Bowling for Soup
Bowling for Soup Bio
With their thirty year anniversary as a band on the horizon in 2024, Texas’ favourite punk rock export Bowling For Soup continue to grow their global fanbase and expand their success year on year. Also dubbed the crown princes of pop punk, Bowling For Soup – frontman and guitarist Jaret Reddick, fellow guitarist Chris Burney, drummer Gary Wiseman and bassist Rob Felicetti have proved that nothing, not even a global pandemic, has slowed the demand for their unique, humour filled live shows and upbeat, heartfelt anthems.
Songs such as High School Never Ends, Punk Rock 101, 1985 and of course the Grammy nominated Girl All The Bad Guys Want resonate as much today as when they were written and are proving extremely popular in the modern streaming world. Their 2022 album, Pop Drunk Snot Bread, a play on the cultural reference “pop punk’s not dead”, was heralded by fans and critics alike as the band’s best release in fifteen years. Millions of streams and YouTube views for songs like Getting Old Sucks (But Everybody’s Doing It), I Wanna Be Brad Pitt and the global smash Alexa Bliss (dedicated to WWE’s own multi-time world wrestling women’s champion) show that Bowling For Soup can still run rings (and riffs) around their younger contemporaries. The album also features songs like The Best We Can, Wouldn’t Change A Thing and the positive mental health anthem Hello Anxiety, where Bowling For Soup show they can do both serious and reflective, with a BFS heart at the core.
It’s a testament to the bands’ enduring appeal and a fanbase that continues to grow day after day – evidenced by their 100 million streams on Spotify in the year 2020 alone. Finding their niche back in the 1990’s would be tough when the musical climate was in serious shift. “We were just the stereotypical, small town guys with nothing else to do – starting a band to keep ourselves out of trouble” recalls frontman Jaret Reddick looking back. There was certainly no trend to follow, every other band seemed to be genre jumping to try and catch “the next big thing” without knowing what “the next big thing was”, leaving the members of Bowling For Soup with no option to just go out and have fun. Brought up on a heady diet of 80’s John Hughes Movies, LA Hair Metal, Steve Martin comedy routines (which spawned the band’s name) and hook laden punk rock, BFS hit the ground running on the simple blueprint – have a good time and pretty soon, everyone else will join in!
Bowling For Soup are a band who’ve proven time and again that they can move with the times throughout a period of turbulence for the music industry. From their DIY roots, through to being on a major record label for many years (Jive Records) and being very successfully independent with their own label for over a decade, they are a band who’ve found success in every way. ‘We’re in control of everything now. If we decide we wanna do something, we just do it – we don’t need to ask anyone’s permission. It also makes you feel super proud when you do something yourself and it’s a success’, reveals Reddick.
Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, Bowling For Soup were playing to the biggest crowds of their career. Over 20,000 people witnessed their sold out 2020 UK tour with Simple Plan and they’ve sold out arenas alongside Steel Panther. Headline appearances at recent editions of UK festivals like Slam Dunk and Reading and Leeds have gone down a storm. At Reading Festival 2019 the crowd overflowed out of the stage with fans peering for a glimpse of “BFS”, while their appearances at the final editions of the US Vans Warped Tour brought enormous crowds to every show, no matter what time of day the band were performing.
With the world experiencing live music again following COVID in 2022, Bowling For Soup’s enduring live appeal saw fans return in droves for huge tours in both the UK and US, many making a “BFS” show their first taste of live music since the pandemic. Whether it was huge theatre shows with Lit and The Dollyrots (UK), Less Than Jake and The Aquabats (US) or the sold out UK singalong with Jaret and Rob acoustic tour, the demand to see Bowling For Soup live in the flesh is bigger than it ever has been. 2023 sees the band return to play festivals and shows in mainland Europe for the first time in many years, alongside huge slots at the UK Slam Dunk Festival, while multiple US tours are in the pipeline. A Second chapter of their greatest hits, Songs People Actually Like Volume 2, is due to land late this Summer. Frontman Jaret Ray Reddick is also enjoying new adventures with his journey in the world of Red Dirt Country Music with his debut solo album Just Woke Up.
