Not Belly Itchers

The '90s were pretty heady times for the Brisbane music scene. As a city consistently diverse in its art and culture, the town affectionately known as BrisVegas has always punched above its weight. It seemed though, that the combination of the nationalisation of triple j and some sort of blissful post-Nevermind hangover resulted in a rock renaissance in the '90s. Bands popped up everywhere. Important bands too – like Powderfinger, Screamfeeder, Regurgitator and, most importantly for this particular yarn, Custard. In fact, it's not too much of a stretch to suggest that current Brisbane pop darlings Ball Park Music would be a severely different band without the foundations laid by the men behind classics such as Girls Like That, Music Is Crap and Anatomically Correct. All of these things came full circle about 18 months ago when, at a triple j-organised event at Brisbane venue The Hi-Fi, where Custard's lead singer Dave McCormack joined Ball Park Music for a rousing version of Custard staple Apartment. McCormack didn't actually physically pass a baton to lead singer Sam Cromack, but he may as well have. Australia has always needed thinking-man's pop bands and, going all the way back to The Go-Betweens, Brisbane has always had a knack for producing them. With the release of their second album Museum, it seems clear that in Ball Park Music, we finally have a new cab off that rank.

Rising to prominence just last year with the release of their debut record Happiness And Surrounding Suburbs, Cromack and co. have never made any secrets of their ambitions. They've toured relentlessly, managing to push themselves to the point at which their latest tour is selling out on just about every stop. The tour itself is to promote the aforementioned Museum, a record that has been delivered barely a year since their debut. According to guitarist Dean Hanson, the key to following up so quickly was to approach the record as a challenge, not a chore.

“I think it was always our intention to follow it up quickly,” he explains down the line from a tour bus somewhere between Sydney and Melbourne. “There's no point holding back. It seems to be a bit of a trend in the Australian local scene where you put out an album and you have a minimum of 18 months to two years before there's any new music. We just thought, 'If you've got the music there and you're happy with it and you want to share it with people then why not?' We looked at bands like The Beatles – I think they did 13 albums in nine years or something. We thought to ourselves, 'What's the point of not doing it? Let's buck the trend a bit.'”

Buck the trend they have, but surely the trend is there for a reason. The musical landscape has changed a lot since the late-1960s and there are only a select few artists these days (we're looking at you Ryan Adams) who can get away with trying to keep up with a Beatles-esque release schedule. So what makes Ball Park Music so special, and how exactly did they get it done so quickly?

“For lack of a better word we were pretty cocky about the whole thing,” Hanson laughs. “I'd be lying if I said that they weren't apprehensive about it, but we've kind of always been that band that likes to push the boundaries with stuff and take a few risks. We've done that a few times in the past and never really failed so we were confident. We just said to our label, 'We really want to do this' and they came back and said, 'If you don't have the finished album by a certain date, it won't happen'. So we booked 15 days in the studio and said to ourselves, 'If we finish the album in 15 days, it'll come out this year – otherwise it won't be out until January or February next year.' Then we just went in there and did it – and it was awesome. It sounds to us like a thoughtful record. We got exactly the result we desired on every song and we're extremely proud of it. I think we surprised ourselves a little bit with how quickly we were able to turn it around.”

It is an impressive feat to follow up a well loved record like Happiness And Surrounding Suburbs so quickly – especially since Museum is another brilliantly consistent collection of distinctive, mind-bending pop rock. It is curious though, to listen to Cromack's lyrics throughout Museum. As one of our quirkiest lyricists around, the wiry frontman has no problem laying himself bare for his listeners, so it's hard not to notice a slight disaffected tone running through the album. On tracks like Cry With One Eye, he admits that Ball Park Music are simply trying to be “a legitimate source of excitement and a sponge to how you all feel”. He doesn't exactly sound fed up, but he certainly seems to be speaking for a band who are acutely aware of the fact that these days the idea of success in the music industry is increasingly unquantifiable. It seems that for Ball Park Music, staying afloat is directly related to how much work you're willing to put in. “Yeah, I recall sitting down at one point and saying, 'Alright, who wants to try to do this for the next ten years – if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen; but if it does, are we prepared?'” Hanson confirms. “We all just kind of said, 'Yeah, let's do it'. When you first start out, you all have to commit to the life of travelling around and being away. Obviously we all have partners and friends and family and it's definitely tough to be away every second weekend for five days at a time while your partner is at home on their own. That's just part and parcel with the job though – it's worth it.”

