Pridebowl

Pridebowl was created by Aaron Goulding (vocalist and writer from Newport Beach, California), Henrik Nilsson, Stefan Glendell, Oskar Andersson and Martin Bodin 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. Just before Pridebowl split up many record labels received a copy of the 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.

Through Satanic Surfers (who Pridebowl had played with just before Christmas) a demo found its way to the Bad Taste Records 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 compilation albums, surfing, and bodyboarding videos followed and in January 1996 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 1996 Pridebowl played nine shows in California with bands like Strung Out, Good Riddance, Home Grown and Falling Sickness. In September/October they 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". The sales of the album quickly exceeded Drippings… and it was also licensed to Shock Records in Australia.

In the last week of March 1997 the band embarked on the first (and only) Canadian tour. It was the third annual Sno Jam tour and Pridebowl played approximately a dozen shows together with Snfu, Good Riddance, Satanic Surfers & Diesel Boy.

During the remainder of 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 Sundin and Mattias Jagborn 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 1997 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.

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 1998 and can be seen as the band's farewell album to all their fans.

Pridebowl reformed in California in 2003 with an all-American line-up, followed by a two-week tour of Eastern Canada. Aaron Goulding on vocals, Cory Waterhouse and Paul Peterson on guitars, Todd Daigle on bass, and Dan Achin playing drums. Later Paul was replaced by Wayne Carter, and Dan was replaced by Matt Reynolds. A six-song EP, titled Tired was recorded in June 2004 and released on Canada's Freedumb Records the following September. In August Pridebowl played at Augustibuller, a two-day punk rock festival in Lindesberg, Sweden.