While the music industry and the world at large is ever evolving, Bowling For Soup have prided themselves on moving with the times, keeping up with the latest ways to stay in touch with their fans (Jaret is now a huge star on TikTok) and get their music out there to as many people as possible. For generations of fans, there has always been a Bowling For Soup song for every occasion. They’re the band who make you smile and they’re the band who will pick you up when you are down, and as their song says, they wouldn’t change a thing.
Don't Panic Bio
From the beginning, Don’t Panic has known no boundaries, intermixing mainstream, pop, progressive rock, EDM, and all-around weirdness.
As collaborators, Jeffrey Robens, Dylan Rowe, Ryan Obermeit, and Jesse Mitchell’s multidimensional artistry is captured perfectly. Robens drives the band’s creative process and studio efforts, having written and produced the freshman and sophomore EPs, DOS Robot Circus and The Sleepy EP. Obermeit underpins the project with a motoring rhythm and captivating flair. Rowe enlivens it all with her eccentric perspectives, emotional performance, and handmade visage.
Following a brief hiatus, they released an eight track mini-album ’42’ in August of ’22. It includes two radio singles Time Machine and Conquer Divide, which have earned and maintained them a spot #172 on Billboard/BDS Mainstream Rock Indicator Chart, and #36 on Euro Indie Music Chart.
Wheatus Bio
It’s hard to believe it’s been over 20 years since Wheatus released their debut album and still ubiquitous single “Teenage Dirtbag.” Yes, that’s right – Dirtbag is no longer a teenager. In honor of this anniversary, Wheatus are releasing a new and expanded edition of their now classic debut album. Says Brendan B Brown, “We found demos of ten more songs from throughout the band’s history, that had such an album-one vibe that they never made it on to our more recent records. So now we’re giving them a proper chance to be heard. The twenty-song version of the album will feature the originally-conceived track listing and sequence, plus the extra ten songs that have finally found a home on a record.”
Pandemics notwithstanding, the band continues a seemingly endless tour cycle. 2019 took Wheatus on a coast-to-coast, almost entirely sold-out tour of America opening for (and then collaborating with) Mike Doughty on his Ruby Vroom 25th Anniversary shows. That tour culminated in a super-special sold-out hometown headline show where the “classic” line-up of Wheatus reunited for one night only – their first time on stage together in 18 years. After that, the current line-up flew to South Africa to play some festivals, and then headed to Europe and the UK for another six weeks of touring. 2021 saw the band travel all over America, supporting Everclear, Hoobastank & Living Colour on the Summerland Tour.
2022 saw the band explode back into the mainstream with the “Teenage Dirtbag” trend going hugely viral across social media, with over TWO BILLION views in less than a month. The song has been shared & celebrated by Lil Nas X, Brooke Shields, Paris Hilton, Madonna, Alice Cooper, Jon Bon Jovi, Chevy Chase, Michelle Pfeiffer, Mark Ruffalo, Gwen Stefani, Christina Aguilera, Heidi Klum, Lady Gaga, Sammy Hagar, Nick Kroll, Mark Ronson, Lupita Nyong’o, LL Cool J, Tony Hawk, Vitoria Beckham, Machine Gun Kelly, Anderson Paak, Jessica Alba, Mick Fleetwood, Millie Bobby Brown, Sheryl Crow, Chris Pratt, and Jamie Lee Curtis… to name a very select few.
The future, as always, remains uncertain. But the band looks forward to many more shows in the very near future, including visits to every corner of the earth that’s interested in hosting them.
Event Information
Experience our general admission open floor plan! On the first floor, there is an open floor standing area in front of the stage and general admission seating available in the back in sections C, D, and E. The balcony is still all reserved seating.
Coming Fall 2024, elevate your show experience with our brand new Premium Balcony Box Seats! These luxury seats offer privacy for you and your group and include personal bar service — that’s right, we’re bringing the concessions to you! So whether you’re looking to have an even greater night out with friends, treat employees or clients to a night of entertainment, or have an intimate show experience seeing your favorite artist, we’ve got you covered.
Premium Boxes are also available for annual leases. To inquire about an annual lease, please email charles@charlestonmusichall.com.
Please note, the entire box must be purchased together. The boxes are located in Sections G & I and are available for purchase in groups of 2, 4, or 6. Additionally, the Charleston Music Hall does NOT have an elevator. Please take that into consideration when buying balcony tickets. If you have additional questions, please reach out to us at info@charlestonmusichall.com.