All of a sudden, the largest of the four - a heroically rotund gent sporting a neat beard, glasses and a tacky orange-brown frock the size of a large tent - steps into the road and coquettishly raises the hem of his skirt up to thigh level. A car swerves out of his way, the driver honking his horn. Whether its down toa desire to avoid an accident or merely shock at the sight of what looks like a sumo wrestler in drag.
"You know," sighs Bowling For Soup drummer Gary Wiseass, watching the man mountain guitarist Chris Van Malmsteen step back onto the pavement, "I just wanted to be in a band and go to parties and get chicks, this was never part of the plan."
Bowling For Soup arent like oter bands. This much has been evident since the gut-achingly amusing, nu-metal bashing video to "The Girl All The Bad Guys Want" landed on our TV screens (and helped propel the single into the Top 10 along the way). The Texans - completed by vocalist/guitarist Jaret Van Erich and bassist Erik Rodham Clinton - are on a mission to slap the serious face of rock silly. And right now, Ottawa is on the business end of it.
Ottawa is a strange city. Smaller than the more lively Toronto, it's the centre of Canadas political world, as evidenced by the huge, old fashioned government buildings dominating the view over the sparkling river. But what sets is apart from other capital cities is the noticable hush over the whole area.
While, at 9pm on a Friday night, other cities would be teeming with tourists and people getting their weekends started, the wide streets here are sparsely clean. It's as id everything grinds to a halt the minute the workers leave their desks and head back to the suburbs.
Right now, it's Canadas turn to be on the business end of that slap. The band, having arrived in town fresh from making the video for their new single "Emily", in nearby Toronto, will spend the next three days playing shows, winning people over and genrally doing their best to repeat the success they've had on this side of the Atlantic. In Britain, Bowling For Soup are bona fide pop stars: their recent single "The Girl All The Bad Guys Want", gatecrashed the top 10, and their forthcoming UK tour - which begins this week - culminates in a sold-out show at Londons 2,000 capacity Astoria theatre.
"People talk differently in your country and the food sucks," Jaret says, Fiddling with a headscarf that makes him look like and eastern European Widow. "But Bowling For Soup fans are Bowling For Soup fans. Its the best thing in the world to be walking through an airport and have some person want you to stop for a minute and have their photograph taken with you. I cant explain to you what thats like, being on a 12 hour fligh away from your house, and getting off the airplane and there are 20 people that know who you are before you even get your bags. Thats the best thing in the world! Thats even better than fuckin cake!"
"is it better than peanut butter and chocolate ice cream?" Erik wonders.
"No, Its the second best thing in the world" replies the singer. "But either we're the greatest rock 'n' roll band of all time, or your country just really likes fat guys."
Ottawa - and London for that matter - is a long way from Wichita Falls, Texas. Bowling For Soups home town is, according to Jaret Van Erich, " a very small, dark lonely town, with a lot of people who like to fight and drink a lot of beer". The quartet met at a non-profit making club run by Chris called The Refuge. They immediately bonded over a mutual love of comedy, rock 'n' roll and, of course, alcohol.
In the early days, Bowling For Soup would play as a covers band to make enough money to tour. The only rule was that they wouldnt do anything written after 1986, allowing them to run riot on songs by everyone from Elvis Presley to Twisted Sister. It was here that they learned their comedy chops. This largely involved ripping off old Steve Martin jokes.
"It was because we didnt have enough songs to play for hours," Jaret admits.
"Which is what you do on a covers gig. So Chris had joke time every two or three songs, and we did like magic tricks. Really fuckin stupid shit. Like where Chris pulls a bird out of my ass. We make this huge production of it where I bite off his finger, I swallow it, he reaches down, sticks his hand all the way up my ass and pulls out the bird and really just him flippin everybody off. The crowd seemed to love this."
Naturally their friends and family had several misgivings about their plans to give everything up to tour the country in a tiny van and genrally make idiots of themselves. Eriks dad offered him money to quit the band and go back to college. Jarets teachers, on the other hand, realised that he had to be onstage for a living or he might just burst.
