Interview With Ball Park Music

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By: Steve ‘Habibi’ Kelk

Brisbane Indie-Rock/Pop five-piece Ball Park Music are playing Discovery Darwin this Friday 21 October 2016 as part of their national tour on the back of their new album, ‘Every Night The Same Dream’. Guitarist Dean Hanson took some time today to talk to Foldback Magazine about the new album, the tour and how worrying about living up to previous successes can hamper future songwriting.

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Thanks for taking the time to talk to Foldback Magazine today Dean. So the band, you’re all Brisbane people, is that right?

Yeah exactly, Paul and Jen grew up here and we’ve all lived here for about a decade now.

Have you guys been to Darwin before?

Yeah once, we played at Discovery actually, about two years ago now I reckon. 

You’re touring nationally, basically on the new album Every Night The Same Dream. When did the tour start? 

It started about a month ago so we have been flat out for the last month. We’ve done every capital city except for Darwin at the moment so that will be our last capital city and then we have some regional dates at Alice Springs, Cairns, Townsville and Newcastle.

You’re being supported in Darwin by local lads At The Dakota and I think they will compliment your music very well. Speaking of your music, the new album, its all very interesting, I’ve heard a lot of different stuff in there – how do you think it is different from your earlier work?

I think that the way we recorded it is a little bit different this time. It sounds a lot more live, a lot more energetic, I think anyway, well that was the aim.  And I guess, on our earlier work, we didn’t really have much idea, we were sort of making the songs as we felt like at the time without the pressures coming from the successes of previous work. And then on albums two and three we started to get some recognition and I think that definitely plays on your mind when you are making a record. But when this one came around we decided “lets just kind of forget all about that”.

Go back to your roots?

Yeah exactly. And try and make the record as we feel like making it at this point in time.

Well I guess no band wants to hear “I like your old stuff better than your new stuff”.

Yeah that’s right.

I can hear all sorts of things in this album. Some old school stuff. For me, there are traces of early Hawkwind, there are some epic harmonies, it is a very layered, very engaging album that’s for sure. As far as the actual gig is concerned, is it going to be concentrating mostly on that or are you going to throw in a couple of your old faves as well?

It’s a little bit of a mixture of both, I think we’ve been playing about six or seven songs off the new record so alternating between those but I would say most nights its about five new songs from the new record in the set and then most of its filled out just with yeah old singles and stuff off our old records. Its always a bit tricky to sort of structure a set list off a new album because you don’t want to bore people with stuff they haven’t heard before, you know they only wanted to hear the old stuff. But I think we’ve struck a pretty good balance so far.

Are you taking the show on the road overseas?

We don’t have any plans to take the show overseas. The record’s been released in Europe through our label over there but as far as plans for touring over there, we don’t have any at the moment. I think we are kind of quietly sitting back and waiting for opportunities to come our way in relation to that. At the moment Australia is the focus and things are going well for us here so once we have exhausted all our options here then we can see if there are any opportunities to go elsewhere.

Will you have time to do all the touristy stuff in Darwin before heading down to your next show in Alice Springs?

No unfortunately. Once we roll into town, set up and sound-check and get the show started, we won’t have time. It’s been a talking point of the tour that our lobby-call after the Darwin show is 6.00am the next morning to fly down to Alice so, no. We tried, there were plans of kind of doing the Northern Territory and even driving to Cairns, drive across the top end but that never came to fruition.

Probably a good thing. I wouldn’t recommend doing that drive in the Wet Season. Good luck with the rest of the tour and we will be there on Friday night with our camera.

Ball Park Music with At The Dakota at Discovery Darwin this Friday 21 October 2016 at 8.00pm. Tickets available here

And then at the Gap View Hotel, Alice Springs, Saturday 22 October 2016 at 8.00pm – tickets