Playing Fastball
Eight year gap between albums worth the wait
AFTER rising to prominence in 1996 with their debut disc Make Your Mama Proud, the Texasbased pop/rockers Fastball, exploded into a household name with the release of the 1998 breakthrough album All the Pain Money Can Buy.
“At first the success felt weird because it happened so fast,” says drummer Joey Shuffield.
“We were playing constantly, sometimes multiple shows per day, but the big game changer for me was when we pulled up at a festival in Atlanta in our little van and parked alongside the Foo Fighters’ bus. We couldn’t really see the audience from backstage, but when we walked to the stage, there were about 20,000 people out there ready to hear all the day’s music. All of a sudden I realised it was going to be way bigger than I ever thought it was going to be and it was a huge lifting of the veil.”
The album went platinum in a mere six months, sending the guys on a whirlwind tour of the world.
"There was Japan, Italy, Mexico, Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and it was all a blast," recalls co-vocalist/multiinstrumentalist/co-songwriter Tony Scalzo.
“We went to Peru with Mike Peters from The Alarm and Cy Curnin from The Fixx for a concert on a mountain top that was 20,000 feet high and played on Top of the Pops with Boy George and the reunited Culture Club. Afterwards he invited us to a bar where he was spinning records, and when we got there, we found Bjork, Liam Gallagher from Oasis and The Chemical Brothers hanging out - the whole thing you’d expect from a London night out in the rock ‘n’ roll world!”
That momentum continued into the next decade, starting with 2000’s The Harsh Light of Day, which spawned the infectious single You’re An Ocean.
“I will say from what I read on our message boards, The Harsh Light of Day is one of the fans’ favourite albums, even though I think artistically we’ve gotten a lot better with time,” observes co-vocalist, guitarist, co-songwriter Miles Zuniga.
“What’s really cool now is we’ll meet a 17 or 18-year-old kid who’ll say ‘do you realise you guys have a legacy?’ I never know how to answer that, but what I will say is we’ve gotten way better as songwriters. I now know how to tell a story in three minutes and how to really stick the knife in! Our records are just better with maturity, but we still know how to rock, so it’s all there.”
Come 2004’s Keep Your Wig On, which was produced by Spoon collaborator Mike McCarthy and Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger, Fastball hit a true stride. The album boasted influences as diverse as the British Invasion to the power pop and roots rock worlds, in turn, expanding upon its radio-ready identity for some of its most astute songwriting to date.
“There was a break between new Fastball albums when we were all working on other projects and some people might have assumed we broke up, but we were always playing shows in some format, whether they be full bands shows, acoustically or at conferences for songwriters,” explains Scalzo.
“There’s never been a time when Fastball’s broken up and every year on the road attests to the fact we’ve been playing regularly since back in day.”
By 2009, the trio turned in Little White Lies entirely on its own terms, which didn’t just earn the veterans the best reviews of their career, but also multiple appearances at the annual tastemakers’ haven South By Southwest.
“I think we’ve grown into a really good rock ‘n’ roll band that’s way better than we’ve ever been,” reinforces Zuniga. “I think of myself as a lifer, a journeyman, who really enjoys the whole process. We have an audience that’s stuck with us the whole time and playing shows never feels like work because it’s a ton of fun. We know people want to hear the hits and we definitely have those in there, but we try to play something off every record, have some improvisational moments without turning into a jam band, and half the time, I start calling out the set list as we go. It all depends on the night and the barometric pressure of the audience.”
“Our overall vibe depends on the room. If we’re playing a big festival, we like to rock out and make it as exciting as possible, but we’re also known to vibe a bit more if we’re in a smaller, more intimate setting. We always mix it up so things never get stale, plus these days we all communicate way better than before and there’s a greater musical depth as a group. Those are the things I really cherish and value after being in a band for 18 years,” adds Shuffield.
It took a further eight years for Fastball to follow up Little White Lies, but when Step Into Light was released in 2017 the wait had been more than worthwhile.
Although there was a large gap between the two releases the album itself only took two weeks to record.
The resulting 12 tracks are everything that pop/rock songs should be – catchy and concise three minute stories.
People unfamiliar with Fastball should lyrically and vocally think Squeeze, Elvis Costello and the Jam, whilst sonically take snaps of Teenage Fanclub, 60s beat groups and the softer edges of Cheap Trick.
As is always the case, Spotify and YouTube are your friends and if you like what you hear then get along to Sala Spectrum in Murcia on March 8 and Sala El Loco in Valencia on March 9 to see the band.