How to go
What: WittFest 2010, a daylong music festival with headliners Bowling for Soup
When: 11 a.m. Saturday, May 1, with Saving Jane at 9 p.m. and Bowling for Soup at 10 p.m.
Where: Myers Hollow, Wittenberg University; the rain site is the HPER Center
Cost: Free
SPRINGFIELD — No, they don’t have plans to do a concept album.
No, they’re not planning to adapt their music into a Broadway show.
No, you don’t even have to ask.
But Jaret Reddick, the lead singer of pop-punk goofballs Bowling for Soup, now seemingly finds himself being confronted with one nagging question each time he does an interview.
This one included.
“Do you see yourself still doing this at 50?”
“These kinds of questions never popped up before,” Reddick freely confessed, “so I never really thought about it.
“I wonder if people ask Billie Joe Armstrong that same thing?”
Well, they’re both now 38.
One recently premiered a Broadway show culled from two Grammy-winning “rock operas.”
The other recently sang a song called “My Wena” and, when discussing his craft, explains, “I don’t sit down and think, ‘I’m going to write a song about farts.’ ”
But only one can headline WittFest — and since this is Wittenberg University’s biggest party of the year, thank God it’s Bowling for Soup.
“Green Day is one of the greatest bands that ever lived in my opinion,” Reddick conceded. “But with us, we took having a good time so far, it became who we are. If we came out and said we have a political stance, people would go, ‘What? You guys actually care about something?’
“We’re serious about not being serious.”
Case in point — the band released its 10th album this past October and titled it “Sorry for Partyin’.”
Green Day grew up.
Even Blink-182 went and got all adult-like.
Bowling for Soup is still writing songs like “Hooray for Beer.”
“We came up in the mid-’90s with a lot of bands that were just as silly as we were,” Reddick said. “Most of them have gone on to be very, very serious. I’m fans of all those bands and I’m friends with many of them, but we were sort of the guys that went in a different direction. We’re Bowling for Soup. This is who we are.”
Hey, Reddick might be pushing 40 with two children at home, but somebody’s gotta keep it real — somebody’s gotta keep the fires of Warped Tour 1996 burning.
That somebody is BFS.
And it’s paid off handsomely.
The band’s million-selling 2004 single “1985” was followed by the even more catchy “High School Never Ends” and even the theme to Disney Channel’s “Phineas and Ferb,” which resulted in an actual, bona fide Emmy nomination for the Texas quartet.
“The four of us and certain crew guys are exactly the same,” Reddick said. “We’re as we’ve always been. Nothing’s really changed. We were in a van for nine years, so it was nice to be able to get on a bus.”
But let’s be honest here — as long as their wives are cool with it, nobody ever said they had to grow up.
“We’ve managed to stay young,” Reddick said, “because of our career choice.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.
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