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Interview
by SashaS
7-3-2003
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More on: Bowling For Soup
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| Bowling For Soup: waiting for tuxedos... |
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B4S chop stearic verbals
Bowling For Soup on strip-club over Britney
During the Bowling For Soup manic show, a snippet of our conversation some three hours earlier pops into me mind-container about – whether such a feelgood band is more important at the time when the world is at the brink of war that’s split the nations into pro and anti-cliques. Perhaps… The thought is almost instantly blown away by the tunes, vibe, jollity, the F-U-N! Of course their hit ‘Girl All The Bad Guys Want’ causes the childish-like abandonment, mayhem of such spirituality to easily fly over the Mt. Everest!
There is something about the Texas foursome that appear to emerge from nowhere, Wichita Falls actually, although they’ve been together for 9 years and two albums preceded the ‘home’ to the hit, ‘Drunk Enough To Dance’: ‘Rock on Honorable Ones!!!’ (1998) and ‘Let’s Do It for Johnny!’ (2000). Meet the four “fat guys from Texas” in words of guitarist Christopher Van Malmsteen (aka C. Burney), singer Jaret Von Erich (b. Reddick), bassist Erik Rodham Clinton (Chandler) and drummer Gary Wiseass (Wiseman, really).
So, we corner drummie-boy and quiz him in the venue’s corridor that is above the actual stage: support band was loudly trying to be memorized by few early arrivals while we tackle that easy question that invaded the cranium in spite of music.
“We are obviously not a political band,” Wiseass spills thoughts, “but we are not blind to see that the world is gone crazy and is stressed out and it is great fun to come to our shows, have a few pints and get all that off your mind. We hope we provide good service to people who need a couple of hours to escape.”
A coalition of Artists Against War was launched in the USA recently; would you join it or support your former Governor (of Texas)?
“I don’t know, I don’t think this band wants to be spokespeople for either side… First of all, we are not educated enough to comment, we haven’t been home for a month and you can’t keep in touch with the world because we travel/work/promo all the time.”
Grammy malarkey
Awards of any kind are usually good for a laugh, or at least a head scratch, and the Grammy nominations are not an exception: Jethro Tull were in for best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Performance in 1988, Steely Dan for Album of the Year in 2000… And these two were winners! So while it was somewhat surprising to see such stealth groups as Soundtrack of Our Lives and Clinic nominated this year… Dark horses didn't get any darker than the B4S guys who were up against such music heavyweights as Bon Jovi, Dave Matthews, (awarded) No Doubt and ‘NSync. (It is interesting that they were rooting for, wait for it – Bon Jovi!?)
”We were amazed,” Wiseass still sounds incredulous, “and everybody who asks us whether we expected it, is crazy. We had a phone call at 8 o’clock in the morning and couldn’t believe it, so we looked it up on the Web and there it was! It took us a couple of days to get to realise that it was true, and it was amazing because someone is paying attention to little bands, it is not all just about selling records. That is cool.”
They went to the ceremony, decked out in the powder-blue tuxedos (from the album cover), dressed to kill, the ‘Dumb and Dumber’ kinda chic, as someone remarked. But no confrontation or fights…
“We were voted Worst Dressed,” Wiseass proudly informs us, “that was nice. We got to see and meet a lot of people, got a picture taken with Elvis Costello, got to meet Dave Grohl, awesome time! Robin Williams came over and told us how he loved our tuxedos. We were sitting in front of Godsmack and there is a reference in our nominated song to ‘She likes Godsmack/ And I love Agent Orange,” and we thought they’d hate us but they wanted to have a picture taken with us, hang out, party… They were super-cool.”
Rock ain’t what it used to be, man.
Talkin’t 4 s**t
Bowling for Soup took their name from a Steve Martin comedy routine (issued on an album in the late 1970s) about books he had ‘written’ and one was called – ‘Bowling for S**t. However, fearing a serious beat-down if their grannies saw a flyer with that profane name on it and probably would have been censored by their label/industry/stores, the group altered few letters.
For a band that is known for drunkenness, nudity, childish jokes and pranks, boisterous behaviour and pop-punk, they were a strange choice for the ‘professional virginal poppete’ Britney Spears’s film debut, Crossroads’, ‘acting’ her screen-boyf’s band. Did they get in the movie by sharing the label with Britters, Stateside?
“Yeah, there is a little connection there,” Wiseass admits, “but it was actually one of the financial backers and music selector of the movie who saw us play at a conference called South by Southwest and they liked us and thought we were funny. We did a cover of Cheap Trick that night and one of the guys is a huge Cheap Trick fan.”
“We didn’t get to meet Britney,” he doesn’t sound disappointed, “during the filming, she wasn’t on the set, didn’t go to the premiere because we were touring but were in LA on another occasion and were asked us if we wanted to go on the set to meet her but we decided to go to a strip-club and get drunk. And they filming her in a panty scene and we could have watched Britney being in her panties for a couple of hours, but we didn’t.”
Strip-clubs, naked bars, they played them all during their pre-deal tenure; but, have they ever played behind a chicken wire, á la ‘The Blues Brothers´?
“No, we never,” Gary laughs wholeheartedly, “but have played shows where we were booked to play for bikers, or in a country bar, and people would wonder, ‘What are these guys doing here?’ But, in our live show we have stand-up comedy, craziness, fun and everybody ends up enjoying themselves. I think we are pretty good entertainers and although they might not go out and buy our record, everyone has a great time.”
SashaS
7-3-2003
Bowling For Soup album ‘Drunk Enough To Dance’ is available now on Music For Nations
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