convention that happens there in Austin.
He saw us play in front of nobody. It was an invitation only thing and
no one was interested in what we were doing and he sat there and
watched our show and just laughed along with us you know. He totally
got us. He then sent a random email to us and said hey would you like
to play the Reading Festival this year? I sent the email over to our
manager and said hereÂ’s an email from some guy that wants us to play in
some festival and IÂ’m sure it will never work out, blah blah. He wrote
me back and he goes I'm on the website to the Reading Festival. Do you
know what that is? And IÂ’m like, no I havenÂ’t got a clue what that is.
And he then tells me to bring that up while we are on the phone. So I
bring it up and IÂ’m like okay, yah, so we are going to England!
So thatÂ’s where it started and we met a band called Uncle Brian right
after that and we just started emailing back and forth. They said if
you guys come over to tour then we can hook up the tour. So that was
that tour that you were talking about, we were doing 100 seater clubs.
We were setting up on the floor and just playing and we were having a
blast. From there we came back and we opened up for [Spunge] on a tour
and from then on weÂ’ve been headlining and the clubs have been getting
bigger and bigger.
It was a fun tour. The drummerÂ’s dad took 2 weeks off work and rented
the schools people carrier. There was both bands and then our manager
plus 1 crew guy and the drummerÂ’s parents, all in this 12 person people
carrier, just going around doing this tour. It was great. He would stay
sober and drive us back to the singerÂ’s house every night, and then we
slept on his floor and his mom would make us breakfast in the morning.
It was really great. We owe those guys a lot. So we took them on a few
of our bigger tours that we were doing.
ME: Are they still going?
JR: No theyÂ’re not. In fact their guitar
player is here right now and heÂ’s in a rockabilly band now IÂ’m not sure
the name of it.
ME: Yeah they used to tour a lot locally.
JR: They worked really hard yeah. I think their singer quit and went on to do something else and they tried to keep it going.
 ME: Yeah and it just doesnÂ’t work out. WeÂ’ve talked about the new album but you have a new single out tomorrow havenÂ’t you?
JR: Yeah it comes out digitally and itÂ’s
called “When We Die”. It’s not the first serious song we ever did but,
itÂ’s the first serious single that weÂ’ve ever released. ItÂ’s a song
that I wrote with Butch Walker who IÂ’ve written a bunch of songs with
in the past. ItÂ’s a ballad and the video is serious, and itÂ’s the first
serious video that weÂ’ve ever made. ItÂ’s a real song and itÂ’s a song
that you listen to the words are just true you know. ItÂ’s about life,
and once itÂ’s over itÂ’s over, you donÂ’t get it back. These
relationships that we have are very very important and too many people,
and not to get too serious on you, IÂ’m supposed to be a funny guy, but
too many people let those things go. They get distant from their
parents or distant their brothers and sisters or whatever and itÂ’s like
the next thing you know you turnaround and itÂ’s over. You donÂ’t get
that back. ThatÂ’s the only thing, that's only thing you canÂ’t get back,
except your virginity. You canÂ’t get it back once itÂ’s gone.
ME: I think thatÂ’s something that has happened to everyone. Everyone can say, yeah thatÂ’s happened to me.
JR: Yeah you let something snowball into
something that it shouldnÂ’t be in a relationship basis and itÂ’s like
you can't just turn around and fix it.
ME: So is downloading big for you? Is it a format you like?
JR: Yeah, WeÂ’re fans. It actually has been big for us. WeÂ’re on such a
big record company, especially in the United States and a lot of the
bands that are in the same genre as us are on smaller labels or
whatever, and their record labels are out there pushing CDÂ’s at prices
that the kids can actually afford to buy them. Our label actually had a
stance against that for so many years. It was this is how much it is
going to be and thatÂ’s how much it is. Kids were forced to go out there
and get it however they could.
