Still Bowling for Soup

The newest chapter began almost accidentally.

Dan Malsch at Sound Mind Studios offered Bowling for Soup an opportunity to come record a song.

Free studio time.

Hard to turn that down.

Jaret and Rob wrote “Holding On to That Hate” in the course of a few text messages.

The band took two days in the middle of an insanely busy summer and went back to the Poconos.

The experience was so good that by the time they left, Jaret had reached a conclusion.

“It's time to make another record.”

So they did.

For Jaret, one of the most exciting parts of the new record has been watching Rob develop a real creative voice within Bowling for Soup. The two wrote heavily together, which both of them consider pretty awesome!

Jaret wrote a couple with Linus.

He called Butch Walker and said, “We haven't written a BFS song in over 20 years. It's time!”

Butch agreed.

The biggest change happened inside the studio.

For the first time, the album was genuinely produced by Bowling for Soup as a band, alongside Dan Malsch.

Gary and Rob stayed in the console room while Jaret sang.

Everybody listened to everybody else.

Each gave feedback to the others. And they all listened.

The record became a group effort in a way no previous Bowling for Soup album had been.

The finished collection runs sixteen songs so far.

Jaret is careful about declaring any new record “the best Bowling for Soup record,” because somebody's Drunk Enough to Dance is sacred. Somebody else's A Hangover You Don't Deserve is sacred. Somebody else's Lunch. Drunk. Love. is the album that got them through some shit.

But the members all agree.

This may be the strongest collection of songs Bowling for Soup has ever made.

For the first time since 2009, the band is also considering what the right record-label partnership could look like.

Not because Bowling for Soup needs somebody to save it.

That is the difference.

The band already tours successfully.

It already has an audience.

It already understands social media.

It already knows how to release records.

The right label now would be a partner—someone who believes in what Bowling for Soup is already doing and can help with marketing, distribution, streaming, radio and reaching people the band cannot reach alone.

There are also things Jaret would never give away again.

Control matters to him. And that matters to Rob, Gary and Swin too.

And after decades of occasionally being told that saying “no” could destroy the band's career, Bowling for Soup is finally in a position to say:

“Then no.”

Because Bowling for Soup does not need permission to exist anymore.

It already does.