Pridebowl

PRIDEBOWL was created by Aaron Goulding (vocalist and writer from Newport Beach, California), Henrik, Stefan, Oskar and Martin who are all from Varberg, Sweden. The band took form by the end of September, 1994 and within a couple of months their demo tape, titled “Ambitious Ways” was completed. PRIDEBOWL’s vocalist Aaron left for home on December 29:th. Just before PRIDEBOWL split up many labels received a demo-tape. Lost & Found Records from Germany was soon to take interest and promised a seven-inch of the PRIDEBOWL demo and scattered exposure. This never happened though and Lost and Found had once again proved that they can never be trusted. Through Satanic Surfers (who Pridebowl had played with just before Christmas) a demo found its way to the Bad Taste headquarters where everyone was very impressed with this young quintet. In March Aaron was flown back to Sweden to start rehearsing and later on recording the first Pridebowl EP “Long-Distance” (btr 4). The sound of PRIDEBOWL can be said to be speedy, melodic punk-rock with serious, explosive lyrics and catchy rhythms. PRIDEBOWL simply means to roll with your pride, no matter what tries to bring you down. Basically, ”keep your chin up, the bad never lasts as long as the good” and ”value yourself or no one else will.” A number of compilations and surf/bodyboarding videos followed and in January –96 the band was back in the studio again. This time they recorded at Studio Underground (where Satanic Surfers and No Fun At All had previously recorded) and the 12 tracks were released as “Dripping of the Past” late February the same year. This was followed by a CD-single in March and a video of the title track, “The Soft Song” in May. The video was shot by Apollon Bild & Film who had previously made videos by Millencolin, Roxette and E-Type to name but a few. In June/July PRIDEBOWL played nine shows in California with bands like Strung Out, Good Riddance, Diesel Boy, Home Grown and Falling Sickness. In September/October they’re toured Sweden with Adhesive followed by Europe in February together with labelmates Intensity and Astream. Before leaving on this tour though they once again went to Västerås to record their second full length, “Where You Put Your Trust”, an album that still stands out as one of the best Swedish punk releases ever! The sales of the album quickly exceeded “Drippings…” and it was also licensed to Shock Records in Australia. In the last week of March the band embarked on the first (and only) Canadian tour. It was the third annual Sno Jam tour and Pridebowl played approx. a dozen amazing shows together with Snfu, Good Riddance, Satanic Surfers & Diesel Boy. People went crazy when Pridebowl played and Canada has ever since been one of Pridebowl’s strongest territories. During the remainder of the spring Pridebowl played a few shows in Sweden on their own or supporting bigger bands such as the Misfits for example. Late June they went out on a one week tour, playing three shows in France, a skate festival in Italy and a couple of shows in Belgium. Summer ended with them performing at a festival in Emmaboda. Henrik and Stefan quit the band shortly hereafter and Patrik and Mattias took their places. The first recording they did together was in September when six tracks where recorded at the studio in Varberg, Recordia. Three of these tracks ended up the Adhesive split “No Better, No Worse” released in November –97 and the other three are available on the final album “Yesterday’s End”. In October they went on a full European tour together with Turtlehead and this was immediately followed by a tour of Asia and Australia in Nov/Dec! The first show was in Hong Kong and the band went from here up to Beijing where another couple of shows were played. After touring China (as the first foreign punk band ever) and basically risking their lives considering the contents of their lyrics, they played four shows in Japan and then flew over to Australia for the last two weeks on this tour. In Australia they played with Frenzal Rhomb which is one of the biggest punk bands around attracting up to 5 thousand (people) at their shows!! Needless to say, Pridebowl played some incredible shows! They returned from Australia at the end of 1997 and when Aaron went to the US for a month in January, the other members more or less decided to put an end to the band. Things had gotten worse and worse between them during the different tours and they all felt (Aaron included) that they couldn’t go on anymore. Three final songs were recorded before Aaron went back to the U.S. for good and “Yesterday’s End” (containing mostly unreleased, but also some out of print material) was released late September this year and can be seen as the band’s farewell album to all their fans. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.