Ball Park Music: ‘Happy band’ take new direction on Every Night the Same Dream

WHEN their fourth album stalled, Brisbane band Ball Park Music took a break, reconvened, then just decided not to give a damn.

Ball Park Music perform in Queen Street Mall on Friday at 5pm. Their new album, Every Night the Same Dream, is also out Friday.

IT WAS the year of not giving a damn. Ball Park Music, the Brisbane band who had three successful albums to their name, were due to begin work on their fourth.

The former uni mates, who bounced on to the scene in 2011 with their debut album, Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs – they’d ­previously released EPs in 2009 and 2010 – had built up a firm fan base on the back of feelgood hits such as It’s Nice to Be Alive and Surrender. They’d sold out national shows, toured overseas and played major slots at festivals.

With their third record, Puddinghead, they decided to up the ante with the goal of writing every song as a hit single. It paid off and the album hit No.2 on the ARIA charts. But when it came to writing their fourth album, Every Night the Same Dream, the band decided to tear up the rule book.

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“We totally had some hurdles writing this record,” says frontman Sam Cromack. “We came together to start ­writing in February 2015 and it wasn’t working. We took time off. There was almost a feeling of, ‘are we plateauing? What can we do here?’ So we got back to basics and thought, who gives a shit, let’s just play.”

They plugged in their amps, let loose and the magic ­happened. Already they’ve released two preview songs from the album, out on Thursday, and the fans are lapping it up. The first was Pariah, a seven-minute epic that meanders from heartfelt piano ballad to space-age, prog-rock trip-out. The feedback was “amazing”. “That was one that was clearly different from what we’d done in the past,” Cromack says. “We really loved it but just before we shared it we were messaging each other going, is this a good idea?”

The other song they sent out into the universe was ­Nihilist Party Anthem. The title says it all. It captured their “not giving a damn” vibe. They also released the cheapest, simplest video clip they’d ever made for the song. It turned out to be a work of genius. The video features black-and-white footage of the band recording the song with captions of what each member was thinking laid over the top.

At the start, Cromack says out loud, “Dance like no one is watching, sing like no one is listening, play the song like you don’t give a f--k.” Then overlaid afterwards are words he was really thinking: “Wish I didn’t say that, God, I hate myself, bloody hell.” It was instantly relatable and fans loved it. “It always seems like every time we go to record a demo, Sam just has a habit of saying something before each song,” says guitarist Dean Hanson, chatting alongside Cromack at a cafe in their favourite stomping ground ­of Paddington, in Brisbane’s inner west.

Says Cromack: “The captions came from us watching the video and typing what we were thinking. It came ­together so easily. The song and video play into that ­anxiety we all have. And I think people like to see a band who they might think are invincible feel the same way as them. We’ve got the same insecurities everyone else does, so fans were like, ‘yes, they’re on my level’.”

It’s not the first time the band have been able to tap into the zeitgeist. Their breakthrough hit, It’s Nice to be Alive, from their debut album,spoke to a generation struggling with the sometimes difficult realities of life. It was a gentle reminder that everything was all right.

“We get so many comments about it,” says Hanson. “People say how it’s been therapy for them. I don’t think Sam wrote the song with the intention for it to be therapy for anyone else, but it’s great that they can take that from it and it helps them.”

Ball Park Music became known as the happy band. But while the new songs might sound like they’re coming from a million miles away, in reality, when it comes to Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs, the nihilist party isn’t happening that far away. “Both those songs (It’s Nice to Be Alive and Nihilist Party Anthem) are, in a way, about seeing life or death for what they are, and just soldiering on and making the most of a situation,” Cromack says.

In some ways the new direction might be a breakdown of the band’s own image. No more Mr Nice Band, as it were.

“A little bit,” says Cromack. “We talked about being less cooperative. We described ourselves as a ‘yes’ band for so long, we would say yes to everything and took on every ­opportunity. It took us a while to finally get the courage to say, ‘no, we don’t want to do that’.”

