Bouncing Souls

by Jeff Jolley

Bouncing Souls totally rip up the stage. Check out their 7" release "The Argyle EP" on Chunksaah Records, POB 974, New Brunswick, NJ 08903. Rational Alternative recommends up-and-coming punk bands talk to the guys at Chunksaah.

RAD: So, what's some of the history of Bouncing Souls?
B_Souls: Bouncing Souls grew up together. Pete and Sal, the drummer and the guitarist, first played together when they were in 7th grade, and we went to high school together and jammed like cover tunes, you know like cover bands, and we sat around and drank beer in Brian's basement and played and we all kinda went our different ways for awhile and then got back together in like '88 or '89, I guess, and we came to Bouncing Souls but we played a lot of different music, we played totally different styles, we didn't know what we were doing, we were learning. We decided all to move in together in a house in New Brunswick, NJ.
RAD: Did that help?
B_Souls: I don't know if you can say it helped in a positive way. Things got crazy, like, in the end it was positive. We learned a lot, learned like how to live, how to live with people, we had like 10 people living in a house, parties all the time, how to deal you know, like, you know, it was crazy kinda like when you try to have a house, and have like shows you know in the backyard, and we tried to do it consistently, it went well but a lot of shit happens along the way, like too many people cause problems and personal problems between us that we had to deal with which everyone had to deal with and that was the big stuff which hit our band in the head. So, it's good, it's better, it's good that we dealt with it, but I wouldn't say it was positive all the way through, it was pretty rough road, you know.
RAD: What motivates you to stay through it?
B_Souls: I don't know. I don't know what the hell. There's some weird thing, like, there are times when I don't know why, I think about things that happened, and I don't know why I just didn't believe that they're psychic now, you know what I mean, like some shit that we all did a million times certain things but now I know it's worth it, you know, totally worth it because us being together for so long made us. It wasn't how well we played or how much we learned or how cool we are together as people but I think about that and oh man how am I ever going to deal with like, it's so hard you know what I mean to maintain this relationship....