On Ball Park Music's Facebook page, they list a very intriguing “band interest”: “yelling at farm animals.” Would Sam Cromack, the bespectacled singer/guitarist who fronts this Brisbane indie-pop band, care to elaborate? “It's a bit of a hobby when you're on the road and travelling between regional areas through the countryside,” he explains. “You just have to yell at the farm animals and try to get their attention. You yell from the car and go like, 'HEY!' and see if they'll all look at you. It's quite amusing… But I don't think horses like it very much. They get a bit scared. They kind of shake their big head around and go for a bit of a run.”

Cromack's band has certainly had a dream run: Ball Park Music formed in 2008 while its members were all studying music at university and recently performed to an overflowing Supertop tent during their Sunday afternoon slot at Splendour In The Grass. On whether that would've been the biggest crowd they've played in front of to date, Cromack considers, “I have a feeling that it probably was. It's unreal! We got some photos from up on stage – I think our guitarist Dean [Hanson] took some photos on his phone. I'm sure many musicians can confirm that, when you're up there, it all goes past so quickly. It's such a blur, performing, and it doesn't really always sink in – at least not for me, when I'm thinking of so many things. But when you come off stage and you see those photos, you kind of just look at them and think, 'Oh my god, did that really happen to me?'.”

That's one impressive career trajectory, but Sam Cromack still “very much can” remember the first time he heard one of Ball Park Music's songs on the radio. “I think maybe we had some play on local radio, and that's exciting, but, you know, in Australia most musicians are, like, hanging out to hear their song on triple j: It's a pretty exciting milestone for any Australian musician. I was taking a shower one night in – oh, it must've been 2009 or '10. I had my phone in the bathroom, conveniently, and I don't normally have it in the bathroom with me. So it kept ringing while I was in the shower and I just ignored it, because that's what I usually do, and it just kept ringing and ringing and all these texts were coming through. And I was like, you know, 'Oh, something must be happening.' So I checked it and my friends were all trying to tell me that they were playing one of our songs on triple j. I remember, like, running out of the shower in my towel and getting my housemate to try and help me to get some sort of radio device on and, yeah! I caught the end of the original recording of All I Want Is You on the radio, and it was so exciting. It was a really nice moment. We were just kind of staring at each other with a big grin.

“[Airplay]'s a weird thing. Like, you've already heard that recording a whole bunch of times: it's the same old thing, but, I dunno, there's some sort of magic about hearing it on this radio station that you know is broadcasting to hundreds of thousands of people around the nation. And then all of a sudden someone back-announces. Yeah, it's special.”

The quintet certainly doesn't suffer from writer's block. Ball Park Music's second album Museum dropped just over a year after their debut set, Happiness And Surrounding Suburbs. They've also been touring their heads off, so must have nailed songwriting while on tour. “Um, yeah,” Cromack hesitates. “I mean, I don't like sitting around going, 'I'm really good at this,' but, I dunno, it's just always come really naturally to me. So it's funny, because lots of people ask this and say, you know, 'Why do you write so much?' or, 'How do you find the time to write so much?' But, it's weird, I kinda feel it's like asking a doctor, like, 'Oh, why do you help people get better all the time?' I feel like it's kind of my job and it's always just come [naturally] to me. I don't even really have to force songs. I'm a fidgety person who's always got lots of ideas on the go. Before our set, and even after our set, last night I was sitting at the piano in our dressing room and kind of working on new stuff, and I really don't need to be doing that at the moment 'cause we've got a new record out. So I shouldn't even have to worry about writing, but I always have. I just – I like it or something.

“There are times when you do feel like you're – not necessarily that you're forcing songs, but you're forcing yourself to work. The industry does involve a lot of hard work and sometimes you'll be working on this one song for ages and you need to get it prepared in time to record it or tour it and that's when you kinda feel like you're really pushing yourself to work. That sometimes is not that enjoyable, so I feel like if songs are coming really naturally to you at one point in time, like, just run with it, you know? If an idea comes, you sort of oughtta be grateful and just grab an instrument and start nutting it out.”

This process sounds similar to how the band's latest single Surrender came about. “The verses and the choruses were both part of two separate songs that I had kicking around for a really long time,” the singer/guitarist shares. “And then when we were touring with Boy & Bear in, I think, November last year, I was mucking around on my guitar before a show in Perth and I, just on a whim, connected the two parts together, put them in the same key and was just mucking around, you know – kind of piecing it all together as I went along. And the twins [Dean and his drummer brother Daniel Hanson] were listening and they said, 'Holy shit is that your song? Please say it's your song.' And I was like, 'Yeah, well, it's my song. I just kind of made it up then.' And, yeah! Then we sort of learnt to put it together and it came out well.”

For said song, Cromack found the following lyrical inspiration while sleeping: “But lately I'm feeling down and in my nice dream I could see your blouse/It was bright yellow and it made my day.” Tell us more. “Oh, I actually had a dream about a certain celebrity. She came to me and she was wearing a yellow blouse, and I was in love with her in my dream. I woke up and um, yeah! That went in the song.” He chuckles uncomfortably. Too embarrassed to reveal the celebrity's identity? “I think so.” Oh, come on. “No, no, I can't do it. I don't even have a crush on her anymore.” What happened? Did she have an ugly haircut?

“She's kind of always had an ugly haircut but – ugh, yeah, I've just lost interest [laughs].” She's dead to him. “Yeah, a little bit. I haven't really revealed who it is in any other interviews.” Well can't he make us feel special? “No, sorry. I've criticised her now. She might put the pieces together and hate me.”

Time to share a dream this scribe had about Jason Donovan in an attempt to coax a confession from Cromack. “I'm not sure if I know who that is. Who's Jason Donovan?”

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 poised 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 comprises 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 is Baseball. A violin-wielding frontman is always gonna make you stand out, but if you threw a baseball at Ben Butcher 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:

Wednesday 24 October - Uni Bar, Wollongong NSW
Friday 26 October - Uni Bar, Newcastle NSW
Saturday 27 October - Metro Theatre, Sydney NSW
Thursday 1 November - Spotted Cow, Toowoomba QLD
Friday 2 November - Andergrove Tavern, Mackay QLD
Saturday 3 November - The Tivoli, Brisbane QLD
Thursday 8 November - Coolangatta Hotel, Coolangatta QLD
Saturday 10 November - Great Northern Hotel, Byron Bay NSW
Sunday 11 November - Alhambra Lounge, Brisbane QLD
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