Learning How to Be Bowling for Soup

Bowling for Soup's first self-titled album arrived almost immediately. By September 1994, only a few months after the band's first rehearsal, there were already enough songs. Friends James and Ashley had recording equipment, and the record was essentially made in a few marathon sessions at night around everybody's jobs.

Chris's hand appeared on the cover over a bowl of chicken noodle soup that also contained the BFS patch from the shirts.

The first run was roughly 350 cassettes.

Jaret later borrowed money from his father to manufacture 1,000 CDs.

Having an actual album—and eventually actual CDs—suddenly made everything feel more legitimate. Now there was something to sell, something to send to radio and something to take with them as Bowling for Soup started venturing farther outside Wichita Falls.

The band played almost entirely original music from the start, but original music didn't always pay very well.

So Bowling for Soup learned cover songs!

Somehow, and by design, they kept the two worlds fairly separate. A Bowling for Soup show in Deep Ellum, Dallas meant original songs and an energetic punk-rock show. A four-hour bar gig in downtown Fort Worth might mean covers that helped pay for gas, merchandise, gear and whatever else had broken that week.

But a Bowling for Soup cover gig wasn't just another cover band playing the usual staples. BFS played every cover like it was a BFS song. An Elvis song sounded punk rock. A Beatles song sounded punk rock. Whatever they played got pulled into the band's world. And everyone ate it up!

Those long cover gigs also accidentally helped invent the Bowling for Soup live show.

The standard bar-band routine was simple: play 45 minutes, take a break, repeat.

Bowling for Soup noticed that when the band took a break, people left.

So they stopped taking breaks.

If somebody needed to step away, someone else stayed onstage. They told jokes. They talked to the audience. They did stupid bits. There were even magic tricks.

The idea was simple: never stop entertaining people.

Three decades later, that instinct remains at the center of a Bowling for Soup show.

As the band began traveling farther from home, something unexpected happened: people outside Wichita Falls often seemed to care first.

Bowling for Soup could do well in Abilene, San Angelo and eventually Denton while still struggling to build the same kind of original-music audience at home. Local radio and newspaper supporters helped, but Wichita Falls remained a difficult place for the lads to draw a crowd.

Denton changed everything.

The connection began at a practically empty show at Boozer's in Dallas. Four guys walked into an empty room while BFS was onstage and actually paid attention. Turns out, those dudes were called The V.I.M.S. (the Vims).

The bands became friends. They started trading shows. Bowling for Soup got to play Denton. The Vims got to branch out to Wichita Falls, Abilene and San Angelo.

Soon, Justin “Super J” James from the Vims introduced Bowling for Soup to an entire ecosystem: a band called Beef Jerky that included singer Bubba Turner, bassist Eric Delegard and trombone/rapper Jeff Roe.

Bubba, the band's main rapper/vocalist, had his finger on the pulse of the Denton scene, and he loved BFS instantly. Eric owned and operated Reel Time Audio, the studio where BFS would make three albums: Rock on Honorable Ones!!, Tell Me When to Whoa!! and Let's Do It for Johnny!!. And Jeff “FFROE” Roe would eventually become the band's co-manager and Jaret's best friend.

The relationship with the Vims produced Cell Mates, a split CD featuring four songs from each band.

Unfortunately, the day the CDs arrived, the Vims broke up.

1,000 CDs had been made. Each band was to get 500 copies to sell at shows and help promote both bands.

The Vims went straight to Denton's Fry Street Fair and handed all 500 copies out for free!

At first, BFS was irritated. Bowling for Soup needed to sell those things. CDs were gas and food money.

Only later did they realize the Vims had just handed hundreds of people an advertisement for Bowling for Soup.

Denton was becoming the place where the band made sense.

But the moment that changed the band's internal mindset happened somewhere else.