"My drama teacher wrote in my yearbook, 'if you dont go out there and entertain people, then something is going to be literally missing from the puzzle in some peoples lives'," he beams " I was like, 'Whoah this is some deep shit'. I guess this guy saw something in me - that I could make people smile. I think about that every day."
"Dude, you've got to cut your toenails!"
Backstage at the Lynx Stadium, home of Ottawas baseball team, Erik Rodham Clinton is yelling good naturedly at a member of the bands crew. Despite their recent flush of success, Bowling For Soup arent quite in the same league as Korn or Limp Bizkit just yet. Consequently, the band and their crew are sharing two hotel rooms, which in turn, means various deformities, defects and personal peccadilloes are on show for all to see. It's not glamourous, but its a life they're used to and they love, to the extent of feeling strange when they are not touring.
"It does get weird," Erik admits. "The first few days being off the road it's like, 'Oh yeah, this is nice!. But after a few weeks off its like (mimes phone), 'Hey buddy, what are you doin? Okay, I'm just sitting here in my underwear. Alright, well have a good day'."
Today, Bowling For Soup are playing a snowboard festival. Ideally, the weather would be suitable wintry, but a late heatwave is rapidly melting the imported snow thats being used for the snowboard demontrations, and the sunglasses stall is doing a roaring trade.
"Hey," Jaret drawls in his soft Texan accent as he prepares to take to the stage. "D'you wanna take part in our pre-show ritual? We all slaughter some chickens and hit each other on the head with hammers."
Um, no thanks.
Todays show might well be Bowling For Soups take-off point in Ottawa - its flawless.
They'd already been recognised as they wandered around the venue, and the reaction to their set, just before a hideous local band called Mudmen - enormous, tree-trunk-legged Canadians combining bagpipes with punk rock in a higly unnatractive manner - is more than a little enthusiastic. Someone throws an empty bottle at Erik, who catches it effortlessly and throws it back without missing a note. Jaret peppers "Suckerpunch" with quotes from "South Park", and even the only goth in the crowd finds herself smiling under her back lipstick and velvet cape. Meanwhile, a group of tiny boys try to hoist their tinier friend up over their heads to crowd surf, but they're not tall enough and end up amusingly dropping their dazed mate on his head. By the time BFS get round to punking up Bryan Adams' "Summer of 69" - Jaret sporting an attractive blue bra that somehow found its way to the stage - the audience is all theirs.
Of cours, as more and more people catch onto Bowling For Soup, they're likely to be given the same grief as Blink 182 and their Canuk friends Sum 41. That is the great "are they punk or not" debate.
"We used to think we were a punk rock band, " Jaret says as he settles down for a post-gig can of canadian beer that tastes like its probably made by following a moose around with a large bucket, while Chris goes in search of tacos. "And then we played a punk rock festival in Dallas, and a bunch of guys with mohawks started lighting paper airplanes on fire and throwing them at us. At that point we didnt want to be punk rock anymore."
"Those people are just pissed off because they arent making anymore money," Chris Agrees on his return. "When does a musician go to somebodys job and go, 'You're a sellout because your working at McDonalds'. Its all just a bunch of crap. What was that person whos talking shit doing when that band was sleeping on floors or sleeping at rest areas, or not even sleeping at all because they had to drive 10 hours to another town? We all do this because we want people to hear our songs, and we want to play in front of people who appreciate what we do."
Bowling For Soup take making people smile very seriously indeed. But theres a lot more to them that simply getting their arses out onad making jokes about underage girls.
Chris (born Christopher Burney) who is shy, quiet and intelligent offstage, has a degree in social work and physical education ("He majored in kickball, hopscotch and dodgeball" Jaret jokes). It was once his dream to play pro-baseball, and he's happy to be playing in a beaseball stadium today. Erik (born Erik Chandler) has a young daughter, and the thing hes most excited about now is that she just won her first soccer match. And Jaret (real surname Reddick), also a university graduate in marketing and psychology, co- and tour-manages BFS, manages another Dallas rock band Valve, and is currently looking forward to the birth of his first child.
