Bowling for Soup Release New Covers Album Don't Mind If We Do! Boasting Cover of Patent Pending's "Hey Mario" & 8bit Animated Music Video (Brando/Que-So Records)
"We are so sad to announce that Chris Burney, founding member of Bowling for Soup, will be leaving the band and will be joining long-time friends Simple Plan as touring bass player. "I really like Canadians, I always have, and bass has less strings... I'm not getting any younger, so I am excited to have an easier job," Chris Burney. "We will miss him so much. We almost made it to 30 years. I certainly wish he and the Simple Plan guys well," Jaret Reddick. It is unclear whether we will replace Chris or carry on as a three-piece. Thank for you understanding," Bowling for Soup (B.F.S.) posted across their social media pages over the weekend. Thankfully, it ended up being... an April Fools' Day prank! B.F.S.' next major band update was a bit more optimistic and plentiful, reading: Surprise! Releases TOMORROW! We put a bunch of the covers we've done in the last few years on a digital album and added a nice dose of awesome!!!"
B.F.S. were announcing Don't Mind If We Do!, which dropped the following day on Que-So/Brando Records. It showcases 10 tracks recorded from 2006-23 originally recorded by Kid Cudi, Social Distortion, Blue October, The Suicide Machines, The Eagles, Hanson, The Bellamy Brothers, and Eddie Money. Additionally, Don't Mind If We Do includes two of B.F.S.' latest charasmatic covers, Miley Cyrus' "Flowers" and a previously unreleased rendition of Patent Pending's "Hey Mario." So, that's, actually, guitarist Rob Felicetti's former band, Patent Pending, of which he was a member from 2010-21 and a member of both Patent Pending/Bowling for Soup from roughly 2017-21.
Patent Pending did quite the digital push behind "Hey Mario" from about 2013-15 originally appearing on their 2013 full-length, Brighter, an EP dubbed Mario & The Brick Breakers: Greatest Hits later in 2014, and finally, on the Japanese edition of their 2015 EP, Armageddon. "Hey Mario" spawned two separate music videos, one from 2013 that features footage culled from various Mario franchise video games and is essentially, a lyric video and second, dubbed "Hey Mario" (Official Music Video) from 2014 that was a live-action scripted clip. The latter featured Patent Pending's Corey DeVincenzo, Rob Felicetti, Marc Kantor, Anthony Mingoia, and Joe Ragosta in-character as Mario & The Brick Breakers with appearances from Mario, Luigi, Wario, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Bowser, Donkey Kong, Felicetti as Chet "Toad" Diggington, and more familiar characters.
Patent Pending even released an extremely creative and hilarious 28-minute documentary titled Patent Pending Presents: Mario & The Brick Breakers Hey Mario Movie and toured in-character as Mario & The Brick Breakers in late 2014. Prior to "poaching" Felicetti, it appears as though Patent Pending & Bowling for Soup toured together quite extensively during the mid-late 2010's. B.F.S. frontman Jaret Reddick's production company, Built By Ninjas, produced the music video for "Douchebag" from Patent Pending's 2011 sophomore album, Second Family, and Reddick contibuted guest vocals to "Classic You" from Bright two years later. Brando Records even released a 2012 compilation album entitled Bowling for Soup Presents: One Big Happy! featuring contributions from B.F.S., The Dollyrots, Patent Pending, and Jaret Reddick & Kelly Ogden.
While Felicetti was still an active member of the band, Patent Pending released their own collection of covers, fittingly titled Other People's Greatest Hits in 2017. It showcases Pop-punk/Rock covers of popular hits from the likes of Tiësto/Avicii, The Spice Girls, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, Rick Astley, Little Mix, Ricky Martin, Jon Bellion, The Killers, Ed Sheeran, and Miley Cyrus. Bowling for Soup's rendition of "Hey Mario" is fairly close to the original with an almost identical musical backing with Reddick only making minor alterations to Patent Pending's original lyrics. B.F.S. even went as far as to make their own 8bit pixel animation for "Hey Mario," which boasts appearances from Reddick, Burney, Wiseman & Felicetti themselves, along with Mario, Princess Peach, some Goombas, Lakitu, Mario Kart Racers, red, green, purple, and Spiny Koopa Troopa shells, Donkey Kong, and plenty of "next level" hijinx. Bowling for Soup's Don't Mind If We Do! is now out digitally on Que-So/Brando Records. And, "coincidentally," the new Super Mario Bros. Movie starring Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, and Seth Rogen is in theatres nation-wide today.
