Bowling For Soup
Welcome to the world of Bowling For Soup. Imagine South Park brought to life and transported to rock city central. Imagine a world where you never grow up. And then add in a video which spoofs the likes of Staind, Limp Bizkit and Slipknot. BFS are the funniest thing to happen to rock music in the past 10 years and more relevant than ever when bands like Nickelback and Creed are clogging up the airwaves. We caught up with frontman Jaret Von Erich to find out about the Bowling For Soup Movie, their appearance in Britney Spears "Crossroads" and their new found success in the UK.
Q: You were last over here in the UK on the support
for the Spunge tour. Do you know well the "Girl All The Bad Guys Want"
video is being received over here?
A: Were really excited about that and what was cool that
figured that you guys in the UK would get it a bit more because I think
that both of those videos we spoof have done really well over there. Our
MTV here in the States doesn't actually show video's, it basically shows
shows, so the kids probably aren't quite as familiar.
It's a different world for us over in the UK because things
are done so differently. Like for example, the CD single coming out before
the album - we don't do that over here. In the UK there is the whole set-up
for the single and then you worry about the album and your second single
is almost what your worrying about the album with. I actually like the
way the album is being marketed in the UK a lot better than I do here.
Q: The whole ethos of the video sums up the spirit
of the band. If we could condense Bowling for Soup into one sentence it
would be about bringing the fun back to rock music?
A: It's funny because you've just gone and hit the nail
on the head. That's what we set out to do and not necessarily to rock music
as a whole, but just that's what we wanted to do. Eric was coming out of
a sad and dreary acoustic band, then Chris and I were both in metal bands
before this and it was like what are we so pissed off about? Let's go and
sing about girls and taking a shit and having fun!!!
I think it would be fun to be in Slipknot for about a
week because it would be such an intense show. But having to deal with
that level of intensity every single night would eventually become more
of stress than anything. I just like the relaxed intensity of our shows,
there is no intensity. We just walk out on stage, play our stuff and make
fun of each other.
Q: Watching the "Girl All The Bad Guys Want" video
and listening to "Drunk Enough To Dance" album you get the real sense that
there could be a Bowling For Soup movie or a Bowling For Soup TV Series.
A: Basically we are a rolling TV Show. There's always
something wacky going on and it's funny you would say that because that's
been the idea all along. When I started the band I started it with my best
friend from my entire childhood, we'd been best friends for 20 odd years
and he was our original drummer. And the whole idea was like we could do
a TV Show on us going over to each others houses when we were kids and
then starting a band. So that was the original idea and as we started touring
more and more and funnier things started happening - it was like this has
got to be a movie!!!
Q: You've done the whole movie thing in "Crossroad's"
with Britney Spears. It must have been a mad experience. How did that come
about then?
A: Our movie debut wasn't quiet what we thought it was
going to be. I was in that movie for about a second and a half...and the
other guys ended up getting cut from the movie! But you've got to start
somewhere and we decided to start very very small.
We were there for 2 days and we went through all the elaborate filming and just shooting the shot from ten different angles. We thought wow, this is going to cool. Basically the premise is that she's at the school dance and were the band...and her love interest in the movie is actually in our band. We spent a day teaching the song and then a whole day filming and we were thinking they're going to show us playing the whole song. Literally when it comes the scene it's like my face 40 ft big on the movie screen and then it just flashes to the star guy.
We showed up a little bit late to set on the first night mostly because we were somewhat intoxicated from the flight. So when we got there it was kind of obvious we were in no condition to be meeting anyone so we just thought we'll wait till tomorrow and meet her then. So the next day it turns out that the day we filmed our scene she was on call so we missed our opportunity there. But I think she would have really liked me!!!
Q: Going back to the early days. Didn't you have a
little known band called Sum 41 supporting you?
A: That's was actually only a year and a half ago in
2001. They're van broke down when we were in California and they ended
up riding in our van with us...and by van i mean it's not like a bus, it
is an actual van. So we were in there in this little tiny 15 seater van
and we got to know each other pretty well were safe to say.
Q: I guess you guys / Blink 182 / Sum 41 - it's all
coming from the same angle even though you've been doing you're own thing
for 8 years?
A: When I hear that we sound like those bands it feels
wrong, but at the same time were all coming from the same genre. Even though
the Sum 41 kids are quite a bit younger than us, I do think we all grew
up listening to quite similar music and about the same time we started
to become songwriters we must have been doing something similar.
I think Blink 182 and Sum 41 lean towards being fun punk
bands and I think we lean more towards being just a fun rock band. It's
obvious that you can hear punk rock in there and i don't want to turn off
any punk rock kids off by saying were not punk rock - but I've never had
a Mohawk!!!
Q: So after 8 years are you not ready to make your
mature serious depressive album yet?
A: I think the new record is more mature than anything
we've ever done, but the way I write songs means that I can write about
mature subjects even though I'm not really that mature a person. And I've
always been able to laugh at myself so that's the way that I write. I sing
about things that people can relate to, but at the same time I like to
look back at it and twist things around and let everybody know it's not
so bad.
The theme to a lot of our songs is that how bad things
suck right now and if you turn around in 10 minutes everything's just fine.
I think the kids especially are starting to figure that out - it's like
this part of life really sucks, but I thought it sucked a year ago and
it really wasn't that bad!!! I think it's something we all learn as we
get a little bit older. That it's never going to be exactly how you want
it to be, so you might as well make the best of it.
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"Girl All The Bad Guys Want" is out August 5th
"Drunk Enough To Dance" is out soon
For More Info
www.bowlingforsoup.com
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