The drive to make music
“It’s kind of an extreme lifestyle choice – if you can call it a choice,” says Sam Cromack, singer and lead guitarist for popular Aussie indie band Ballpark Music. He’s talking about life on the road as a musician, and he and his bandmates are about to head off on a national tour to support their new album, Like Love.
“I’ve been doing it for so long now,” he says reflectively. “We got introduced to it at such a young age. It's really part of who we are at this point, we don't know any different.”
Cromack and his fellow musicians got together by chance in 2008, when they were assigned a group project while studying music at the Queensland University of Technology. “Maybe we’re the greatest group project of all time,” he laughs.
Like Love is not the only creative endeavour Ballpark Music has been working on in recent times. If you’ve seen the NRMA’s new television commercials, you’ll have heard the band’s backing track – a cover of the classic 1971 song by America, ‘A Horse With No Name’. In one of the ads, a group of road trippers sing along to the lyrics:
I've been through the desert
On a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
Cromack says Ballpark Music has pitched for commercial work in the past and been “mostly unsuccessful” but getting the gig for the NRMA’s ads was painless and proved to be a lot of fun.
“Thankfully, this one all came together. I think I enjoy doing this stuff more when I'm covering someone else’s song as opposed to weaving my original music into an ad campaign. There’s a more fun and playful quality to it when someone’s coming to you saying, ‘How do you feel about covering this classic song?’ It takes a bit of pressure out of it and maybe that helps us to do a better job.”
Speaking of “creative crisis”, friction is common between the business side of an advertising campaign and the creatives, but Cromack says that was harmonious with the NRMA team.
“We’ve had some that have been painful in the past. Like, the feedback’s gotten to a microscopic level. This one, we sent our demo I think the only feedback was, ‘It's a little too bassy,’ which is pretty much just a mixer thing.”
With streaming services all but killing off a band’s traditional record sales revenue, touring has become an even more essential part of a musician’s life. Luckily, Ballpark Music love hitting the road.
“For a band like us that's not seeking a viral hit that's gonna have ten gazillion streams and then get forgotten about, [touring is] absolutely our bread and butter. There’s integrity in that, we love touring, I love performing,” says Cromack.
“When I was young and just obsessed with music, I moved to the city, thinking, ‘I can't wait start a band, all I want to do is be a musician.’ I had weirdly never thought about how much of being a musician is traveling all the time… I've ended up seeing so much more of Australia than I ever thought I would. And we see it regularly, too. Like last year, for example, we did a show in Charleville, which is in western Queensland, well off the beaten track.”
There are no Metallica-style private jets and fleets of tour buses, though. For Ballpark Music it’s highways, Toyota Hiaces and public airlines, so the grind can wear them down sometimes.
“There’s an excitement and a thrill to packing your bags and going away and being with your friends, like that part's obvious,” explains Cromack. “But being away from family and having lots of travel can be tiring.”
The band’s energy will be high for its upcoming tour to support their hotly anticipated new album: Like Love. The album already includes some big hits, not least the title track, which came in at number 43 in Triple J’s Hottest 100 of 2024 – the thirteenth Ball Park Music song to make the list.
Ballpark Music’s new album Like Love comes out on April 4 and their tour of Australia and New Zealand starts in Carrington, NSW in late April before taking in Tasmania, Western Australia, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, New Zealand and Sydney, so be sure to support one Australia’s hottest live acts when they visit your local area.
