Can always rely on a Ball Park release to lift the spirits…
The sense of connection a good festival crowd emanates is like none other, bringing music fans from all walks of life together to revel in the joy of their favourite artists. It’s a borderline religious experience, and although it’s been a minute since we all got to enjoy those beautiful moments together, no amount of time off will be able to erase them from our memories. Brisbane’s Ball Park Music know the feeling all too well, uniting their fans in the fire of love and live music for over a decade now, and they’ve never lost the magic. They’ve only built upon it with their signature authenticity, and we’re convinced that when we get back to the festivals of old, a Ball Park set is gonna be mandatory viewing for to ease our souls. Luckily for us, that could happen sooner rather than later, especially with some kick-ass new music just begging to be witnessed live.
Their latest self-titled album Ball Park Music sees the Brisbane-based five piece amalgamate all of their past works into one, coming through with a treasure trove of hits that perfectly ends one chapter while beginning another. From soul healers like ‘Cherub’ and ‘Turning Zero’ to rowdy head bangers like ‘Head Like A Sieve’ and ‘I Feel Nothing’, the group prove they aren’t afraid to experiment and push the bounds of their compositional prowess, and that most importantly, that they trust their fans to get it, to completely understand and appreciate the Ball Park vision.
We caught up with lead singer Sam to get deep on the album, suss how they’ve been holding up in 2020 and get the secret sauce about why their live shows are so damn special.
Check it below.
You guys are considered one of the most wholesome and happy bands in the country. Have you been able to keep up that happiness throughout the craziness of this year?
I guess we always try. I feel like trying is our motto in a way [laughs]. Just to always keep trying, as cheesy as that sounds [laughs]. It’s funny though, a lot of people call us “wholesome”, or “happy”, but I feel like our goal has more been not to be that, but to just not shy away from anything that we feel, including when we feel blue! Just to embrace that too and share that. And just to have that whole kind of emotional spectrum there in the music too… I guess that’s what ends up making it feel real. I hope people listen and feel that every feeling is there, and that it’s truthful because of that. That’s sort of the goal.
Now I want to say congratulations on the new album! It really feels like this is the culmination of a lot of growth and catharsis, while closing one chapter and beginning another. Is that accurate?
It feels so awesome to hear you say that. Yeah, I feel like everything you said then just puts a massive smile on my face [laughs]. I’ll be stoked if everyone can perceive it the same way.
I definitely agree in that it feels like a combination of all our records. We learnt new things and explored them on each one, and if feels like they’re all sort of condensed into one here. And yeah, I also felt that there’s some hints of where we could go in the future too, as we get older and whatever, whatever the fuck happens to people who are getting old and play music [laughs].
Just curious, has there been a defining moment for you during the craziness of this year?
Oh man, let me think… It feels like a whole year of defining moments. I wanna try and pick some moments where like you properly understood that we’re in a pandemic, because that shit was real [laughs]. But it’s hard to pin-point exactly when that happened. It’s like everything was just slowly eased into accepting like, “Oh shit, things have really changed.” I think at some point we all realized that the coming year would be so different, in terms of touring especially. That was definitely a pretty scary time, like when you remember that we’re a business, it’s like, “Oh fuck, there’s no money coming in. How will we survive?” kind of thing. But in many ways, I’m so happy that we’ve been working towards an album this year, because it’s kind of kept us and our team really pepped up, and it’s sort of buoyed us along. It’s been the exact thing we needed, like a goal to stay focused on.
We’re just trying to ride it out and do the best we can. And yeah, if we were like off-cycle with no music in the works, I think that would’ve been a way more depressing year, but to be putting music out and like especially our last single ‘Cherub’. It was pretty well received and that’s felt amazing you know. It feels really special to be able to offer music this year, and to have it received so warmly.
Just to dip into the album structurally, it definitely feels you guys are going for a more rocky and punchy sound on the first half, but then the ‘Kat Kit’ interlude sort of bridges it back to that classic, more softer Ball Park sound your fans are used to. Am I accurate there?
