Jaret Reddick: Vocals/Guitar Erik Chandler: Bass Chris Burney: Guitar/Vocals Gary Wiseman: Drums
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Jaret Reddick: Vocals/Guitar Erik Chandler: Bass Chris Burney: Guitar/Vocals Gary Wiseman: Drums Talking with Bowling for Soup singer Jaret Reddick, you may not the bands from that era started finding success, people started getting immediately get the sense that this affable, down-to-earth Texan fronts a super-serious and making these really dreary or angry records. I’m not Grammy- and Emmy-nominated pop/punk band with over a million album saying I don’t like that stuff, but for us it’s always been a case of ‘Let’s never sales to their credit. “If you compare our first album to our 10th one, you do that!’ We want to be that point of somebody’s day where they can get off could be like, ‘Let’s see… Well, their voices finally changed, and they got a work and put us in and think, “Okay, yeah: Everything else sucks, but this is lot better musically, but they still sound like the same guys to me,” Reddick awesome.” says, the grin audible in his North Texas drawl. “Man, I would hope we’re still the same guys! Can you imagine what a bummer it’d be if we Fittingly, “awesome” was an operative word during the Sorry for Partyin’ weren’t?” sessions. Working with producer Linus of Hollywood (also Reddick’s partner in the year-old Crappy Records label), BFS cut the album in a whirlwind 24 Frankly, we can’t—and on their 10th studio album, Sorry for Partyin’, days at Wire Recording Studio in Austin, Texas, where the ideas flowed as Bowling for Soup prove that no matter what lame new trends may lurk readily as… Well—let’s just say there’s a reason they titled one of Sorry’s outside their studio walls, they’ve got the hits, fits, shits and giggles to singles “Hooray for Beer.” keep coming out ahead. From side-splittingly funny double entendres (the I-can’t-believe-they-got-away-with-that lead single “My Wena”) to “We had close to a two-year break between the last record (2006’s The call-and-response jams you’ll undoubtedly be hearing in high schools Great Burrito Extortion Case) and writing for this one,” Reddick says, “so we worldwide (“No Hablo Inglés”), Sorry for Partyin’ features some of the were ready to have some fun.” The anything-goes atmosphere lent itself to funniest, most infectious songs of BFS’ 15-year career. Of course, the some interesting collaborations, too: After discovering that one of their album also packs some of the strongest, most confident songwriting in musical heroes, former ALL vocalist Scott Reynolds, lived just blocks from BFS’ catalog, proving once again that these guys are masters of their craft. the studio, BFS rang him up to make a cameo on “America (Wake up Amy).” Fastball’s Tony Scalzo, another Austin native and band friend, ended up “We’ve created our niche, and our niche is us,” says Reddick, who formed collaborating on the rollicking kiss-off to an ex “I Don’t Wish You Were Dead Bowling for Soup in 1994 and today rounds out the Denton, Texas-based Anymore.” And, even if he originally dropped by just to hang out with his quartet with guitarist Chris Burney, bassist Erik Chandler and drummer friends, Nerf Herder frontman/YouTube mega-star Parry Gripp also wound up Gary Wiseman. “We know there are lots of people out there who think guys making a cameo on vocals. in their 30s shouldn’t be writing about stuff like their ‘Wena’ and farts and beers and chicks.” (Incidentally, you’ll find all of the above on Sorry for “It literally felt like more of a party than work, and I think that shows up Partyin’.) “But I say why not? What should guys in their 30s be writing throughout the record,” Reddick remembers. “People are gonna hear this about? The economy? War? Organic food versus non-organic? We like and be like, ‘Okay, well, it sounds like they had just a little bit of fun.” funny movies, and we like to drink beer and talk smack about each other’s moms. There’s nothing contrived about it—this is who we are.” Of course, they also got serious—or as serious as you can when your album’s lead single is a wiener joke. “I think a song like ‘My Wena’ is a For anyone else who thinks humor doesn’t belong in music, let’s also perfect example of us being like, ‘Okay, whatever people think is as far as remember that this is who BFS are: A worldwide phenomenon with a string we’re gonna take it, we’ll just keep pushing things to the next level,” Reddick of hit singles (including 2006’s “High School Never Ends” and the 2004 explains. “But there are a handful of songs on this record that really mean a MTV and radio smash “1985”) to their credit. A fan-favorite live act whose lot, too. I think that was also a part of the studio environment—whether we chemistry is so innate they’ve never had to prepare a set list. And a TV- were goofing around or wearing our hearts on our sleeves, we weren’t afraid and movie-soundtrack juggernaut whose Emmy-nominated contribution to to go for it.” Disney’s Phineas and Ferb is literally the most widely heard cartoon theme song on the planet. Quite a step up from the salad days when they were Considering how long they’ve been a band, it’s no small wonder that Bowling handing out demos in Warped Tour parking lots—even if the motives for Soup still find new ways to go for it in the niche they’ve carved out for behind the music have stayed pure since then. themselves. But as Reddick notes, that sense of abandon is just the thing that’s allowed BFS to tackle Sorry for Partyin’ as if it were their first record, “There was nobody in Texas that sounded like us in 1994,” Reddick not their 10th. “We’ve always said that the day it’s not fun anymore, we’re remembers. “Obviously you had the Orange County, CA, explosion that we just not gonna do it anymore,” he concludes. “So why focus on the down felt a part of, because we were all ripping off the same bands. But as all side? Let’s keep doing what we do best. Let’s keep having fun.”.