BOWLING FOR SOUP DOES AUSTRALIA

Here at MilftonRock, we love our music and we love it happy! You know, the kind of music that puts a smile on your face no matter what kind of mood you are in, lyrics that make you laugh, hooks that stick in your head like glue and a chorus that will have you singing in the shower for weeks! For nearly a decade now there has been one band that has delivered all the above and more. That band is those multi-million selling pop punk Texans from Denton County….Bowling For Soup.

Last year in late July, our good friends “Trashpit Magazine” went beyond the call of duty and hooked us up with Bowling For Soup when we headed over to the USA for a four week rock n roll adventure. After their kick ass 90 minute set, we caught up with the guys after the show and left with Jaret saying “catch you guys again soon, maybe in Australia one day”......

Well that “one day” came a lot sooner than expected when Bowling For Soup headed over to Australia in April for a 6 show tour along with their good friends Sum 41 and punk legends Pennywise and The Vandals. The band kindly allowed MilftonRock ACCESS ALL AREAS to their 2 shows at the Big Top, Sydney and Festival Hall, Melbourne. What you are about to read below is our account of our time with BFS, part interview, part diary....so sit back and “get happy”!

Big Top @ Luna Park, Sydney April 11th 2008

Not sure what to expect when Bowling For Soup’s ever reliable tour manager Dave takes us behind the doors into the BFS inner sanctum backstage....we entered a massive dressing room fit for a full on circus troupe, not a band of 4 and a few crew! With 80’s hard rock band Fastway blasting in the background, our arrival interrupts a conversation about “IPOD syncing”. Don’t worry, it’s not a computer nerd convention, just Jaret and Erik sorting out the very important task of tonight’s entrance music…which is none other than “The Final Countdown”.

Glancing around the room, we exchange greetings with the guys, except for one. Slumped in the corner getting a pre-show power nap, was the hip shaking, guitar slinging, chivalrist and partymaker himself, guitarist Chris Burney. Despite his snoring being hopelessly out of tune, he did indeed manage to give Fastway a run for their money in the volume stakes….

Launching straight into our conversation with Jaret, BFS lead singer and without doubt the coolest guy in rock, straight up we discover that the bands initial impressions of Australia have been via the hotel room TV’s. “It’s obvious to us, but correct me if I am wrong, Australia is very “American’ised” in terms of music and television. Where even here in Australia we can’t escape the likes of Dave Letterman and Jay Leno, coming to a hotel room near you. But man, what’s up with all the Australia football on TV 24 hours a day? and darts, what’s up with that???... you can watch two fat guys playing a game of fucking darts, awesome!!”

Already knowing that Jaret is a walking encyclopaedia of 80’s hair metal, the conversation turns back to Fastway playing in the background. We learn the band were just on tour in Japan with LA based traditional Irish punk band Flogging Molly which features former Fastway lead singer, Dave King. Talking of the re-emergence in popularity of 80’s hair metal, Jaret explains “it’s a really cool thing, but then again in some cultures it just never went away. Take when we were on tour in the UK and discovered you can go to a bar and listen to hair metal all night, and people dance to it and bang their head….to us that’s just INSANE….we though we’d died and gone to heaven!!”

Continuing with the 80’s hair metal discussion, after spotting the Danger Danger (80’s hard rock band) t-shirt that I am wearing, Jaret makes reference to the fact that aside from the fact he owns two of those t-shirts himself, his good buddy is Steve West (drummer for Danger Danger). “Danger Danger continue to do really really well, regularly touring Europe and Japan and still selling shitloads of merch all over the world (pointing at my t-shirt!).

“Speaking of good buddies, did you see any of Rob Lane’s (mutual friend & founder of Trashpit Magazine) footage playing bass with The Bulletboys? That footage is fucking amazing, man can that bands lead singer shred on the guitar, he’s insane. But how about Rob’s guitar pick moves, inspired by Butch Walker and Chris Burney….haha!! As for Butch Walker, that guy is just a complete freak on guitar…”

Turning to a serious topic for a moment…we learn that this BFS Australian adventure was only made possible because of their dates in Asia. “You know, once you decide to play Japan, then you can start saying, well now we can do Australia because the budget will work out ok. But it’s still quite a trip man….what is it, like 9 hours to Australia from Japan?? Speaking of flying and airports, what is it with having to scan all your luggage through customs here in Australia? It’s like they know that you have some almonds in your bag. (now impersonating a customs officer) Excuse me sir, are those fresh almonds you are carrying in your carry on??? ”. Yet, unlike America and the rest of the world, your grandma and the rest of your family can came and wave you goodbye from the boarding lounge, but they make you run every single bag through the x-ray machine.”

