Bowling for Soup Interview

The Texan punk-pop band have conquered the UK with their catchy songs and comedy videos, now they're back on a two-week tour of the UK, so we took the opportunity to catch up with the band. We spoke to Erik Chandler (bass guitarist) before their gig at Portsmouth Guildhall.
R13: What's it's like to be back in the UK?
EC: It's really really cool. We were here for Download, but it's been a year; almost exactly a year since we did a real tour over here so everybody's really excited to be back. We wanted to come back and see you guys.
R13: You've missed us.
EC: Exactly, exactly.

R13: How do your UK tours compare to your US tours?
EC: They're fairly similar now, it used to be like a lot larger here, we used to play larger venues than in the United States. In the last couple of years in the United States, they've kind of caught up with the UK, except for the fact the kids over here are a little more ferment, I guess you could say. You're a little more excitable I guess everybody in the States is too cool for school.

R13: Where is your favourite place to tour?
EC: Honestly?
R13: Honestly.
EC: Denton, Texas, because I get to sleep in my own bed after every show we play there.

R13: Is there a new album in the pipeline?
EC: It'll be out next year. We finish this tour, and then we're done touring for the year; we'll have several shows where we fly out for just one day. After the 24th of this month, when we finish this tour, we'll probably only have 10 more shows for the rest of the year. Then in that time we will be writing the new album and hopefully recording it by February, and releasing it by the end of the summer.

R13: Do you get much time to write while you're on the road?
EC: No, we used to try but now we don't even bother because we can't be bother to sit down and spend time being productive we just sit down stare at each other and drink!
R13: Why not, eh?
EC: Yeah, exactly...because we can, so we do!

R13: Ohio is the next single to be released, what made you choose that song and have you filmed a video for it?
EC: We have not done a video and I'm not sure if we're going to. Because back out in the States, Ohio was our third single and we picked it because we felt very personal about it because it's a song about Texas where we're from. We released it in the States and our record label didn't put up any money for a video, because we didn't get much video airplay for the 'Almost' video. So, we have been talking to friends of ours, actually the directors, they have directed most of our videos to try and come up with a better cheaper solution to pay for it ourselves, rather than the super huge budget of the record label might give us. The original idea was a tour video we wanted to recreate the 'Wanted Dead Or Alive' video by Bon Jovi, you get to see everybody just as they're waking up or coming off stage, just showing how dirty and raw life is on the road, that kind of thing, but we'll see if that ever comes to formation.

R13: Who comes up with the video ideas? Do you have much input as a band?
EC: Yeah, yeah totally. All the ideas have come from the band through conversations we had, Chris has written a couple of the videos. Or it's just us sitting down talking about stuff, one of them was from Jaret being on the phone with a guy from the record label and they discussed ideas, throwing things back and forth. Then we all sat down and discussed it. We have one hundred percent control over what happens, it's not like somebody says this is what you're going to do.

R13: What is your favourite Bowling For Soup song to date?
EC: I'm going to go with the cheesy answer... 'Friends Of Mine'. Jaret was the only one in the band that knew about it, he wrote it and recorded it without telling us, just because it was his gift to everybody in the band, everybody that works for us and that has worked for us. I heard it for the first time when we were on our way from the hotel to the recording studio; we had stopped at a drive-thru restaurant to pick up food. We were playing to demos to get familiar with the songs again, and it was the last one on, and nobody spoke, everybody cried when we heard it. I still can't listen to it. I wont listen to it, it's just that personal and written just for us.

R13: What's your proudest moment in the band?
EC: Thanksgiving day, but you guys don't have Thanksgiving, that's purely American. There's a big parade every year in New York that Macys the department store sponsor, we recorded a song for the Jimmy Neutron Movie, and there are these big balloons that people carry along the street and they're like 50 or 60ft long, absolutely huge. There was a Jimmy Neutron balloon and they were playing our song from the movie, as it went by my dad saw and for the first time called me because he had realised that we were doing something and our song was playing on television, and that we're not just out screwing around we are actually doing something meaningful, that was probably my biggest moment. Then there was our first gold record in the United States that was a big one as well, certain people on our record label that might not of believed in our band had to come out on stage and hand us our gold records, and it was like "we told you, we told you." Then someone that hasn't even offered three words, stopped to give me a hug, it's like they understood what we were trying to do.
I guess any time someone stops and realises that's what the band's about it's a moment of victory. Other than that my proudest moment is everyday I get to sit in a dressing room have a drink with my three best friends in the entire world, and then go and play rock 'n' roll, come of stage go back to the dressing room look at the same three guys and have another drink with them, it's absolutely great.

R13: If you could choose any other bands to tour with you, who would be on the line up?
EC: Exactly the one's we're here with. Army of Freshmen wasn't on the tour from January to May this year, we were on the road with MC Lars and a band from Texas called The Rhythm Kids. The Rhythm Kids broke up over the summer, so we replaced them on the bill with Army of Freshmen, those guys have been friends of ours forever, and so this is the biggest tour of friends we've ever been on. We were with American Hi-fi and MC Lars for the first six months of the year, now we get to do another few weeks with them, so we've been touring with these guys for a good portion of the year. The only other band I could say, is Simple Plan then you would have the people with been on the road with the most over the last three or four years. When your spend six or nine months together everybody starts to get really close. Sometimes your tour with bands and you're not too keen on their music, then you get to know them personally and you start to appreciate their music. That hasn't been the case for any of the bands I've named, but it can affect the way you appreciate people's music a lot. There's a band in the States called The Nixons that we toured with years ago, and to start out I wasn't a fan but by the end I loved them.

