Bowling For Soup

Bowling For Soup


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Biography

BAND:

Jaret Reddick - Vocals, Guitar
Erik Chandler - Bass, Vocals
Chris Burney - Guitar, Vocals
Gary Wiseman - Drums

The Beatles, Santana, Bowling For Soup.

Musical heavyweights, yes. But what do these acts actually have in common? They've all been nominated for Grammys. Yep, Bowling For Soup, the drunk-rockers from Wichita Falls, Texas, scored a nomination in 2003 in the “Best Performance Pop By a Duo or Group” category for their power-pop sing-a-long "Girl All the Bad Guys Want."

"It opened a lot of doors for us," admits BFS front man Jaret Reddick who, along with his three band-mates, wore an unforgettable pale-blue tux to the event. "Now we're no longer known as the fat guys from Texas. Now we're the Grammy-nominated fat guys from Texas."

The Grammys are just part of the continuing success story for the band with the cookie name. The group actually started out all the way back in 1994 and didn’t have any notion of succeeding. At the time, guitarist Chris Burney and bassist Erik Chandler were in a band that frequently played a local coffee shop (conveniently owned by Burney). Drummer Gary Wiseman was also in a group that frequented the store, as was Reddick. "Really, it was just a case where all the bands dissolved at the same time," says the singer. "And I wanted to start a band that was a punk-rock Beatles. So we all got together over a beer and worked it out."

At the time, Reddick, Burney and Chandler were attending Midwestern State University, and had no intention of doing anything more than making music for fun. "It was never like 'let's start a band and be real musicians,’" remembers Reddick. "We got together in '94 because we discovered beer. Beer is really fun! And what better way to get free beer than being in a band? You'll notice that's been a recurring theme for the band over the years."

After relocating to Denton, Texas, Bowling For Soup continued to load their concert riders with outrageous requests for alcohol and suddenly found themselves to be a popular draw. Perhaps it was due to their undeniably catchy pop hooks, or their love of old-school metal, or maybe it was the band's goofy charm.

After putting out two albums on their own in Wichita Falls, their third record, 1997's Rock On Honorable Ones!!, sold a whopping 10,000 copies on the tiny FFROE Records label. Their fourth release, Tell Me When to Whoa!!, also on the Denton based label, featured the "The Bitch Song", which got some local radio buzz and helped the band eventually land a deal with pop heavyweights Jive Records, home to Britney Spears, NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. "When we were signed, we were sort of the ugly stepchildren of the label, but that was OK," says Reddick. "Besides, I got to meet Aaron Carter a couple of times, before and after puberty"

Since signing to Jive, the band's career has taken off. 2000's Let's Do It For Johnny and 2002's Drunk Enough to Dance have sold over 300,000 copies and spawned hit singles, including "The Bitch Song", "Punk Rock 101" and "Girl All the Bad Guys Want." The band has also popped up on the Warped Tour, opened for Blink-182 and Sum 41, made a big splash on MTV and, well, been nominated for a Grammy.

OK, so they lost….but they DID walk away with Joan Rivers’ Golden Hanger Award for Worst Dressed. Joking aside, the Grammy nomination DID open a lot of doors. Before the group started recording their third record for Jive, A Hangover You Don't Deserve, Reddick created a wish list of songwriters and producers he wanted to work with, including members of Fastball, Nerf Herder, Sugar Ray, The Nixons, SR-71 and Butch Walker, their long-time producer. Thanks in part to their Grammy nod, everyone said yes.

"The Grammys, that's all everyone I worked with wanted to talk about," admits the singer. But he can't deny how the new collaborative process helped out the group. "I think working with other people helped me learn a lot about where I am musically," he says. "And here's what I really learned - if you need a silly song written about a girl, I'm your guy."

The new album’s first single “1985”, the unavoidably catchy nostalgia-fest that referenced 80s icons Duran Duran, Blondie and Motley Crue among others, became the band’s biggest American hit so far, notching up three weeks at number one on the US download chart. The accompanying video once again provided viewers with a pop-punk fused lesson in well-observed comedy and became a rotation regular on US music channels while hitting the MTV TRL charts on both sides of the Atlantic.

The band hit the road once again with dates in Japan and their second stint on the Vans Warped Tour before heading to mainland Europe to support Avril Lavigne and then hopping over the Channel for their forth UK headline tour.

In 2005, everyone’s favourite Texan punk cowboys continue to ride across the USA on yet another extensive tour, their so-called days off filled with radio interviews and TV performances on shows including The Tonight Show and Last Call With Carson Daly. They took a short break in March, but there was the small matter of another beer-fuelled jaunt to Japan for their first headline date to fit in before the guys got too comfortable in their own beds.

In June the band arrive in the UK for their second trip to the Download Festival, this time performing on the main-stage on Saturday 11th June. An irrepressibly upbeat pop-rock band from the Lone Star State sharing a bill with Black Sabbath, Anthrax, Meshuggah and Helmet? An interesting prospect but one that these Texan boys take in their stride. “Our music crosses a lot of boundaries,” says guitarist Chris Burney, “We can walk into a country bar and have them loving us in five minutes. We could sound like Cheap Trick or something from the 70s…by the end of the show, they’re always on our side.”


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