Having played two Australian shows so far, we ask Jaret his thoughts so far “the shows so far have been tough, for the first time in years we are the first band on stage having to warm up the crowd, playing just a 30 minute set and we have no idea what they are expecting. Are they gonna hate us because we are with punk rock legends Pennywise? Are they gonna love us because we are with our good buddies Sum 41, or will they even know who the fuck we are? Last nights show here in Sydney was absolutely fucking nuts, with the crowd going insane. Tonight, who knows what lies ahead given we played the night before and only you 2 guys put your hands up when I asked the crowd who’s coming again tonight to see us!”

“What we did realise after our first show in Brisbane though is that our sense of humour and jokes come across really well….which obviously gets back to the Americanised culture that you have in Australia.

The great thing is that at least now we know that we could probably go up on stage and fuck around and only sing three songs and the crowd would get off on it. You Aussies get our sarcasm when we come out and say we are the greatest rock band in the world after playing for only 48 seconds! In Europe where you go from one country to another, it’s a completely different world and it makes it so hard to read the crowds, but here in Australia, I assume we will find that you guys are all pretty much the same”. Yep, right on Jaret….

“Who knows what the future will hold with another Australian tour. Maybe we will come back and headline, we just don’t know. After something like this current tour where we are supporting and getting very little promo, we just don’t know what kind of momentum we will get. In Japan we always supported, and only now are we starting to headline after 3 tours. In the UK it has also taken 3 tours to get to be a headline act”.

With that, after half an hour of talking, we crack open a beer…..

With the discussion now turning to the Australian music scene, we start chatting about an obvious reference point “silverchair, who are fucking huge in the States, where they have this weird scene of “artsy” fans. “But I have a funny story for you guys about The Living End. In America there was a “Living End” who were a Christian band. When Chris was managing his bar in Texas back in the early 90’s, a band called The Living End played a show there. A couple of years later, when your Living End broke in the USA with their big first single , we thought to our ourselves, guys can this be that same Christian band?”. Of course it wasn’t…but despite loving that song, I never really checked them out at the time. A couple of years later on our first tour with Sum 41, Derek (Sum 41 lead singer) used to carry around a big fucking collection of CD’s that was bigger than him! He always used to listen to Oasis non-stop, so one day we asked him what other stuff he had...he goes, well I have this Australian band called The Living End. This time I checked them out and I was hooked instantly, they are fucking great”.

Referring to BFS’s recent shows in the Asia region we ask how this all came about. “Well the band had a massive hit in Singapore, with our single “When We Die” which was the most played video in that country for 10 weeks”.

We just did a bunch of interviews into Singapore and they knew it all, even asking about Lee Majors (The Fall Guy) starring in that video clip. I don’t know what it is with Singapore, but our manager back in the day used to manage the band Deep Blue Something who had the massive hit “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” which was fucking huge in Singapore and Denmark. Those guys never have to ever work again with all the money they made from that one song! A funny story apparently is that after a live appearance the band did on Singapore TV, the TV network followed it up with a televised live “cockfight”, now what’s up with that????” For those of you wondering, a cockfight is two birds fighting each other.....

With the band now getting the “20 minutes till showtime” call from Dave, and getting back to “cocks” it lead us nicely into the presentation of a small something for each of the guys as a special memory of their time in Australia. That small something, pardon the pun, was a pouch made of genuine, authentic kangaroo scrotum….which Erik ever so eloquently stuck his finger inside of and proclaimed “look, now I have my finger inside a kangaroo’s ball sack”. Finding their very own MilftonRock guitar pick inside, Jaret questioned “what’s with the pick inside that says “tons of Milf”….no Jaret, it’s MilftonRock!

With this, the final call up comes from Dave, and it’s time to make our way to the stage for the rock show! Like most rock fans I am sure, we are always curious what bands talk about or do right in the minutes before the lights go on and it’s time to hit the stage. What we experienced with Bowling For Soup was nothing we expected and more, haha. Really it doesn’t get more rock n roll than discussions about the awesome sourdough toast eaten earlier that day for breakfast, small talk about vegemite and then as if to complete the circle when we first entered the room an hour ago, the conversation turns back to IPOD”s as the guys compare what movies they have on their IPODS, with the likes of Donnie Darko, The Big Lebowski, Superbad and Mean Girls being thrown up….and with that, the opening strains of The Final Countdown begin and it’s time for the band to once again deliver “the best rock show of their lives…..”