"For a bunch of Fuck-ups, were pretty responsible dudes!" he smiles. "If people listen to the songs they'll know that we have a serious and sensitive side. Just because we take our pants off onstage doesnt mean were not serious. Obviously, I am not the most serious musician. I actually dont even know how to play the guitar. I honestly dont! Were playing music because we love it and were doing the kind of show we do because we think its fun. And from the smiles on their faces I think most people think its fun too!"
Unsurprisingly, Bowling For Soup cant be bothered with musicians who take themselves too seriously.
"They wind themselves up so tight, they just become a big asshole," says Chris.
"And then all of their fans are uptight and all of a sudden you've got kids that are pissed off with their parents for no fuckin reason," Jaret butts in. "Theres some fucked up parents out there, but you know what? Lets just play the cards were dealt and go out there and do our shit. Live your life, have fun. Thats whats really troubling about certain forms of music and the impact it has on kids. You have a group of 16 year old kids that are running around sad for no fuckin reason. Its like, mand, thats pretty much the best time of your life. Unless you happen to be lucy enough to be in a rock band. Cos Im having a lot of fun! I think thats why were silly. If someone doesnt want to give us credit for being a real band then so be it, but that persons probably a lot more pissed off about a lot of shit, so fuck em."
Chris Van Malmsteen is a very happy man. Hes simultaniously watching three games of American football, and the "funbags" on the scantily clad staff of the local Hooters bar. He loves his home in Dallas ("Disneyland for adults. You've got the best lookin chicks, the coldest beer, the coolest real chilled lifestyle. Its just a fuckin great place"). His best friends are on tour with him, and the crowds are getting bigger everytime they go back to a town, and you never know, one day they might even be able to afford a hotel bed each. And he's also safe in the knowledge that if fame really does decide to beckon, they're not going to change one little bit.
"We have pleanty of people around us to say, 'Hey look asshole, who the fuck do you think you are?'," He smiles with one eye on a nearby waitress sporting a pair of unfeasibly small nylon shorts.
"Whats funny to me is people who get all famous and then all of a sudden they dont want it anymore," Jaret says as Chris' attention wanders irretreiveably off. "You get into this knowing that if you get successful everybodys going to want to know who the fuck you are, I honestly dont like personal questions about my life, but I understand that there may be a few kids out there that wanna know what Im up to when I'm not playing in a band. Because I researched fucking Sebastian Bach, and I knew everything that guy was doing. When the first Skid Row record came out I knew that guys birthday, I knew where he spent Christmas, what kind of toilet paper he used, everything. Because those kids are wearing your shirt, singing your songs, buying your records. We know that we owe every kid something."
"I'm not necessarily going to publish my penis size," Erik says, apropose of very little.
"Oh, I already did that," says Gary. "You didnt want me to?"
"There are certain things that or off limits," Jaret continues. "Like that Erik has a four-inch penis. But were not going to reveal that in this interview."
The future is looking rosy for Bowling For Soup. A new single, a career boosting sold-out tour, a new baby, and a job that they can do with a can of beer in their hands. They've got ambitions to make a movie, with , apparently, Brad Pitt as Jaret ("But without the breard, were going to shave him down"), Danny De Vito as Erik, Tom Arnold as Gary ("I thnk Bruce Willis would be good as me"), and butterbean the boxer as Chris if they dont play themselves. Hmmmm. But if it all goes wrong, theres always the back-up plan.
"All of our dreams have already come true," says Jaret contentedly. "Everything's gravy right now. We never thought we'd have a sold-out tour in our own country, let alone the UK. So now, as cliched as it is, we are sitting back and trying to enjoy every single minute of it. And we're going to keep doing it as long as the kids dig what were doing. And when they stop, thats when we get a job in a hotel doing Barry Manilow covers."