Bowling for Soup Interview

Right then, a joyous occasion... my first post. This is an interview which I carried out with Bowling for Soup Drummer Gary Wiseman before the bands' gig at Nottingham's Rock City on the 18th of October 2007. It originally appeared on www.bandidge.com. Please enjoy... hopefully. Bowling for Soup recently hit the UK with the second leg of their Get Happy Tour and they’re a band on a mission to put smiles on the faces of music fans. Best known for their Grammy nominated 2002 UK top ten hit “Girl All the Bad Guys Want” the band comprises off Jaret Reddick (vocals, guitar), Chris Burney (guitar) Erik Chandler (Bass) and Gary Wiseman (Drums). I met up with Gary moments before BFS’ sold out gig at Nottingham’s Rock city for a chat about the tour, the bands most recent album and their plans for the future. How has the tour been going so far? “The tour has been going great so far. There have been some packed houses and we have been having a lot of fun with the other bands Army of Freshmen, Zebrahead and The Bloodhound Gang. Everyone is getting along really well and the shows go really smoothly. All of the bands fit together.” Is the ‘Get happy tour’ BFS’ response to the amount of depressing music around and the growing emo scene? “Basically we’ve always just been a happy go lucky band. That’s everyone in our bands attitude. We’ve always noticed that other bands are pissed off and we don’t understand why. “We thought it would be fun to do a tour where the whole theme is just get happy. Where between bands instead of playing screaming heavy metal or whatever it’s fun happy songs and the crowd is singing along to the PA between bands. We kinda wanted to do something different. “We are trying to get the crowd into the idea and let the kids show up for one night and just have fun”. Where does the title of your newest album ‘The great Burrito extortion case’ (released earlier this year) come from as it sounds like you’re just advertising food based fraud? “We actually had a different title for the record and we had already done the photo shoot and everything for it. But when we were recording the record we were at a hotel bar before we were going to go into the studio one day and we saw a news station ticker at the bottom of the screen. It said ‘Burrito extortion’ and we were like what the hell is that? “We finally watched the story and I guess someone had stuck like a rat or something in a burrito and had tried to sue someplace. We ended up running with the joke and came up with the “Great Burrito Extortion Case”; it doesn’t really mean anything though.” As a band you were together for quite a while before you found mainstream success, what do you thing about people who use TV shows like American Idol or the X factor to achieve fame and success quickly? “You know what I think, the people who come out of those things and actually end up winning are actually talented and so more power to them. It is kinda the fast track and maybe they’re not paying their dues but at the same it is people who have talent and deserve to be successful.” Many of your songs feature frequent references to pop culture. Where do you get your ideas from? “It’s just kinda everywhere. If you watch the news celebrity gossip is on newspapers. You don’t have to watch gossip news or gossip papers you can read reputable ones. The stuff is everywhere and it is hard to get away from. This is just our little go at it.” As a band do you have any plans following the tour? “After this we are going to go home and spend some time with our families and get a bit of a rest. Then we will be working on writing and recording a new record in the New Year.” BFS have appeared regularly at Donnington Park’s Download festival in recent years and Gary revealed that next years festival season will likely see the bands next return to the UK. And if the highly entertaining, banter filled set BFS gave in Nottingham is anything to go by fans who attended the get happy tour should easily be able to make their happiness last until then.