R13: Have there been bands that you haven't got on with?
EC: Not really, there have been people we didn't get on with on a personal level, but never on a band-to-band level, we've been really fortunate in that. We try to be as nice to everyone as we can, and I think that has helped out, if you give somebody nice they're going to give you back nice, if you give somebody dickhead they're going to give you back dickhead.

R13: If you could of chose a British band to tour with you, who would you of chosen?
EC: You know what, we've been talking for years about doing a co-headlining tour with A, because we've never toured with them but we're friends, we know them, it's just never happened. Another band would be Spunge we've toured with them a few times, and we know them really well, the only reason I picked A first is because we have never actually toured with them.

R13: Have you had a chance to have a look around Portsmouth?
EC: I walked from here (Portsmouth Guildhall) to Yates, so about a block and a half. We don't get to see much of the cities we visit, as we have obligations at the venue. I slept until 3 this afternoon and that was an early start for me. You get up, do your sound check, have a meet and greet, find some lunch, do interviews, then the doors open so you've got to be at the venue, so you don't get to go out much. Chris actually got up early today and went to the park, and I've heard lots of good things about the animals you can see in the park, I'd like to go but I wont get a chance to now.

R13: Are there any cities you have visited that you'd like to look around, but have never actually had a chance to?
EC: Hmm... That's a good question. I'm not sure in the UK just because I'm not sure what things there would be to see. We been to Cleveland in the United States so many times and we have never looked round the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, and there's a reference to that in the new single Ohio, and as a band, if you go to Cleveland you've got to go to Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame, and we've played Cleveland 10 or 12 times. So that sucks. I try to go to as many Hard Rock Cafes as I can, I know it's a little touristy but it's something I started as a kid, so if I know there's one nearby I try to stop in.

R13: Is there anywhere that you haven't toured but you would like to have the opportunity to?
EC: Australia, I've never been there that would be really nice. It would be really cool to go to what used to be the Soviet Union to see that part of the world would be really nice, I hear the Cheque Republic is really nice too. Our old guitar tech Spencer spent some time in Prague I'd like to go there too, that's supposed to be a great city just to walk around. South America would but great as well, lets just say anywhere in the world I haven't been to that's where I'd like to go, because I've seen so much of the world through this I'd like to see the rest of it.

R13: What are the best and worst points about being in a band?
EC: The best part is you're doing what you love the most with the guys you love the most, we are so lucky because all our crew are really good friends. I knew people whose techs don't associate with them because they're just hired for a certain venue. The best thing is being with the people you love the most all the time. That's also one of the worse parts because you spend months and months with the same people, sometimes you've just got to wonder off and go to the pub on your own just to get some space. Another bad thing is being away from friends and family all the time it's really hard. Then if someone gets sick on the bus you all get sick, we passed a cold around for the best part of a year just because it keeps spreading. And you're tired all the time and you drink too much, but oh well you've got to do it while you're young.

R13: Are you finding it harder now you're getting older?
EC: No, it isn't like its hard work, but the recovery from the easy work is harder. We've been a band for 11 years and we've been touring round the world for ten of those eleven years, so our bodies probably don't work as well as others our age do. I'm a thirty year old man in the body of a fifty year old man, your back gets shot, your knees go, your ankles go, you wake up everyday and you feel like shit, but it's worth it, absolutely worth it.

R13: You seem to be constantly touring how do you keep it new and fresh?
EC: Even though is the same thing everyday, everyday is different we don't use a set list, so it's a new adventure every night. We never know what's going to happen from night to night, but you just make the best of whatever situation you're in. So that keeps it fresh.

R13: Does not having a set list cause any problems?
EC: Oh yeah! Jaret calls a song from the mic and there are plenty of times when I'm looking at Gary asking what are we doing, and he'll be counting in telling me he doesn't know. We always seem to make it through somehow; it's good it keeps us on our toes. You have to pay attention to everything you can never get complacent while on stage.

R13: Have you ever ended up playing the same song twice?
EC: Only twice, one of them was at... it was at fucking Reading! We were on the main stage and Jaret started playing a song, which we had only played two or three songs before that, and everybody's like "what's he doing?!" But our shows are really loose and about having fun, so that was just another fun part of the show, it wasn't an embarrassment.

R13: What would you say the benefits of not having a set list are?
EC: Well, if someone comes to three shows in a row they're not going to see the same show. It keeps us entertained, we do it more for ourselves than the audience, I mean everything we do is for the audience but it keeps everything fresh and new for us.

R13: Because of that, I suppose if someone shouts a song you can play it for them.
EC: Yeah, we don't have to rearrange songs on a list, it's like "yeah, we can play that for you", and we do that a lot; ask our crowds what they want to hear next and the shout, we hear one and start playing.

R13: Right, that's about it. Thanks for your time; it was nice to meet you.
EC: Right on, it was a pleasure to meet you Tara.