Absolutely, yeah. That’s been mentioned in a couple of interviews. I’m so pleased that people are perceiving it that way, which is exactly what we intended, to really have two distinct halves. We thought that people needed a break in the middle, that’s why we did a song called ‘KatKit’.
And yeah, and that second half is meant to be a bit more chill. And we wanted to make it feel very distinctly like there were two halves, like really make it more obvious than anything we might’ve done in the past. We almost wanted it to feel like two distinct pieces, so depending on what mood you’re in, like maybe you would start at ‘Cherub’, and just listen to Side B. Or if you’re feeling energetic maybe you’ll listen to the first half more. But yeah, I’m so happy that people are feeling like it is in two halves.
There’s a song on the first half called ‘Nothing Ever Goes My Way’. I think when us fans see bands tour and play festivals we assume they have pretty perfect lives. Being on the other side of that dynamic, can you sort of enlighten us a bit on the realities of being in a band?
That song is actually the one song in the record written primarily by Dean our guitarist, and I just helped him finish off some of the lyrics and stuff. I’m not sure exactly what the original inspiration was for him, in terms of the hook being ‘Nothing Ever Goes My Way,’ In his original version that wasn’t as prominent. He had another line which I think we ended up scrapping from the song completely. That line was like ‘Waiting in the Street’, and we had a version with that, and then I kept saying to him “Dude, I feel like prior to you mentioning the title, I would’ve assume that it would’ve been called ‘Nothing Ever Goes My Way’, like that’s the line that really stood out to me.” And I was like “I feel like we should make this song… we should lean in to that lyric, and celebrate it and just go hard with the idea that everybody has moments in their lives where they just feel like ‘Fuuuuck, I can’t catch a break’’ kinda thing.
I think he let some of his own personal experiences with his loved ones and family influence the writing of that song as well. And I was like, “Let’s just run with it.” You know, kinda like how you mentioned people assume things about other people’s lifestyles, which is totally fair.
But yeah, you really never know what anybody is going through, and I just thought everybody has days, or has moments where you just feel like “I can’t catch a break, nothing is going my way.” That song used to actually be a bit mellow, and I was like, “Let’s ramp it up, like let’s fucking yell that chorus lyric, and just go hard with it.”
Even though it’s been a little while since you released ‘Cherub,’ it’s still one of my favourites on the record and from your whole discography. It’s got this beautiful ‘Here Comes The Sun’ quality to it. Can you take me back to when that tune was recorded?
We were probably like halfway through making the album, and I had this song which I hadn’t shared with the band yet, and I actually went to the studio by myself to make a little demo of it. It was sort of soft and foggy, and I genuinely didn’t know if it would be a song for the band. I kinda just recorded it more for myself. I even thought it could be for a solo project down the line. So, it’s special when you record something and your thinking isn’t polluted by thoughts like “Ah, I gotta make this for the band.” Like I was just really enjoying the moment while making that song, and most of that recoding is still there. Like it’s the basis for that recording. All the vocals, acoustic guitar and stuff from that recording is what’s in the finished version.
But it didn’t have the big outro on the demo, and when I showed the band the song they were like “Fuck we love this, this is mega.” And Daniel, our drummer was like, “I can picture this explosive outro on the end of this song.” And then he was referencing songs like ‘Blood,’ by the Middle East, it’s kind of growing and growing and then there’s the final pay off.
And we were like, “Yeah that’s so good.” So yeah, we recorded that massive outro and tucked it on the end. And then there was sort of… it was almost like a scrapbook collage. Like it had my little demo which was super soft and whimsical, and then in a completely different recording session we just recorded that massive outro, and I sort of had to stitch them together on the computer. And when we got it mixed too, we told the mix engineer like, “Just go fucking hard with the end. Make it sound like the shit’s gonna blow up.”
You’ve said this record feels different and feels the most you. Do you reckon all of your albums since ‘Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs’ have all had a sort of piece of you guys, but this one has the full picture?
