Bowling for Soup, Without Permission

Rainmaker already had experience releasing records through Brando Records. Paul Nugent understood radio and was ready to fight for his band! Missi Callazzo and her company MRI became the band's distributor.

Bowling for Soup became a self-funded business overnight.

They paid for videos, marketing and promotion.

It wasn't the giant machine they had once had behind them.

It was enough.

Fishin' for Woos came together quickly.

So did a realization:

Bowling for Soup could actually do this.

The way records were made was changing anyway. Linus taught Jaret that they didn't need months in expensive studios. Record the drums in the right room. Do the rest somewhere smaller.

Linus came to Dallas, and he and the band went to Valve Studios, owned by longtime friend Casey DiIorio. The band had history there. They had recorded there many times in the past. In fact, rehearsals and demos for Drunk Enough to Dance, the demos for Hangover, the Phineas and Ferb theme song and many others were all recorded at Valve Studios.

The album was finished in Jaret's home studio as well as Linus's studio in L.A., with the two friends passing files and folders back and forth until it was all done!

The first single carried a bit of irony: it was a ballad. “Turbulence” was a song Linus and Jaret wrote in Jaret's living room when Linus landed in Dallas to start the album. Linus had been thinking about how each person on a flight has the same destination, but different life experiences, different problems and different loved ones.

“We're all just passengers tonight.”

The theme fit perfectly into a line Jaret had in his back pocket after talking to a neighbor who was a pilot about turbulence.

“It's all just bumps in the road.”

This period for Bowling for Soup also meant time spent on the road, in the air and at sea with the military as a Navy Entertainment band. Long trips to Japan, Korea, Thailand and many other parts of Asia; Guam; Africa; Hawaii; two aircraft carriers; Alaska; Diego Garcia; and even GITMO. The list goes on.

These weren't just shows. To the band, they were life-changing experiences. Getting to see and do things that not many people get to be a part of is something the band holds very dear to this day.