The saying that seems most relevant here is 'make hay while the sun shines' – but even that is a bit of a red herring. It really is hard to imagine a time when the sun won't be shining for Ball Park Music. Undoubtedly one of Australia's most in-demand bands at the present time – the sheer quality of a record like Museum coupled with an obsessive work ethic should hold them in good stead for some time to come. Years in the tour bus? No worries. Show after show after show? Bring it on. According to Hanson, time is very much still on their side.

“Well, the eldest in the band is 24, so we might as well just smash it now while we're young,” he smiles. “I don't think we ever sat down and thought to ourselves that it wasn't going to happen, you know? The attitude the whole time has been that we can do this because it's what we do.”

PLAYING THE FIELD

The sporting affiliations of Ball Park Music as band moniker got Bryget Chrisfield wondering how many others are out there, further afield.

The Sports: This Stephen Cummings-led outfit formed in 1976 and cracked the Billboard Top 50 Pop Singles chart in 1979 when they posed the question Who Listens To The Radio? It's a cracking track with a message that's become more pertinent over time.

Gym Class Heroes: So the story goes that Travie McCoy met drummer Matt McGinley during their high school gym class. Billionaire (feat Bruno Mars) was their biggest hit here, but McCoy is probably more famous for having dated Katy Perry pre-Russell Brand. Her Circle The Drain song is supposedly about the weird-looking singer/rapper's drug dependency issue. 

The Strokes: Oh, come on! It's swimming related: breaststroke, sidestroke, backstroke et al.
Dick Diver: This Melbourne foursome comprise guitarists Alastair McKay and Rupert Edwards, bassist Al Montfort (UV Race, Total Control) and drummer/former Home And Hosed presenter Steph Hughes (Boomgates). This moniker may sound dirty, but readers with extensive libraries will be able to tell you that Dr Richard “Dick” Diver is a character from F Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night.     

Baseball: Another Melbourne quartet to incorporate the name of a sport into their band name are Baseball. A violin-wielding frontman is always gonna make you stand out, but if you threw a baseball at Cameron Potts while he was fiddling away, we're not sure how handy he'd be batting it away.

Five For Fighting: American singer-songwriter John Ondrasik's stage name. Yeah, you do. Remember Superman (It's Not Easy)? It goes, “I'm more than a bird/I'm more than a plane… And it's not easy/To be/Me.” Very piano-based material that's thought provoking and melancholy.

Tenniscoats: A Japanese duo. One half of Tenniscoats, Saya, collaborated with Deerhoof's Satomi for the one-off project called OneOne. There ya go.

Bowling For Soup: We didn't know who these guys were either until the idea cropped up for this sidebar, but they're 12 albums in and (sadly) show no signs of slowing down! Bowling For Soup are a pretty hideous US pop-punk band who believe that singing with the heaviest American accent possible sounds cool. You might remember their cover of that 1985 song by SR-71, which uses a retro reference in virtually every line and is basically a vehicle for the band members to dress up like tools imitating '80s bands in the video. At least they're having fun.

The Crickets: Buddy Holly's band.

Ball Park Music will be playing the following shows:

Friday 16 November - Prince Of Wales, Bunbury WA
Saturday 17 November - Capitol, Perth WA
Tuesday 20 November - The Gov, Adelaide SA
Thursday 22 November - Bended Elbow, Geelong VIC
Friday 23 November - The Palace, Melbourne VIC
Saturday 24 November - Foreshore Festival, Canberra ACT
Saturday 1 December - Kuranda Ampitheatre, Cairns QLD
Saturday 29 December - Ding Dong Lounge, Melbourne VIC