Butch Walker and "Girl All the Bad Guys Want"
bowling-for-soup
By the time Bowling for Soup started making Drunk Enough to Dance, Jaret had written much of the record in the back of a van with a Zoom distortion pedal, paper and pen.
He believed the songs were a significant step forward.
The band also agreed to something new: an outside producer.
When Butch Walker was mentioned as a possibility, the guys knew him from Marvelous 3 and their song “Freak of the Week.” Jaret bought Butch's ReadySexGo, loved it, and walked into rehearsal and played it for everyone.
This was the guy.
Butch did not step in and try to rebuild Bowling for Soup from scratch.
His changes were often small.
Lose an intro.
Alter a word.
Put the vocal first.
Add a keyboard so subtly that listeners feel it more than hear it.
Trust the song.
Know what the label wants. Know who the band is. Don't confuse the two.
Near the end of the sessions, Butch and Jaret wrote together.
The song was “Girl All the Bad Guys Want.”
It began partly with a conversation about the kinds of singers popular at the time and the archetypes that surrounded them: “Singers that are mad at their dad!”
Butch brought in the now-famous opening guitar figure. They started building a story.
Jaret was nervous.
This was his first true co-write with an established songwriter.
But then the laughter started.
At one point, the lyric “Does a mullet make a man?” stopped the session for about ten minutes.
The finished song contained almost everything that defines Bowling for Soup: pop-punk guitars, a story, self-deprecation, specificity, melody and something funny enough to sing with a completely straight face.
If someone wanted one song to understand Bowling for Soup, Jaret says he would still choose it.
The UK embraced it first. The U.S. was still working rock radio, and it wasn't going well.
Until Indianapolis programmer David Edgar at RadioNOW heard something American rock radio had been missing:
It was a pop song.
He put it into heavy rotation.
At that exact time, Bowling for Soup was touring with a young band called Simple Plan.
When the tour stopped in Denton, Jaret joined his wife at the time, Melissa, for an appointment with their OB-GYN. Emma wanted to come early—and it was happening THAT night!
Some Texas shows were canceled. But then things got nutty!
Jaret was in the delivery room, with an epidural about to be stuck in his wife’s back, when somebody told him he had a phone call.
It was FFROE.
Bowling for Soup had been nominated for a Grammy.
Jaret initially asked whether he meant some smaller, regional version of a Grammy.
No.
The actual Grammy.
“Girl All the Bad Guys Want” was nominated for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.
Melissa was upset. “Why would he call right now?!?”
Jaret let his anxious wife know what FFROE had said.
The nurses in the room immediately started talking to Melissa about Grammy clothes.
Jaret reminded everyone that there was still a baby being born.
Emma arrived the same day Bowling for Soup became a Grammy-nominated band.
The nomination helped wake up American pop radio.
Then everything accelerated.
