Bowling For Soup

Texan punk rockers Bowling For Soup have conquered the UK with the upbeat songs, now they're back in the UK as the headliners on The Get Happy Tour. I caught up with Chris Burney and Erik Chandler for a chat in Southampton.

R13: How's the UK treating you so far?
Chris: Very good, this is our second show and the first show was dynamite and all the shows are sold out so we're really looking forward to it.

R13: Where did the idea for The Get Happy Tour come from?
Erik: I don't know if they come over here but in the States we have these package tours but they all tend to be metal bands so it's all heavy, so this is our answer to that.
Chris: People are tired of seeing shows where all the bands are scary or mad, so we've put together a tour where everybody is happy and lively and everybody has a smile on their face.

R13: How did you choose which bands to take on the tour with you?
Chris: They're actually the only people that would come with us because we asked everybody and nobody wanted to.
Erik: Army Of Freshmen are part of The Get Happy Tour, they were part of the conception of the whole thing so they'll be with us on all the dates. We did it last summer in the States and now we've bought it over here and we'll take it out to the States again this summer.
R13: Are you planning to make it an annual event?
Erik: Yeah, well you know for as long as we can ride it or until it dies.
Chris: Or until we get pissed off.
Erik: Which could happen any moment now.
Chris: He's a ball of rage.
Erik: Yeah, I'm a ball of rage and I'm ready to explode, so we'll see.

R13: You guys seem to be constantly touring, how do you keep the led in your pencils?
Chris: We booze it up a lot. It's just fun, it's tiring but you have a little rest at home and you're ready to do it again.
Erik: It's weird because we'll get off the road and go home for a week or so. We went home for about six days before we came over here, but once we got to the airport and everybody was back together again sitting down having a drink all was right with the world.

R13: What does an average day on tour have in store for you?
Erik: Lots of staring at the walls, lots of waiting.
Chris: There's plenty of things to do, play music, read.
Erik: Roll dice.
Chris: Go for a walk around town.
R13: Have you been for a stroll today? It's quite cold out there.
Erik: It was really nice when I went to get lunch earlier.
Chris: It wasn't too bad just a little nippy.

R13: You've got a new album out, how does it compare to previous albums?
Erik: Our new album is the greatest album that has ever been recorded by man or animal.
Chris: How many animals record albums?
Erik: I'm not sure.
Chris: Although saying that I do have a CD of dolphin and whale noises, so I guess some animals do record albums.
Erik: What do you use that for?
Chris: I don't really know, I've never really put it on. I have a CD called Daylight Moods that I use with the ladies, get some candles lit.
Erik: Nice, I use the Pure Moods CD actually. I think the thing with our CD is, and I'll give you this analogy when somebody gets a Bad Religion CD they know all their CDs have that sound and that's kind of what we try to do. We're not trying to reinvent the wheel or anything like that, on the new album we have gone a couple of places that we have never gone before, which is cool, it's interesting and fun to do for us but we try to set out to make a solid album which sounds something like what our band sounds like.

R13: You guys come across as good time happy rockers, is there a serious, or even dark side of BFS lurking that fans don't know about?
Erik: I think we all have that side, but it's just nothing to do with what this band's about.

R13: Do you prefer to play new songs or old songs?
Chris: It's actually good to rotate, there's older songs that we're always going to play, but it's fun to get new songs in the set.
Erik: Once you release an album and tour for a couple of years on the back of that album, you end up playing the same set of songs every night for a while and you do get tired of them. We never use a set list so every night is different, even we as a band don't know what's going to happen from minute to minute so that really keeps things fresh.

R13: Are there any particular songs that go across better with British crowds compared to US crowds?
Chris: Yeah, 'Summer Of 69' has gone down well over here, whereas in the States they're just a bit like so what. I think kids are not that keen on Bryan Adams, that's why he moved to London. He likes it here and the people like him here.

R13: Where would you love to tour that you haven't yet?
Erik: Australia.
Chris: Australia and Brazil.
Erik: Brazil would be really cool. We thought we were going to go to Australia next month we had a couple of opportunities to go and the record label pulled the plug on that, they want to keep us around in the States to work our second single when it comes out.

R13: What's been your most embarrassing moment on stage?
Chris: Falling down is always embarrassing. Erik is the master at falling down.
Erik: I am, I am. Somebody through a bracelet up on stage at the London Astoria one time and it was made of little beads and I stepped back to give it the whole big rock pose, and I stepped on the bracelet and my foot came out from under me and I fell down and broke my bass. That was just great.
Chris: Fun times!
Erik: Then the other night we were doing a performance at a record store in London, and Jaret made me laugh and this big snot bubble came out, that was fairly embarrassing.
Chris: Snot bubbles happen every once in a while. Then you've got to wipe it off onto your shirt.

R13: What do you guys get up to on the road to keep yourselves entertained?
Erik: Rolling dice, drinking beer, hanging out with your buddies.
Chris: We're bullshitters so we just sit around and bullshit.
Erik: We've said many times before that our favourite thing in the world is just sitting around drinking a beer and shooting the shit, talking about nothing in particular just hanging out, enjoying each others company.

R13: What were you like when you were a teenager?
Chris: Oh boy, I was an active little fella, I played a lot of sports and listened to metal.
Erik: I was a huge nerd, I spent most of my time in my room teaching myself to play guitar and didn't do much other than that. I used to skate then I discovered playing guitar and that took over. From about 13 or 14 I spent all my spare time trying to learn to play.

