Bowling for Soup have now been going for over 10 years, and they still keep gaining new fans thanks to their catchy tunes, funny lyrics, and hilarious live shows. We recently got another chance to interview drummer Gary, and this time we got talking about Japan, blow-up dolls and powder blue tuxedos.

Jess: How does it feel to be back in the UK?

I am tired and really, really hung-over, and after I finish this first diet coke of the day I am going to start drinking and get back into the swing of things. And it feels great to back in the UK.

Suzi: How did you choose your support bands and what are they like to tour with?

Basically this time around and actually the past couple of times around we’ve just brought friends and other times we’ve played with friends from over here and this time we were just like “well lets just bring our friends from home” so The Feds are an amazing rock and roll band from Dallas, Chris and Greg our drum tech actually live with the feds so we have a long relationship with those guys. And Feable Weiner, they're from Nashville and we started playing shows with them a few years ago and now Jaret manages them so a lot of history with those guys too and they're just fun dudes to hang out with every night we just get drunk and throw things at each other its fun.

Jess: Bowling for soup have been a band for about 10 years now, what would you say have been the high points and the low points?

Low points suck whenever they’re happening but when they're over we always find the humour in it you know? I mean I cant really think of too many really, really low points so um, being stranded in the middle of nowhere in a blizzard and we cant make it to the next show and we cant make it home and we’re just stuck. stuff like that sucks but you know but we end up finding the humour in it, high points, there’s been a couple of times you know like we got to go to the Grammies, you know! Jaret and I just looked at each other and said, “what are we doing here” you know were just a couple of drunk guys from Texas and somehow we’re here, and prolly the first time we ever came to the UK and saw a video of ours on TV I mean that was just mind boggling to us and ever since then we’ve been trying to come back as often as we can.

Suzi: Who came up for the idea of the vending machine on your website?

Originally we wanted that to be a beer machine, well, a coke machine but with beer in it, but this and that, didn't happen and it worked out where it’s a candy machine because we're fat guys and who don’t like candy?

Suzi: Who does the maintaining of your website?

Jaret does pretty much all of that, like he calls someone and has them actually do it cus none of us know anything about computers, it’s all email and porn for us! But he comes up with the concept, well some people have an idea here and there he will add it but the 50 questions and stuff like that we do ourselves so Jaret does pretty much all of that.

Jess: Have you got a favourite track from your new album “a hangover you don’t deserve”?

My personal favourite track is friends of mine cus Jaret wrote that about us and the first time I heard it I didn't even know that he had written that, we were in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant while we were recording our record and we had got the demos in the mail and we all kinda sat there and didn't talk for a couple of minutes cus it touched us all… … and then Jaret touched us, no I’m just kidding. So that’s my personal favourite, but my playing favourite? I like almost and probably 2 seater are my favourites.

Suzi:What’s the random Ohio bit at the end of the album? (If you’ve never heard it, it is tracks 19 – 44)

That was kind of a joke for us more than anything and other people I hope think its funny or whatever I think some people take it too seriously basically we were in the studio and on the real Ohio there was the bush twins want you back and so on and we had come up with a list of about 50 different people from Texas who want you back and on the song we only got to use 8 of them or something and so one night, when we were drunk 3 o’clock in the morning lets just loop that part and go in there drunk and start naimg people off and have fun so its basically something to break the monotony of being in the recording studio and have a little bit of our attitudes personalities on the record.

Suzi: Were there any improvisations in it?

There were a lot of improv… impromi… ergh! That’s hard to say! There was a lot of that, basically we all had a list to look at and then someone would say the name you were about to say so its your turn and you just have to think of something but it was fun.

Jess: On hangover there is the new boy band version of Belgium. Why is it that track that is on nearly all your CDs?

Oh hold on one second lets get back to the last question, now did you all hear Sim get out of… he was never on… [nods from us] didn't he suck!

Ok sorry… basically it was on Rock On Honorable Ones, and then Tell Me When To Woah, a different version and then whenever we signed the deal with jive they wanted to put a load of songs from Tell Me When To Woah onto Let's Do It For Johnny record so it was like “ok now its on three CDs” so while we were recording the drunk enough to dance we were like well its been on all of them so lets do a different version every time and so then they did the acoustic and this time we did the boy band. We’ve talked about country version a heavy metal version, a disco version so we’ll see what happens next.

Suzi: Who was doing the Barry White-esque voice in the boy band Belgium?

Yours truly. First take too. Came off the top of my head they were like “just start saying some shit” and I was like “alright” yeah

Jess: Where did you find Sim? Or did someone leave him on your doorstep for you to adopt?

[laughs] Basically on warped tour 2003 he came out to one of the dates to film simple plan and Hang out with them for a couple of days. One night after the show was over we met him and we’d been talking forever of having someone film us and so we took him out for the rest of the summer and brought him out last year over here and took him to Japan and he was I the studio with us. We wanna put out a DVD just hasn’t happened yet. We have all the footage we need now just have to edit it. But basically we just met him through friends and he just stuck around with us for about a year.

Suzi: Did you enjoy your time in Japan?

