Lunch. Drunk. Love. and the Farewell That Wasn't Goodbye

By Lunch. Drunk. Love., crowdfunding had begun changing what independence could mean.

More importantly, the relationship with the audience became increasingly direct.

Fans could effectively help finance the record before it existed and actually feel like they were part of making the album.

They could visit the studio. Sing backing vocals. Get their names in liner notes. Get exclusive merch. Participate in the process instead of simply buying the finished product.

Bowling for Soup eventually realized crowdfunding was basically an elaborate presale—and that the relationship doing the real work was not between the band and the crowdfunding platform.

It was between the band and its fans.

But Lunch. Drunk. Love. also arrived during one of the hardest personal periods of Jaret's life.

His marriage was ending.

He was moving to a new part of DFW.

He was no longer seeing his children every day.

Anxiety and depression came knocking for the first time in his life. It was terrifying.

He was drinking too much.

He withdrew from friends and bandmates.

The details of that story belong to Jaret's life rather than a Bowling for Soup biography.

But they matter because they affected one of the biggest decisions the band ever made.

Touring—especially constant UK touring—had become unsustainable.

Bowling for Soup had sometimes gone to the UK two or three times in a single year, occasionally for three or four weeks at a time.

Jaret began believing that if he could remove the UK travel from his life, maybe he could stop everything else from falling apart.

He talked with Swin.

Then the band sat down together at the Sweetwater Tavern in Denton. (Yep...the one from “I've Never Done Anything Like This.”)

There was no argument or tension of any kind.

They ate. They drank beer. They discussed the future.

Everyone knew something had to change.

They needed a break or they were going to run the band into the ground.

The resulting 2013 UK run was billed as a “farewell tour.”

Even Bowling for Soup didn't entirely know what “farewell” meant.

Maybe they would return every few years.

Maybe they would take a long hiatus.

Maybe this really was the end.

The fans understandably treated it like the end.

Bowling for Soup repeatedly tried to explain:

“It's not goodbye.”

“It's farewell.”

“We need time. We need to stop. We don't know what we need.”

The shows were emotional.

Chris, who had always had a particularly deep relationship with the UK, took it especially hard. It was difficult for the others to watch his heart break and not know how to fix it.

There were nights when Jaret wanted to stop the whole thing and announce that they had changed their minds.

But once tickets had been sold as a farewell, doing that felt dishonest too.

So they toured.

And then Bowling for Soup actually disappeared for a while.

Aside from Download Festival in 2014, Bowling for Soup did not return to properly tour the UK until 2016's How About Another Round tour—a gap of roughly two years and four months.

Compared with the relentless pace before the farewell, it was enormous.

Some fans were thrilled they came back.

Some were relieved.

Some were angry.

Bowling for Soup understood all three reactions.

Jaret has never tried to pretend fans were wrong for feeling burned.

The only explanation he has is the truth:

At the time, he thought stopping was the right thing to do.

Then life changed again.

And something else happened.

The break worked.

When Bowling for Soup started playing again, the band was better.

Happier.

The bus felt good.

The crew felt good.

The shows felt alive.

It was as though someone had installed a nitro button.

The band that had once survived by declaring that Bowling for Soup had to come before everything had learned a new rule:

Bowling for Soup could only survive if the people inside it were allowed to have lives too.

Tours became shorter.

Birthdays, anniversaries and graduations mattered.

Family and health were not obstacles to the band.

They were part of the band's reality.

That evolution may be one of the biggest reasons Bowling for Soup is still here.