Jason Collie meets his heroes, above – the ever amusing and consistently punchy Bowling for Soup

THEY may be one of the clowns of pop punk – a genre filled with wisecracking juvenile behaviour – but there is what could be interpreted as serious business stirring in the world of Bowling for Soup.

The Texan foursome hit Oxford’s O2 Academy on Saturday night as part of an umpteenth British tour with a couple of like-minded support acts, The Dollyrots and Patent Pending.

There’s nothing unusual in that at all – right down to the “We all get along great and they’re rocking bands” camaraderie you’d expect – but the tour has been preceded by a CD in which the bands all cover each other’s songs.

There’s a new song from each band and then two covers, plus BFS lead singer Jaret Reddick and the Dollyrots Kelly Ogden with a contribution. Since losing their mainstream label, Bowling for Soup have been building a real ecosystem around themselves – CDs like One Big Happy, various side projects and video production.

Bass player Erik Chandler ponders the point but true to form, denies it is part of a masterplan.

“It’s definitely organic,” he said from his new home back in Dallas – shared with Ryan Hamilton, Reddick’s collaborator on side project People on Vacation, just to emphasise the point – a few days before jetting over the Atlantic. “There was not like a decision made. It was just keeping the people we love close to us as always.

“The people that I work with are closer to me than my family.

“We always have kept the idea that we only want to work with people who are great friends.

“There’s definitely a vetting process you go through but once you pass the test we will hold you as close to our hearts as we can.

“The whole idea was to take this new little Bowling for Soup family that we have created with the Dollyrots and Patent Pending and spread it around.”

So, to test this spirit of One Big Happy, who does the best cover versions on the new CD then Erik?

“I may be a little biased but I have to go with us,” he says with a chuckle mixed with a little surprise. “I would not be a good band member if I didn’t go with us.”

But regaining a little composure, he adds: “To be quite honest I really would not be able to pick a favourite on the CD.

“It’s just cool to hear everybody doing something different.

“I think it is a three-way tie,” he says – diplomacy restored.

The CD is indicative of the content BFS are pushing out, having broken free of any two-year CD cycle. Reddick, the lead singer and chief songwriter, has two other bands, while Chandler released his own solo EP, Writing The Wrongs this year.

Could this be a problem for Bowling For Soup going forward?

“The only reason that this sort of stuff has come out is now we finally have the time,” he said. “We have talked about these things for a long time but I wouldn’t want anyone to think this is signalling the end of Bowling For Soup. It’s just here’s some other stuff we can do.

“Jaret has People on Vacation and Jarinus and there is my stuff that doesn’t fit under the Bowling For Soup umbrella.

“Most of the Bowling For Soup stuff is written by Jaret and, while it’s not that I don’t feel I’m an established songwriter, I just wanted to introduce the world to the fact that I am a songwriter.”

Bands like BFS are known for their onstage juvenile behaviour, but Chandler has one speciality – a British accent pitched somewhere around a sex-change Dick Van Dyk on crack playing one of Cinderella’s ugly step-sisters.

It must take work? “Nope, I do no practise on that at all,” he says. “It would not be as funny if I worked on it to improve it. “The more ridiculous it is the better.”

Bowling For Soup have toured the UK with The Dollyrots before but this will be the debut for Patent Pending, a pop punk band from New York state Reddick promoted many moons ago on a podcast.

Chandler may be on message, but he advises the audience not to skip on hearing them.

“If anyone misses either of the opening bands, they will be missing a great part of the show,” he continued. “We wouldn’t bring bands on tour we didn’t believe in and if people have not see Patent Pending then they are missing out on something really, really amazing.

“We did a tour with them and immediately recognised these guys are us 10 years ago. They’re kind of like our baby boys now.”

  • Bowling for Soup play the O2 Academy Oxford on Saturday. Support comes from The Dollyrots and Patent Pending
  • Tickets are £18.50 from ticketweb.co.uk