R13: Did you ever have any idea you'd end up doing this?
Chris: Never in a million years, I didn't start playing guitar until I was in college and music wasn't never a goal for me, it's fucking weird, that's what it is.
Erik: When I was 12 I dreamt of being a musician for a living but I never thought it would go to where it is now.

R13: Who was your secret celebrity crush?
Erik: It's no secret that I would love to do some really dirty things to Pink.
Chris: Currently celebrity crush?
R13: Or when you were a teenager.
Chris: When I was younger it was Elizabeth Montgomery from Bewitched.
Erik: Ah that's a good one, mine was Molly Ringwald for a long time.
Chris: Elizabeth Montgomery, oh man, now I can't stop thinking about her.

R13: How does it feel knowing that you've inspired a new generation to play music?
Erik: It's really, really cool but at the same time it burdens me with this responsibility.
Chris: Power brings great responsibility.
Erik: Exactly, exactly.
Chris: That's from Spiderman.
Erik: You kind of feel responsible to not mess things up. If people are looking up to you, you have to hold yourself to a certain level of expertise I guess. You have to make sure you don't suck in front of them.

R13: When you see kids with tattoos Bowling For Soup, do you take it as a compliment or does it freak you out?
Chris: It's a compliment I think.
Erik: It's a compliment I think but at the same time it is a little weird. We all have the same tattoo, and that was purely a band thing and now we see other people with it, and it's like, ok well that was kind of our deal but it's really cool you like us enough that you're going to permanently mark your body with that.
R13: I think I would find it weird.
Chris: (Chris laughs) It's a little strange sometimes; some people have had our autographs tattooed and the first time I saw that it was a little weird, it's still cool nonetheless but in my head I was thinking in 15 years are you really going to still want that there?
R13: I went to see HIM and a girl had a portrait of Ville Valo tattooed between her shoulders, it was amazing, but if that was me that would really freak me out.
Erik: Really? Wow, I can totally see where you're coming from, but then at the same time I want to get a Johnny Cash portrait on my arm, so it's the same thing but from the other end.

R13: Can you remember the first time you heard your song on the radio?
Erik: Yes, but mine doesn't count because I knew it was going to be on so I was in my living room with the radio on waiting for it to happen. Mine's not a very good story.
Chris: Mine's not either I can't even remember the first time.

R13: Having worked hard to achieve what you have, how do you feel about shows like American Idol?
Erik: I think by whatever means necessary you know, I don't feel ill willed towards those people because they're obviously talented and they deserve a chance to do what they love as much as we do. You run into a lot of people on the road who don't understand what it's like to have to go out and sleep in your van for weeks and weeks on end and suffering because you can only eat once a day because on the road that's all you can afford, but each to their own.
Chris: There's a place in the world for everything.
Erik: Exactly, exactly and with American Idol and all that Kelly Clarkson is badass!
Chris: I only watch those shows at the beginning when they holler at people and they start crying. I enjoy the first bit when the people are really bad and they suck.
Erik: I've never ever really watched American Idol.

R13: How lenient is your record label with its creative and recording processes?
Erik: We have pretty much complete artistic control. They let us do our own thing, which is really cool. We go and write the songs, then sit down as a group and decide which songs are going to go on the album, then we give it to them, they have some input but it's very, very minimal.

R13: Do you ever wish you were an independent band?
Erik: A couple of albums ago we were wanting to get dropped, thinking that if we did it all ourselves we could sell how ever many records and all that money would be ours instead of going straight to the record label. Record labels are a necessary evil I guess, you have to have them for the marketing and promotion side.
Chris: They cough up the money too.
Erik: I can't say anything too bad now about them, but in the beginning when we first signed we kind of got looked over a lot, but now we've got a really, really good team in place at our record label in the States and over here, they treat us well now it's a lot better than it used to be.
R13: Do you think your Grammy nomination had a lot to do with that?
Erik: Well they started returning our phone calls.
Chris: It gave us awesome credibility and it was common that our families, our parents and our peers suddenly released we were doing something in the world. It's a big deal.
Erik: For us personally it meant a group of our peers thought that much of what we'd done to nominate you, so it was pretty cool.

R13: What's been your proudest career moment to date?
Erik: That [the Grammy nomination] was a pretty proud moment, releasing our ninth album wasn't too shabby either. The day that we celebrated our tenth anniversary was pretty cool, we were actually at an airport bar for a tour over here. Doing anything for ten years is a big deal. It's not like any of us had any idea that ten years after starting this thing we'd still be doing it. Now were up to 13 years and we'll definitely be doing more albums as a band so that means we will hit 15 years and quite potentially 20 years. That's just mind blowing.

R13: What do you still have left to achieve?
Chris: Just staying together and playing, we still want to tour in other places but we're happy doing what we're doing but it would be nice to go to Australia, and I'd like to tour more in Europe, Italy, Spain, Sweden I want to do all of it. See a little more of the world.

R13: What have you got coming up after the tour?
Chris: We have a single coming out in the States so we'll do some things to support the single and just continue touring, I'm not really sure what we've got kicking.
Erik: March is kind of sporadic, we have some really big things scheduled but that's all in the States. We're coming back over here in October I believe.
Chris: We're doing Download. We're going to do Brixton in October so that'll be cool.

R13: It's been great speaking to you guys again, thanks for your time.