Yeah it’s hard to say. I guess a lot of stuff we say is all based on a feeling, and absolutely like when I hear the old records it’s such a good walk down memory lane. And I feel like with the benefit of hindsight I could see where we were at, what we were thinking and what we were all learning on each album. It definitely feels like with this new one we’re able to just roll everything we’ve learnt into one. And I can never fully say what contributes to things happening the way they do, but when someone said we should change title, and self-title it, we just felt like that was a really loose call, given that we’d already announced a title and stuff [laughs].
I think we were all feeling a bit Kanye West, just like, “Fuck it, let’s just change plans, and it could be part of the whole story.” But it just felt so right when someone suggested it, and we’ve joked on every album, being like “Oh, should we self-title this one?” And it never felt right, and this time it just did. And I think that happened almost the exact same time that ‘It’s Nice to Be Alive’ got in the Triple J Hottest 100 of the decade they did earlier in the year.
And then we had a party that weekend, we were all together then we got to hear that come in. And that was just a big moment for us, and it really felt like the book ins to the first ten years, it was sort of like the end of a chapter. That was literally the weekend the world kinda went to shit too [laughs] and the lockdown started, and everything just felt like we were starting a new chapter. And yeah, we were just kicking around ideas and everyone was like, “Fuck it, let’s do it. Self-title it” That’s like… I feel in our minds it’s gonna help us launch into the next decade of music with more confidence, with some new ideas.
Whenever I’ve seen you live there’s a real sense of communion and family in the crowd. Do you guys feel that on your end?
I think we feel that. I think we’re probably slow to realize how good the feeling is at the gigs. We’ve just been doing it for so long and sort of just chipping away at our craft and it can often be surprising how slow people can be to come to understanding things the way a crowd understands.
I actually listened back to the Live At the Wireless recording that we just put on Spotify. I could barely bring myself to listen to that recording when it was made because I’d been battling a horrible chest infection. But yeah, listening back again with the benefit of hindsight, my singing wasn’t half as bad as I felt like it was in my mind. I think that psychologically I was in a bad place while having to do those shows. It was really agonizing, and I was really stressed about it. But yeah, to listen back after all this time and to hear the audience, and the spirit in the gig house was like, “Holy fuck, this is cool.” I felt like I was actually at the show. I just got a different perspective all of a sudden. So yeah, we’re super grateful that people feel like that at our shows.
How do you reckon that’ll translate to a more intimate setting with your upcoming Triffid shows?
We’re not worried at all about losing any of that because of the restrictions. We’re actually feeling really excited about the shows, just to be based in one venue. We’re doing like 13 shows in a whole week, and we’ve already started rehearsals.
We’re also gonna do a different set list every show and play way more material than we normally would. We’re gonna move a lot of stuff from our studio to the stage as well, to try and make it feel even more like home. Kinda like we’re just hanging out around the studio. I think it’s gonna be sick. I’m actually so excited for the shows, and rehearsals so far have been the best rehearsals we’ve ever done. I can’t fucking wait to be honest [laughs]
Lastly, do you have any advice to all of your fans feeling a bit lost without festivals and the live shows of old at the moment?
You’ve put me on the spot here [laughs]. But I would definitely just encourage people to hang in there and to give yourself a pat on the back for hanging in, in such a tough yeah. Especially young people with like, going out and being with other people, and enjoying music in particular, which is one of the pillars of being in your 20s.
So a lot of people have had to go without that. And it really sucks but yeah, just hang in there. And I think when we return, I’m hoping the sense of love and community and togetherness will be even stronger than ever before. People have been forced to reflect a fair bit this year and I think when we’re back together in big groups we’ll possibly be even more present and more grateful than we ever were in the past. I mean it was already really good, but I think it could be even fucking better.
It’s gonna be a borderline religious experience [laughs]. Just to get on stage and perform music again. Yeah.
Ball Park Music’s latest album is out now. You can buy/ stream it here.
