The Band That Had to Come First

When coolfork!! reached its natural end, Jaret knew what he wanted next: something like a punk-rock Beatles, where all four members could sing and no single person was the lead singer.

He already had Lance on drums. He and Erik Chandler had developed both a friendship and a desire to do something crazy together, so Erik came aboard on bass and vocals.

They needed another guitarist.

At the final coolfork!! recording session, Chris Burney happened to stop by. Jaret and Chris had known each other for years without ever really hanging out. Jaret was not much of a drinker yet, but he could manage a Zima or two. After the recording ended, they drank, traded stories, made up songs and suddenly realized daylight had arrived.

Jaret loved him immediately.

After some discussion and persuasion, the lineup was complete.

Jaret, Chris, Erik and Lance first rehearsed as Bowling For Soup on June 4, 1994. They played their first show July 3. Their first album was released by September.

Looking back, the pace seems ridiculous.

At the time, they simply did not know enough to believe it was impossible.

The early songs were divided among several singers and writers. Over time, Erik convinced Jaret of something that had become increasingly apparent: the band sounded most like itself when it played Jaret’s songs.

Jaret became the primary songwriter and lead singer.

A more important decision came in 1996 after a packed show in Abilene, Texas, with The Hunger, a band breaking nationally at the time. People in the audience were singing every word to Bowling For Soup’s set. Jaret left the stage, threw up from the heat and asked the others to gather in a makeshift dressing room.

He told them he genuinely believed the band could work. He believed he had figured out a path—but only if everyone was willing to make Bowling For Soup the first priority in their lives.

That meant missing birthdays.

Weddings.

Funerals.

Holidays.

It meant relationships would suffer and conventional stability would disappear. Four people could not treat the same dream at four different levels of seriousness.

They agreed.

Jaret put everything he owned into a ten-foot storage unit. He and Erik stayed with Erik’s mother or slept in the van. Bowling For Soup played anywhere that would have them, sometimes doing two or three shows a day on weekends.

They lost money, friends, relationships and, quite often, dignity.

Jaret would not trade those years.

He does not believe any of them would.

The agreement changed all of their lives, but the fact that the others trusted him enough to follow remains one of the greatest gifts he has ever received.

The Singer, the Songwriter and “Dad”

Bowling For Soup’s history eventually included major-label records, worldwide touring, television appearances, songs such as “Girl All the Bad Guys Want,” “1985,” “Almost” and “High School Never Ends,” and a Grammy nomination.

But Jaret’s role was never simply “being in the band.”

He took over booking, then management. Even after the band hired its first manager, he remained involved as a co-manager and still thinks like one. He became the strategist, problem-solver, motivator and person watching the entire machine.

The crew calls him Dad.

He is fine with it.

Jaret is comfortable saying that he is the boss, but he works to be an inclusive one. He wants the people around him to understand why decisions are being made and to feel that their voices matter. He handles personnel, art, merchandise, planning and the endless stream of small decisions required to keep a band functioning after more than three decades.

There is very little in the Bowling For Soup world that does not pass through him in some form.

That authority is not primarily about control.

It is about protection.

If someone is part of the band, crew or extended family, Jaret feels responsible for them. He brings drive, accountability and optimism. He gets things done. He expects people to do what they say they will do, but he also wants them safe, supported and treated fairly.

He knows Bowling For Soup is not one person surrounded by replaceable parts. It is the sum of the people in and around it. Keeping a band together requires love, perspective and the understanding that every contribution matters.

Personnel has changed across the decades, as it does in almost every long-running band. What has endured is the commitment to the songs, the audience and one another.

After more than thirty years, Jaret remains proud not merely that Bowling For Soup survived, but that the people onstage still appear genuinely happy.

They are.

In December 2025, the band headlined London’s OVO Arena Wembley—their largest headline performance to that point. Jaret had begun to wonder whether the biggest milestones were behind him. Wembley changed that. It made him feel as though he had been loaded back into a cannon, with the possibilities suddenly wide open again.

Then came a run of shows at English castles.

Apparently, the cannon was working.