Pete Freedman
On Being The Voice Of Chuck E. Cheese, Why More Bands Should Record Covers And Why He’s Removing Troy Aikman References From His Lyrics.
On Tuesday night, we here at Central Track kicked off a new Instagram Live interview series we’ll be running throughout the duration of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic — or, who knows, maybe even longer — in which we catch up with various North Texans of note.
The hope is that they come off something like fireside chats — informal discussions about how these luminaries are dealing with the difficulties of the times, what they’ve been up to during all this and, well, pretty much anything else pertinent that comes up along the way.
Helping us set this tone in our premiere episode was Bowling for Soup frontman Jaret Reddick.
Over the course of our 50-minute chat with the pop-punk hero, we discussed a variety of topics. Along with how his band has been affected by the pandemic, why he thinks more bands should release cover songs and other ins-and-outs he’s learned about the music industry along the way, he also shared with us some insights into his work as the voice of Chuck E. Cheese, some memories of his late friends Adam Schlesinger and Tony Edwards, and how he’s personally dealing with the mental health hurdles brought up by the pandemic’s shelter-in-place orders.
Oh, and he also breaks some news about why he’s removing a Troy Aikman lyric from “Ohio (Come Back To Texas)” — and who is getting swapped into his old place moving forward.
Check the whole thing about below, and join us on Instagram Live on various weeknights moving forward for more talks like these — including interviews with Jalen Brunson of the Dallas Mavericks tonight at 8 p.m. and with Chris Sapphire of the Netflix reality competition The Circle at 8 p.m. tomorrow.