Festival Hall, Melbourne April 13th 2008

Well if playing in a “Big Top” is very Bowling For Soup, then tonight sure is a bit of a contrast with the band playing at the historic Festival Hall which has played home to The Beatles, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, boxing and wrestling matches through to the present with the likes of Oasis, Foo Fighters and Megadeth.

Right on time about an hour before the show, Dave once again escorts us into the empty stadium and we head straight up on stage where the guys are beginning their sound check. It’s certainly an interesting feeling standing up on stage looking out at the empty stadium thinking about all it’s history. For a brief moment I transport myself back about 40 years and pretend I am either Paul, John, Ringo and George in front of thousands of screaming girls…. The sound of an out of tune Chris Burney G-string soon transports back to reality and for the next 10 minutes the guys do their thing warming up for the show ahead.

Tramping through the maze of corridors, we finally get to the BFS dressing room, which in contrast to the night before is TINY and I mean TINY.

But it has those showbiz lights around the mirror, and that’s oh so important for a band that is so concerned about its image, hahaha! But the important thing is that there is a tub full of ice cold beer, which suits us just fine…even though the guys are making up their own mixers.

With a room full of music freaks, as with the night before, the conversation turns to the music playing in the background which tonight Erik informs is a band called “Sugar” featuring the former singer of Huusker Du’, Bob Mould. Certainly a bit of a change from the rock of “Fastway” the night before….. Informing the guys about the historical origins of Festival Hall, Erik was excited to hear a couple of his idol’s in Frank Sinatra and Johnny Cash had once played here. Cool Hank Williams t-shirt by the way Erik….

For the next 40 minutes sitting randomly chatting in the dressing room, we forget that we are sitting chatting with one of the biggest and coolest rock bands in the world, but rather it’s like sitting talking shit over a few beers as you do with mates. And you don’t wanna really hear about that now do you…..The conversation is interrupted by Dave to say that it’s “2 minutes to show time”…..fuck, where did that time go? Time flies when you are talking shit….

Waiting back-stage with the band, how on earth it could happen, we don’t know, but somehow we lose Chris. We repeat, we lost Chris. I mean it’s not like he could be hiding in a tiny backstage closet now could he? The sound of cheering crowd alerts us that Chris is already hanging out up near the stage shaking ass…talk about a crowd teaser!

With Motley Crue’s, “Wildside” now blasting through the stadium, the time had come for the guys to rock the house. And rock the house they did, with a teeth rattling set. So much so that 2 songs in, Chris lost one of his false teeth. Surely one of the funniest moments ever witnessed during a rock show, you really did have to be there! Thanks to Dave, the tooth enjoyed the show from on top of an AMP. Now where was that kangaroo scrotum pouch when you need it…

Compared to the night before, whilst the crowd was not as crazy….it was obvious that there were far more BFS fans, with the first few rows singing the words to nearly every song. Another kick ass show from the guys and once again the bands humour was lapped up by the crowd.

With Chris losing his tooth tonight, last night a stuffed spiderman, wig and sunglasses

being thrown up on stage and in Brisbane their inflatable rock hands needing a good shot of viagra to inflate them, we come to appreciate that something will always happen at a BFS show....and unlike many other bands out there, BFS have the knack of turning such events into show stopping highlights!

Talking with Jaret after the show, he says how he has been blown away each night with the Australian crowd’s reaction to the song “Almost”, a song that was never released a single here. The only logical explanation we could come up with is that it’s the first track on the album spawning “1985”….

This then lead’s Jaret to letting us in on a big exclusive that not even the rest of the band were yet aware of...1985 was only a few thousand DOWNLOADS away from hitting the 1million mark...that’s “quintuplet” platinum and that’s official purchased downloads! High School Never Ends is about 3 times platinum. This excludes album sales etc...just purely digital downloads! How awesome is that.... 1 million!! We can report that the 1million downloads was achieved not long after this night….and no, MilftonRock didn’t purchase the remainder!

More random trash talking and it’s time for us all to head off on our way, once again parting with the words “ catch you guys again soon.....” Given the band’s reaction to the shows and crowds here in Australia, you can be sure that they will be back, that is certain.......it’s just a matter of when!

For those that may be interested, the set list for the Australia shows (at least the ones we were at) was as follows:

The Last Rock Show

Punk Rock 101

Almost

Ohio

High School Never Ends

Girls All The Bad Guys want

1985

You can help to spread the word about Bowling For Soup by checking out the following kick ass links........

Saturday, 19 July 2008