Bowling For Soup Tour Overview
Bowling for Soup (abbreviated as BFS) is an American rock band formed in Wichita Falls, Texas, in 1994. The band consists of Jaret Reddick (lead vocals, guitar), Chris Burney (guitar, backing vocals), Gary Wiseman (drums, percussion), and Rob Felicetti (bass, backing vocals, acoustic guitar). The band is best known for its singles "Girl All the Bad Guys Want", "1985", "Almost" and "High School Never Ends". The band is also known for performing the theme song for the Disney Channel TV show Phineas and Ferb and the vocal theme for Sonic Unleashed.
Bowling for Soup has its origins in Wichita Falls, Texas, where Jaret Reddick and other members of the band grew up. Reddick and original drummer Lance Morrill met in the fall of 1976. Reddick began playing music in 1985, at 13 years old. Reddick and guitarist Chris Burney knew each other in high school (they met in 1986) and as students in the 1980s, they grew up on the commercially successful heavy metal music of bands such as Quiet Riot, RATT, and Mötley Crüe, but were also influenced by the faster punk rock of the Ramones and later Green Day. Burney's family owned a Wichita Falls coffeehouse called "The Refuge" with a music stage and he played there with his first band the Persecuted, where he and Reddick met bassist Erik Chandler and drummer Gary Wiseman in the early 1990s (although Wiseman did not join the band until 1998).
About Bowling For Soup
Burney and Chandler soon formed the Folkadots, while Wiseman formed Gary & the Wiseman. Burney and Chandler, along with Morrill, also formed the band Slaw. Around this time, Reddick formed the band Terminal Seasons. Not too long after, Reddick and Morrill formed coolfork! which Burney later joined. The band was in full swing by 1993, playing such venues as the Refuge. A few months later, after forming a band called Rubberneck, the group changed their name to Bowling for Soup, which was derived from a comedy act by Steve Martin, and the band was officially formed in Wichita Falls on June 4, 1994, by Reddick (lead vocals, guitar), Burney (guitar, backing vocals), Chandler (bass, backing vocals, acoustic guitar), and Morrill (drums, percussion, backing vocals). Morrill left the band on good terms and was replaced in July 1998 by Wiseman.
In 1996, Bowling for Soup relocated to Denton, Texas, and in 1998 recorded their second studio album (and third overall), Rock on Honorable Ones!! for the Denton music label FFROE. The group released its first EP, Tell Me When to Whoa, through FFROE later that year. The album sold over 10,000 copies, prompting Jive Records to sign the band. As a side project, beginning around 1999 until May 2018, Reddick and Chandler performed acoustic shows at smaller venues and showcases, playing primarily Bowling for Soup songs in an acoustic fashion, billed as Jaret & Erik. Beginning in September 2017, Reddick began performing solo acoustic shows, starting with the Heartache & Hilarity tour in the UK.
Bowling For Soup Facts
- The band’s name was inspired by the American TV Game Show “Bowling for Dollars”. In the show people could play the sport of bowling to win cash and sometimes prizes based on how well they bowled.
- It became a running gag in Bowling for Soup‘s music videos to feature previous songs of the band as an introduction for the video.
- Their 2013 album Lunch. Drunk. Love. was completely fan-funded as well as being released on the band’s own record label (like their album before it).
- Their song “1985” was written and originally released by the band SR-71 on their 2004 album Here We Go Again. According to Reddick, Allan from SR-71 showed the song to him and instructed him to take it as his own, as it seemed more of a Bowling for Soup song than an SR-71 song.