So once legal downloading took shape and people actually started to do
it, we saw ourselves go up because, hey kids can go get it for a
reasonable price now. So I think itÂ’s great. I personally buy
everything digitally now. I mean itÂ’s just too easy. I do miss the
booklet and looking at the pictures and stuff like that but you know,
you just decide you want an album and you can get it right now. You
donÂ’t even have to go out. WeÂ’re fans. We actually broke GreendayÂ’s
record for a debut single for first weekÂ’s sales. They had the record
for their cover of “I Fought The Law” and we broke that record when we
released “1985” in the States.
ME: Is that genre based or is that overall?
JR: No thatÂ’s overall. WeÂ’ve since lost
that record. I mean that was 4 years ago but it was quite an impressive
statistic for us.
ME: Do you find that you still have problems with illegal downloads still now or is it not something that really concerns you?
JR: Well obviously it concerns me from the standpoint of, well this is
how we eat. So it is a little bit frustrating but itÂ’s hard, but what
can you do? If kids are going to get it then they are going to get it.
For us itÂ’s more of an international thing. For example, our last
record was called “A Hangover You Don’t Deserve” It had a huge monster
hit in the States. Then 2 minor hits. But that record barely even got
released over here in the UK where we had just come off a huge hit
called "Girl All the Bad Guys Want".
It was really really frustrating for us because the record company had
been sold to a bigger conglomerate and they were like you know what we
arenÂ’t going to mess with you cos you donÂ’t do a million records.
 We
came over for a tour. A sold out tour and the kids knew every single
word of every song but the record wasnÂ’t even out here. It was really
important for me that the record company saw that. They came to the
show in London and I made them aware. It was like how many people know
every word to every song that weÂ’re doing, and how many people actually
went and bought our album, and it was silent. I was hoping that it was going to be a wake up call for some people.
ME: And has it been, do you think?
JR: It has been in a sense that you know
weÂ’ve sort of been like a squeaky wheel on there. We got ourselves
dropped over here and got on a smaller label and things are a lot
better for us. Hopefully for others too.
ME: One last one, The Great Burrito Extortion Case, the album. You got the name off a news ticker?
JR: Yeah we were sitting in a bar in Atlanta and the sound was off on
the TV and the ticker came by and said “Burrito Extortion Case”. We
thought, man thatÂ’s hilarious. What do you think that is? So we started
talking about what it could be and Chris says we should just call the
album 'The Great Burrito Extortion Case'. We all started laughing then
all at once we said yeah ok sure whatever.
We had already shot the artwork and everything with this whole Las
Vegas theme. It was going to Las Vegas and getting into all this
craziness and so I called the record company from the bar and say hey
we are going to change the name of the record to 'The Great Burrito
Extortion Case' and the emails just started flying saying you canÂ’t.
You canÂ’t do that. It doesnÂ’t make any sense. And we were like we are.
It doesnÂ’t make any sense and that is why we are doing it. We think
itÂ’s funny.
ME: Did you ever find out what the story was on the ticker?
JR: Oh yeah. Somebody had put a mouse in
a burrito and had tried to sue one of the big conglomerates saying a
mouse was in their burrito or whatever, you know. Those things never
come; you know they always get caught. Like a finger in a chili
happened once. So anyway they got busted.
It was really cool. Then kids once they had started reading that
interview started digging up the stories and would send them to us.
YouÂ’d be doing an interview and someone would ask where the name came
from and I would know but weÂ’d act like we didnÂ’t know but of course we
knew the whole time.
ME: So what was the title before that?
JR: It was called “All My Rowdy Friends Are Still Intoxicated”.
ME: ThatÂ’s pretty good too.
JR: Well we’d had “Drunk Enough to
Dance” and then “A Hangover You Don't Deserve”. We were then going to
have “All My Rowdy Friends Are Still Intoxicated”. We were leading up
to “Bowling For Soup Goes To Rehab”.
And that would be the greatest hits. We can still use that title sometime.
A big thank you to Jaret for taking the time to talk with us, and yes,
we did tell Kory Clarke what a huge Warrior Soul fan you are, and that
you know all the words to all his songs!
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