Japan is a pretty cool place. You can buy beer in vending machines like we wanted our website to have anywhere you can be walking down the street at 11 o’clock in the morning and buy a $2 beer out of a vending machine and we did. But I don’t think many people looked highly on that they don’t like it when you’re loud and drinking early in the morning so other than that the bands were really cool it was another experience like the first time we came over here and saw ourselves on the TV. The first day we’re there we’re gonna walk around town and all this cool stuff and yeah kids come up to us and recognise us. This is our first time to be over here, how do you know who we are? So it was really cool. And they would bring us gifts and be in our hotel lobby at 9 o’clock in the morning. Pretty interesting.

Jess: Who is it that wins beer-drinking contests in the band?

Beer contest? That’s really hard because Erik is the best drunk in the world but the thing is he gets so drunk that he goes to bed at 2oclock in the morning whereas everybody else pretty much maintains and will be up at 5 or 6 every morning. Everybody has their own night like the other night I drank so much Jack Daniels that the next day I woke up and went and threw up and it smelt like bourbon and that made me throw up some more but every body has their nights where they're the best drunk.

Suzi: What’s your record for most drinks in a night?

That’s the problem, those nights you don’t remember. I used to have this thing when I was younger where every beer I had id put the cap in my pocket so I’d know how many I’d had but I don’t do that anymore. I should. Basically this tour we’ve gone through over a hundred bottles of vodka. And every night we’ve had 4/5 cases of beer. That’s a lot! Stupid!

Jess: You have toured a lot. Have you got any tips for bands starting out, to make life easier?

How to make life easier? I don’t think that’s possible because starting a band is a lot of work, if you want to be serious you pretty much have to give everything else up. You’re gonna miss weddings and birthday parties and anniversaries and funerals if you wanna be serious about doing it. [someone starts to saw a plank of wood in the background] but for advice I think my advice would be… stop sawing… I don’t know don’t suck. Number one, you’re not gonna go very far… number 2 play any gig like you’re playing in front of a thousand people cus you never know. If you’re playing in front of 4 people you never know if one of those 4 people is a booking agent or a promoter or from the radio station you know there’s always someone maybe who can help you out. Work hard, be prepared to work hard and sacrifice.

Suzi: Elvis… did he really die or did he just go home?

I wish that he just went home but I think he died. Yeah.

Jess: Do you ever have any trouble understanding British fans?

A little bit, not so much anymore and it’s not really I don’t know what you said, it’s I don’t know what you mean. We have different sayings. Like earlier in another interview the guy asked me when was the last time I’d gone through or something and I had no idea and he was asking when was the last time I had crapped my pants. But I was like “I don’t know what are you taking about” so its not that I don’t know what they're saying its just different slang you know. But the first few times we were over here it was like a different language. But we’ve been over 13 times now I think so we’re used to it.

Suzi: Will you ever bring Simple Plan back with you?

I would love to, I love those guys and basically we toured with them for nearly a year whenever we did that tour and we became good buddies. If they would come back with us we would love them to.

Jess: Did you read the article slashing your new CD in your local newspaper?

My mom gave me all the articles and letters that were sent in and all the articles that were written about it. I think the guy said something he prolly now wishes he hadn’t said cus he didn't realise that we still have family there and that we do work hard and I think he just took the song the wrong way we weren’t really saying Wichita Falls sucks we were saying maybe you should go try to experience something it’s a small town you now a lot of people just fall into the trap that their parents and their parents and their parents did you know, they grow up go to school and then get a job where their dad got a job and then raise a family and that’s all they ever do, which is fine for a lot of people but we have a lot of friends who are talented guitar players or talented artist or really smart and they just stay in that town and smoke weed all day and live with their parents till they're 30 its saying you should take your talents and try to do something with them.

Suzi: Did you enjoy the photo shoot with the blow-up dolls for the hangover sleeve?

Yeah basically I just got to lay down the whole time so it was easy. That was pretty funny I was glad that that was the last time we were gonna wear those god damn blue tuxedos.

Jess: They're not gonna appear in any more albums then?

I don’t think so they're wrecked by now and we just thought it was a funny joke and then people started demanding that we wear them places and it was just like “aww you’re not getting the point”.

Suzi: Was it the same ones the whole time?

Yeah except we flew to L.A. to do the Jimmy Kimmel show and we didn't take our tuxes and when we got there they were like “what do you mean you haven’t got your tuxes?” “well we don’t have them cus we don’t ever wear em, that was the joke for the record cover” anyway, they sent out and got us all tuxes that day so that was the only time we had different tuxes.

Jess: What have you got planned for after the tour?

We get back to the states and have 3 days off now and then from now till xmas we’ll be flying round the states doing radio festival shows so it’s gonna be a lot of flying. You know we’ll be in L.A. one day and Chicago the next then Las Vegas. But not really a set tour with people then after the New Year we’ll be on the road. We have a couple of offers but if they don’t follow through we’ll be doing our own tour.

Thanks a lot to Gary for letting us interview him again! As always the band played a great set that got everyone dancing and laughing; to find out more about the band, check out their site at www.bowlingforsoup.com.