Sandiegopunk.com interviews The Bouncing Souls!
Sandiegopunk.com staff writer Matt Smith recently caught up with the boys from The Bouncing Souls; here's what transpired...
SDP: Welcome back to the west side bitches!
Pete: Thanks man, good to be back.
Bryan: You lost your voice.
SDP: Nah I just had throat surgery.
Bryan: Oh no shit?
SDP: Yeah I had a cyst on my vocal chords and got my tonsils out.
Bryan: No way.
Pete: You alright man?
SDP: Shit, you know me.
Bryan: Straight thug!
SDP: Enough of this shit. So you guys are out here filming a video for "The Show Must Go Off" how did that come about?
Bryan: Joe (From Kung Fu) has just been asking us for a while to do one, yeah and we know each
other, we see each other out there in the world, places like the Warped Tour and whatever....
SDP: So it was all a matter of when you guys could get out here and do it?
Pete: Yeah, and I mean of course our answer was yeah, I mean we wanted to do it in Jersey or something, ya know? Asbury Park ya know?
SDP: Yeah I was going to ask why you guys chose the Glasshouse as opposed to like the Troubadour or somewhere bigger.
Pete: Yeah, see they always do it at the House Of Blues, and tried to get us to do it at the House Of Blues, and we were like..... ya know man I mean we play there sometimes but it's such a sterile environment, like the stage is just so high and the kids are so far away, so we prefer playing the Glasshouse and it's more of a feeling because everyone's involved more ya know? Crowd surfing and stage diving and shit, that's what you wanna see man. That's what I like when I'm playin'.
SDP: It'd almost be nice to see one of those in almost a, Fat Records "Live In A Dive" type situation, you know somewhere like Chain Reaction...
Bryan: Yeah
SDP: You know where you can barely move and it's far more intimate.
Pete: Yeah!
Bryan: Yeah, well, I dunno what, I mean this show sold out a long time ago, I don't know how many people they stuff in here or all the fire code things and that's all what's going to determine how crowded it is, the place feels pretty crowded so.
SDP: So in two days you guys will be in Vegas doing the annual punk rock bowling tournament.
Pete: Yeah
SDP: So was this kind of a "we're going to be doing the bowling thing anyways, might as well do the video"? Or was it the other way around?
Bryan: It started with us bowling, we were like "Hey we're gunna go bowl" and then they (BYO) were like "Why don't you play the bowling tournament?" So we were like "Super, that'll be a good time for us to come out here and do 'The Show Must Go Off'."
Pete: I mean we were going to do the bowling tournament anyways because we do it every year and we always have fun...
Bryan: It's the party of the year!
Pete: So that's what we're going for.
SDP: And to lose horribly to Epitaph?
Bryan: Fuck 'um.
Bryan: We're not there to win or lose, we're there to have a good time....and get drunk. We got heart when we bowl dude.
Pete: That's right!
SDP: Ok, the question everyone's probably been asking you, the super bowl commercial.
Bryan: Yeah Yeah
SDP: Your song "I Like Your Mom" appeared in a Pepsi commercial...what happened with that?
Bryan: Totally out of the blue man. The way I figure it probably happened was some kid some Souls fan kid grew up, from that era, remembered the song, got that job, and just like put it together. Had a concept around that song like" Ah yeah that'll be funny!" Contacted us, through K8, and we were like "Yeah do it for sure man!" Ya know? Fuckin' lyrics we wrote in high school? It'd be funny man, I mean why wouldn't you? As a musician?
*Pete's phone rings*
Bryan: This guy...
Pete: I'm gunna take this
Bryan: How rude. *Laughs*
SDP: What were we saying before we were so rudely interrupted? Oh yeah, you guys have always had this kind of mentality of staying out of the mainstream, and now as a result of this from what I've seen on the website a lot of people are screaming "sell out" and shit like that.
Bryan: Yeah,
*Pete comes back*
Bryan: Who was that?
Pete: It's so random; it's just like god damn you for having my number!
SDP: So what do you guys say to that?
Pete: Well the opportunity arose and and we're totally not anti corporate, or anti this or anti that, we just take things as they come, and this works, I mean they're giving away free music, and we drink Pepsi and we have iPods, granted coke is better I just think it's cool dude.
Bryan: Yeah dude I don't know everything that Pepsi does or doesn't do and really I'm not gunna spend my days worrying about it too much I didn't feel like it was too much of an "evil empire" especially in this scenario. I mean we did think about it to some point, and, they're giving away free music! Ya know and iTunes, I mean that seems like a pretty cool thing they're whole thing is pretty cool, you know I back that whole thing so... what do I say to that? I tell people to shut the fuck up, if they were true fans they'd be happy for us.
Pete: Yeah, I mean they can think what they want, that's their business, just don't be mad at us for our business.
SDP: So after these two dates out here on the west coast you guys are going to Europe right?
Bryan: Yup.
Pete: Yup, Dropkick Murpheys.
SDP: Is that just a regular tour?
Bryan: And the God Awfuls
SDP: Or is that like the Deconstruction tour?
Bryan: No it's just a tour, of the UK and Ireland w/ Dropkick and God Awfuls, something like that.
SDP: Are you guys going there right after these dates?
Bryan: We're home for like 4 days
SDP: I know Dropkick are doing like six St Patty's shows.
Bryan: Yeah I guess we're not doing those this year, we did last year.
SDP: So Anchor's Aweigh came out about 2 1/2 years ago, you guys have any plans as of yet for a new album?
Pete: We just started writing now, so we're taking it from there. We spent that long...touring on Anchors, it's the most we've ever toured, left a year and a half ago.
Bryan: Since before it even came out.
Pete: And we been on the road ever since.
Bryan: 250 shows or something.
Pete: Yeah a lot, basically that, then end in November and take a "do nothing" break, don't think about shit.
SDP: You guys played Redding and Leeds over in the UK, how was it playing a huge festival like that? Kinda like the European Woodstock I guess?
Pete: Yeah it's really fun man, it's really cool.
Bryan: It's a good opportunity, it's a good thing to experience ya know? Walking around and check out some shit like it's like a giant, bigger, dirtier Warped Tour.
Pete: Yeah there's people all over in like boots, and goulashes, cuz it's gross.
Bryan: Yeah and there was a mud pit, Metallica played a surprise set on our stage last year. And they did like 45 minutes of their old shit, it's good because Warped is like what's in now, but those fests are like everything, like legends like Morrissey and it's good to play with other style bands, ya know get out of your bubble, otherwise you're just running the same circuit the whole time and all you see is the is the same fuckin' clubs and the same fuckin' backstages all year, and that's fuckin' drunk, so this is nice. We like to mix it up with all those different things, like festivals and stuff.
Pete: Yeah, it's good to break out a lil bit.
SDP: What do you guys have planned for when you get back from Europe?
Pete: We're gunna start writing, do some random shows in April and stuff.
Bryan: Going to Puerto Rico, just fun things, taking fun shows, Bamboozle in New Jersey, it's like a big festival at the beach, opening day of barbeque season at K8's house
SDP: Well that's all I got man, any closing words?
Bryan: There's the update for now, this was a good interview, no stupid ass questions, just keeping the fans informed. Good stuff.
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