Brault’s pitching his album during lull
Talks about music not baseball now
Steven Brault isn’t shy about putting his voice to good use.
The Pirates left-hander, who was a vocal major at Regis University, spent his youth performing in a community theater in San Diego and has sung the national anthem at PNC Park.
Friday, Brault released his first album, titled “A Pitch at Broadway.” It’s made him a hot commodity while the baseball season is on hold because of the COVID-19 crisis, doing many interviews with outlets across the country and discussing the ins and outs of his album.
“I’ve had a lot of interviews over the last few days,” Brault said Monday. “I’m still doing more. It’s not ending really soon, and it’s been good. A little bit of a distraction.
“I listen to it a lot, and it hasn’t grated on me at all. I still love it. So, yeah, I’m proud of it.”
The album is comprised of covers of 12 Broadway songs from musicals like “Wicked,” “Phantom of the Opera,” and “Hamilton.” Brault said he and his producer, Loren Harriet, had a list of 60 or 70 songs that could have been on the album before they whittled it down to 12 over the course of 2019.
One of the songs, “Wait for Me,” from the musical “Hadestown” features Pirates first baseman Josh Bell in a speaking role.
Brault said Bell wasn’t the only teammate who was asked to join in on an album.
“Trevor Williams has asked me about being on my album so many times that I refuse to continue hearing about it because I don’t trust him,” Brault joked about his fellow Pirates starter and close friend.
“I think that anything he does will be detrimental to the sound of the album.”
Brault said the recording process was a little foreign to him, since he grew up singing these types of songs on stage in front of a crowd. In order to project the emotions that come more naturally on stage, he turned off all the lights in the studio while he was recording, which made it easier for him to imagine himself on stage and in character.
The result was a professional, high-quality sound.
“Nobody can really say it’s a bad album,” Brault said. “I understand people might say it’s not their cup of tea because it’s Broadway music, but the production value, the quality is really, really good, so I’m proud of it, and I’ve gotten all positive reviews from everybody I’ve talked to so far, so it’s been cool.”
Brault and Harriet have kicked around potential plans for a future album — Brault said he thinks they’d purchase original music next time — but nothing is concrete.
It’s hard for Brault to project his future. For now, he’s staying in Florida, working at the Pirates’ spring training facility when he can.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it was reported that Brault would not be ready for opening day after suffering a minor shoulder injury. The season’s delay doesn’t hurt the likelihood of his availability for whenever the opener happens.
The postponement also doesn’t hurt his album. Brault recognizes that if baseball were being played right now — opening day was originally scheduled March 26 — he likely wouldn’t be asked to talk about his music as frequently.
But now, although the reasons for the delay are bad, Brault at least gets to listen to and discuss his music as a distraction from it all.
“If we were playing, it would be one thing,” he said. “Obviously, we’d also be talking about baseball, and then a question would come up about whatever. But because there’s no baseball going on, one, it doesn’t matter that I’m talking about the music, but also, we can only talk so much about baseball.
“Everybody knows what the situation is, and nobody knows when we’re going to start playing again, so what’s the point? All we’ll be doing is rehashing the things we talked about in spring training.
“So as we get closer, then those conversations will start up again. But I think for now, this happens to be the thing that I’m doing right now.”