While the band have joked that they wanted to take their old songs out and shoot them – having played them countless times – they’re proud of the impact those tracks have made on fans. Fans have even got It’s Nice to Be Alive tattoos. Other tatts the band have seen include the ­acronym BPM (Ball Park Music/beats per minute) beside a heartbeat line, and bassist Jennifer Boyce’s eyes tattooed on someone’s arm. “Somebody was thinking of getting, ‘I regret all my tattoos’, a lyric from our song Fence Sitter,” says Hanson. “My stepdad has the Puddinghead album cover tattooed on his arm. He’s a big fan. He likes to show everyone.”

The band have been gradually making fans all over the world – including one guy who flew from Bulgaria to Berlin to see them. He got the “full BPM treatment”, getting to hang out with the band afterwards, as do many Aussie fans who turn up to their smaller European shows.

They enjoy their hometown gigs too, though they say it’s sometimes easier to play in front of strangers than friends. Parents also come along to their Brisbane gigs.

“Dan (Hanson, Dean’s twin) describes it as ‘bring your ­family to work day’,” says Cromack.

The band are no strangers to the anxieties of life. When they first started performing, they would get pre-show ­jitters – sometimes to the point of throwing up. “The whole period before a gig is often restless and anxious, and sometimes not that enjoyable,” Cromack says. “You do a soundcheck and then you have five or six hours of sitting around drinking beer and twiddling your thumbs. It’s just a weird night. Your mind’s a funny thing and the way it relates to your voice is funny too. The more uptight and worried and anxious you feel, it has such a negative effect on your voice.”

“Anxiety’s a funny thing,” adds Hanson. “When I was a teenager I suffered terribly from performance anxiety – to the point where I’d get up on stage and play but just stare at the ground because I was super-anxious. But as time goes on, you get desensitised to it. I don’t get anxious or nervous before gigs any more. I think it turns into excitement.

“Even playing Splendour (last month’s Splendour in the Grass festival at Byron Bay), when you’re playing to 20,000 people, the numbers start to become irrelevant. It’s more about having a good time as opposed to stuffing it up and making mistakes. I’ve made some shockers over the years. But no one ever cares.”

The nights they don’t give a damn, though, are often the best. “There have been nights where we forget we even have a gig on and just hang out with our mates and drink all night, and then we just go on stage and feel happy and free,” Cromack says. “Some of those are the best nights.”

They’ve seen the formula of “not giving a damn’’ work for others too. Violent Soho, one of Brisbane’s biggest acts, had released two albums before they broke through with Hungry Ghosts. “They more or less accepted ‘our band is what it is, let’s stop trying’,” says Cromack. “And lo and ­behold, that was the record that shot them to stardom.”

The way Ball Park Music recorded Every Night the Same Dream was in similar “not giving a damn” fashion. They ­recorded it live in a studio, in Victoria, which was completely analogue. The result was, says ­Cromack, “the best thing we’ve ever done”.

It’s the nihilist life lesson. Letting go, not trying so hard and not giving a damn can actually be the doorway to ­enjoying life more and having default success. “How I feel about it is if you can look those concepts square in the eye and it doesn’t scare you, you can just joke about it and see it for what it is,” Cromack says. “That’s totally where I was at, or where we were at when we were making the record. You accept how pointless and dumb the whole thing is. We felt it was time to ­finally enjoy ourselves.”

Every Night the Same Dream (Stop Start/Inertia) is out on Friday. Ball Park Music perform in Queen Street Mall on Friday at 5pm and at Sonic Sherpa, Stones Corner, on August 20 at 2pm. For the band’s national tour dates, which include The Triffid, Newstead, on September 24 (sold out) and Sept 25, go to ballparkmusic.com

Originally published as Ball Park Music: ‘Happy band’ take new direction on Every Night the Same Dream