Music	Rock and Roll Sunshine by Caitlin DeRose

Ever heard of the phrase “Don’t sweat the small stuff”? There are people who can argue both sides, either believing that everything is small stuff or taking in the bigger picture and letting go of insignificances. A glass that’s half-empty or half-full kind of scenario. It may not be so easy a task to attempt the conversion of a half-empty proponent to a half-full believer, as pessimists are notoriously steadfast in their beliefs. But there are ways to make even the most obstinate of the bunch break character and turn that frown upside down—just tell them to get happy.

Cue Bowling For Soup. Together since 1994, the Grammy-nominated group of four are a one-of-a-kind, comedy-influenced, pop/punk band on a mission; currently touring the country and spreading grins from ear to ear and coast to coast, the band understands the need for a little sunshine in a genre often dominated by anger and despair.

“Everybody’s very happy. That seems to be our running theme,” lead singer Jaret Reddick says over the phone, while scorching in the South Carolina sun. “We’re going to be on a tour called the ‘Get Happy’ tour that we started last summer that is gonna be probably an ongoing thing that we do in the summer time. We get all other happy bands and play rock shows.”

Sublime happiness in the world of rock? What’s going on here? That’s not the typical defining characteristic of a rock band, but Bowling For Soup is not average. Are they trying to flip modern rock and the emo label around and make it popular to actually enjoy life’s day-to-day experiences?

“It’s not really that it’s a revolt against anything,” Reddick says. “My stance on music is, there’s a place for everything. I don’t hate emo. I don’t hate modern rock. I’m a fan of music and I’m a music fan. The thing is that the vibe of music this day and age, there are just not a lot of people that are smiling. When we first started talking about the Get Happy tour, the idea behind it was, let’s make a fun night for people to come out, and everybody leaves with a smile on their face. Everything from the music that we play over the PA between bands, like show tunes, is just, like, upbeat and fun and happy. We’re just doing something different.”

So does that mean they truly believe in making people happy and spreading non-holiday cheer? Or is this all one big marketing ploy? Let’s go with choice A.

“That’s the one thing about us—we make fun of everything, but in no way are we ever…we don’t do the ‘lashing,’ so to speak,” Reddick says. “We don’t really lash out against anybody. I’m happy for anybody who has success. This is not an easy industry to do well in…”

Not only are they happy guys, but they’re funny, too. The title of their seventh studio album, released last year, is not quite as obvious as its predecessors. Their latest, The Great Burrito Extortion Case, (Jive) versus 2004’s A Hangover You Don’t Deserve and 2002’s Drunk Enough to Dance, shies away from the beer-loving persona that partially defines the band’s members, if only by default.

“We were sitting at a bar in Atlanta, and there was a news story on,” Reddick explains. “The sound was off on the TV but the TV was on above the bar, and the headline flashed across: ‘burrito extortion case.’ And we just all thought that was funny. We’re from Texas, you know—burritos are fun. And everybody was like, ‘Okay, yeah we’ll do it.’ But before that, we tentatively titled the album All My Rowdy Friends Are Still Intoxicated.”

So not as much thought went into the album title as one might have anticipated, but at least it was a break from the band’s conventions. The same cannot be said, however, for the compositions found inside: The band wrote 60 songs for the album and logged in nine months of recording time, not to mention many miles on their odometers. How much thought and meaning can be packed into 60 different songs, though, if Reddick was able to chop that number down to the 14 that made the final cut?

“It’s not easy,” he admits. “It’s a very time-consuming ordeal. I mean, it’s not fun. It’s probably my least favorite couple of days.”

Why—because it takes time out of a busy beer-drinking schedule? Not quite, he explains. “It’s because each one of these songs that I write are pieces of me, as cheesy as that sounds. I remember every single one of them. And I remember where I was when I wrote it and what I was thinking about. You want to get it all out there. But it’s physically impossible. So basically we just kind of picked the obvious ones and we narrowed the list down to 25 or 30 and just sat and discussed it and tried to put together the best album. This time, the four of us and a guy that I co-produced the album with, Rusty, sat around in a room for a whole day and just hashed it out.”

But there is a silver lining to the 14-song cloud. Reddick says, “The good news is, in this day and age you have to have so many other songs. You have to have songs for exclusives, for online downloads, for B-sides for foreign releases. So, the good thing about that is that you have to record, like, 23, 24 songs usually.”

Ah, the joys and demands of modern technology. Writing that many songs is not an easy accomplishment either, especially considering many musicians have trouble coming up with a handful of good ones, let alone handfuls of good albums. Luckily for the band, though, Reddick knows what he’s doing.

“I do all the writing…the songwriting process itself, to me, is one of my favorite parts of the whole thing. I think that it’s a little easier to write for us, for several reasons. Our songs are simple—they’re just stories. And we’ve found our niche. We’ve been doing this for 13 years, we’ve got nine records: We have a definite formula. And we’re not really interested in re-inventing that at any time. So we don’t go into a studio situation like, ‘Okay, how are we gonna set the bar even higher?’ We just write Bowling For Soup records. And at this point that seems to be working.”

It would be hard to believe that, 13 years and nine records later, nothing has really changed at all. Some of the guys are now married, some have kids. But this isn’t a complicated group; as their lyrics and album titles show, they are happy with the status quo, and are sticking to their tried-and-true formula.

“My wife actually used to make fun of me,” Reddick says. “Now that I’m settled down and have two kids, she was like, ‘How are you gonna write songs about farting and beer, you know? At this point?’ And I was like, ‘Well, I still enjoy farting and beer,’ and that part hasn’t changed. It really hasn’t changed.”

In a world where it appears as though everyone needs some sort of edge to get ahead, these guys seem totally unconcerned with their direction or purpose. A healthy confidence and being able to roll with the punches will get a person far enough; however, some believe that the achievement of true happiness is a quest for a crucial missing link or clandestine piece of the puzzle—the “meaning of life,” if you will—that solely exists to drive the perplexed crazy. That theory doesn’t apply to Bowling For Soup.

“I definitely have a lot of shit figured out, yeah,” Reddick says. “I’m one of the happiest individuals that you could ever meet and, I mean, I’m just a content guy. I’m the luckiest man in the world: I have a beautiful family and I get to play rock and roll with my best friends on the planet for a living. You know? It just doesn’t get any better than that.”

They can say their songs are simple. They can crack all the jokes they want. But they can’t deny themselves the satisfaction of knowing that they are living a fantasy.

Bowling For Soup plays a special invitation-only show on Sunday night (May 6) at 8pm at Town Ballroom. For details and your chance to get in, visit www.JDStudioNo7.com, www.artvoice.com or look for the Jack Daniel’s Promo Team in your area.