When an artist tweaks their name ever so slightly for a solo release, you know they’re up to something. Bowling For Soup frontman Jaret has done spinoff material before, but always under his two-piece moniker, but then it’s always been pretty much pop-punk / rock. Just Woke Up sees Jaret go country. Well, he is from Texas.
I don’t dislike country, so I wasn’t going to put this on with the immediate instinct to hate it. Hell, back at university the most-watched channel on the cable TV in my room was probably CMT. I was gutted when Yorkshire Cable removed it from the menu. And not just because Joe Dee Messina was so visually appealing. Country has its own cheese factor, but it shares a lot with rock. Drums, bass, guitar and actual singing – and oftentimes a (dark) sense of humour. Ideal, then, for a BFS side project.
“Way More Country” gets us going, and BFS fans will find themselves in familiar territory with the cultural references and tongue-in-cheek self-aggrandising. Uncle Kracker guests, and Jaret manages to rhyme “Tesla” with “wrestler”, which alone makes the song worth a listen. “One of the Good Ones” really shows the parallels between the worlds of rock and country as it straddles both camps. Change that guitar tone in the solo so it’s less twangy/slidey and you’ve got a stadium rock anthem.
We have two songs about Texas on the album, one of which will be very familiar to BFS fans. Yes, it’s that one – only obviously countrified. Ever fancied line-dancing to “Ohio”? Well now you can.
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“Royal Family” and “Doggonit!” are a nicely opposing pair. A lovely ballad followed by a bit of a stomper, which lead us into a trio of tracks with guests. Frank Turner appears on “Drunk As It Takes”, Cody Canada from The Departed strums on “You and Beer”, and Descendents’ Stephen Egerton adds his strings to “Natalie”. The first two of these are typical country tracks about the evils of beer… but they couldn’t be any more different in terms of tone. Slow and sad for the former, chirpy for the latter.
“Natalie” really feels more like a 60’s rock n’ roll number than a country track, banging in some blues for good measure. “My Truck Up And Left Me” is typical “woe is me, everything sucks” country music, as you may be able to judge from the title. It’s one of the best on the album as well. Heading towards the closing song, “Back in 83” is pretty laid back and one of those songs where you really need to listen to the lyrics. As with much of Reddick’s material elsewhere you just know it’s very self-referential.
After the thoughtful track eleven, Just Woke Up leaves you on a high with another BFS cover. “The Bitch Song” is very close to the original with addition of a ton of slide guitar. Honestly, the lyrics would fool any diehard redneck into thinking this was a country original.
With the two covers, this is an album that has as much chance of pulling country fans over into pop punk as much as it has of getting pop-punkers to strap on a stetson. Musically, and attitude-wise it’s a BFS album inside its Texas-sized heart which is a great selling point. It’s funny, it’s toe-tapping, it’s sing-along-to-able. I didn’t expect to be disappointed, but I also didn’t expect to enjoy Just Woke Up as much as I did. More, please, Jaret!
Short notice we know, but Jaret is appearing at the Country to Country event at the O2 Arena this weekend. Jaret is on 1:50pm – 2:20pm on the Town Square stage (Saturday), and the “Big Entrance” stage (Sunday) which is the publicly available bit, so no ticket required!
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Header image by Ryan Mitchell Media (@RyanMMedia)
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Just Woke Up is out on March 11th – pre-save/order now
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