Bowling for Soup

With their thirty year anniversary as a band on the horizon in 2024, Texas’ favourite punk rock export Bowling For Soup continue to grow their global fanbase and expand their success year on year. Also dubbed the crown princes of pop punk, Bowling For Soup - frontman and guitarist Jaret Reddick, fellow guitarist Chris Burney, drummer Gary Wiseman and bassist Rob Felicetti have proved that nothing, not even a global pandemic, has slowed the demand for their unique, humour filled live shows and upbeat, heartfelt anthems.
Songs such as High School Never Ends, Punk Rock 101, 1985 and of course the Grammy nominated Girl All The Bad Guys Want resonate as much today as when they were written and are proving extremely popular in the modern streaming world. Their 2022 album, Pop Drunk Snot Bread, a play on the cultural reference “pop punk’s not dead”, was heralded by fans and critics alike as the band’s best release in fifteen years. Millions of streams and YouTube views for songs like Getting Old Sucks (But Everybody’s Doing It), I Wanna Be Brad Pitt and the global smash Alexa Bliss (dedicated to WWE’s own multi-time world wrestling women’s champion) show that Bowling For Soup can still run rings (and riffs) around their younger contemporaries. The album also features songs like The Best We Can, Wouldn’t Change A Thing and the positive mental health anthem Hello Anxiety, where Bowling For Soup show they can do both serious and reflective, with a BFS heart at the core. 
It's a testament to the bands' enduring appeal and a fanbase that continues to grow day after day - evidenced by their 100 million streams on Spotify in the year 2020 alone. Finding their niche back in the 1990's would be tough when the musical climate was in serious shift. "We were just the stereotypical, small town guys with nothing else to do - starting a band to keep ourselves out of trouble" recalls frontman Jaret Reddick looking back. There was certainly no trend to follow, every other band seemed to be genre jumping to try and catch "the next big thing" without knowing what "the next big thing was", leaving the members of Bowling For Soup with no option to just go out and have fun. Brought up on a heady diet of 80's John Hughes Movies, LA Hair Metal, Steve Martin comedy routines (which spawned the band's name) and hook laden punk rock, BFS hit the ground running on the simple blueprint - have a good time and pretty soon, everyone else will join in!
Bowling For Soup are a band who've proven time and again that they can move with the times throughout a period of turbulence for the music industry. From their DIY roots, through to being on a major record label for many years (Jive Records) and being very successfully independent with their own label for over a decade, they are a band who've found success in every way. ‘We're in control of everything now. If we decide we wanna do something, we just do it - we don't need to ask anyone’s permission. It also makes you feel super proud when you do something yourself and it’s a success’, reveals Reddick.
Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, Bowling For Soup were playing to the biggest crowds of their career. Over 20,000 people witnessed their sold out 2020 UK tour with Simple Plan and they've sold out arenas alongside Steel Panther. Headline appearances at recent editions of UK festivals like Slam Dunk and Reading and Leeds have gone down a storm. At Reading Festival 2019 the crowd overflowed out of the stage with fans peering for a glimpse of "BFS", while their appearances at the final editions of the US Vans Warped Tour brought enormous crowds to every show, no matter what time of day the band were performing.
With the world experiencing live music again following COVID in 2022, Bowling For Soup’s enduring live appeal saw fans return in droves for huge tours in both the UK and US, many making a “BFS” show their first taste of live music since the pandemic. Whether it was huge theatre shows with Lit and The Dollyrots (UK), Less Than Jake and The Aquabats (US) or the sold out UK singalong with Jaret and Rob acoustic tour, the demand to see Bowling For Soup live in the flesh is bigger than it ever has been. 2023 sees the band return to play festivals and shows in mainland Europe for the first time in many years, alongside huge slots at the UK Slam Dunk Festival, while multiple US tours are in the pipeline. A Second chapter of their greatest hits, Songs People Actually Like Volume 2, is due to land late this Summer. Frontman Jaret Ray Reddick is also enjoying new adventures with his journey in the world of Red Dirt Country Music with his debut solo album Just Woke Up.
While the music industry and the world at large is ever evolving, Bowling For Soup have prided themselves on moving with the times, keeping up with the latest ways to stay in touch with their fans (Jaret is now a huge star on TikTok) and get their music out there to as many people as possible. For generations of fans, there has always been a Bowling For Soup song for every occasion. They’re the band who make you smile and they’re the band who will pick you up when you are down, and as their song says, they wouldn’t change a thing.  

Mesa, AZ based punk rock royalty AUTHORITY ZERO has managed to weather the music industry storm and endure living on the road away from friends and loved ones for almost 2 decades. With four studio albums under their belt, two live acoustic albums, and two EP’s, they appear to be just getting started. Over the past few years the band has broke ground internationally, beginning with shows in Japan, followed by performances at Belgium’s legendary Groezrock, Spain’s Resurrection Fest and UK’s Rebellion Fest amongst countless other European festivals. With tours through Russia and Australia in the works, AUTHORITY ZERO continues to seek new destinations to spread their live show and music.

Initially their goal was simple; create a sound that paid tribute to their punk rock forefathers, but not confined by the musical barriers that typically bound the genre together. Now,18 years later, they have just wrapped on their fifth full-length studio album. Named after the Malcolm Gladwell book, The Tipping Point was recorded with producer Cameron Webb (Pennywise, Social Distortion, Motorhead etc.) at Maple Studios in California. Their latest effort pays tribute to their punk rock forefathers while expanding their musical boundaries into unconventional reggae and rock tinges beyond the typical punk rock aesthetics, creating a whirlwind rock album that will undoubtedly take listeners by storm.

The new album is set to be released on April 2nd via Hardline Entertainment-US/Canada/Japan, Concrete Jungle-Europe/UK and 3wise Records-Australia and will be followed by a heavy touring schedule around the globe.  Lead Singer and Front Man, Jason DeVore says “The excitement and anticipation for the new album The Tipping Point that I have is unparalleled,” says vocalist Jason DeVore. “The closest thing I can think of is how I felt when we first released A Passage In Time so many years ago. You feel you’re really doing something right when you and the members of your band are rocking out to it like it’s their new favorite album that just came out. That’s how it should feel. The energy, the intensity, and collaborative sounds along with a new realm of production working with Cameron Webb has made it extremely intense. It’s a taste of the old school and slingshots into new areas and veins of music we have yet to tap into. We’ve also incorporated some surprise elements. It’s an album based on the idea of tipping the scales, unity, causing a ruckus while forging on, and the history and future of all who have been involved and will be for years to come. We’re fired up.”

Eighteen years into their storied career began and Authority Zero has seen their fair share of ups-and-downs. After original guitarist and longtime friend Bill Marcks left the band in 2008, members have seemed to come and go, but the band and music has carried on. Recently, after the release of their last album, Stories of Survival, guitarist Zach Vogel departed the band to return to his home in Wisconsin for more family time. Shortly after that and with the turn of the New Year in 2011, long time friend and drummer Jim Wilcox also left the band to pursue other endeavors.

At this point, many bands would have folded under the pressure of lineup changes and setbacks, but the rest of the band carried on by inviting new recruits and Amarillo, TX native Brandon Landelius on guitar along with legendary punk drummer, Sean Sellers (Good Riddance, Real McKenzies) on drums to restructure and complete the group. With their fifth studio album The Tipping Point, Authority Zero is determined to carry on with perseverance and dedication to spread their music and message to fans around the globe.