Following our introduction a short while ago, we’ve had the opportunity to chat with Dean Hanson, Ball Park Music’s lead guitarist. Check it out!
EP:  Can you give us a bit of background information about yourselves for anyone who isn’t familiar with you?
BPM:  We are Ball Park Music, a 5-piece band from Brisbane Australia. Our names are Sam, Jennifer, Paul, Daniel and Dean. It’s nice to meet you.
EP:  Lovely to meet you too! So – how would you describe your musical style? Who would you say are your musical influences/inspirations?
BPM:  Our music is best described as alternative pop/rock. We have a lot of different musical influences and it’s difficult to pin point any one in particular. I think it’s a mixture of many different influences that shapes the sound of our music. We are all children of the 90’s so it should be easy to spot 90’s vibes in our music.
EP:  You’re renowned for your energetic live sets; do you find it hard to recreate that energy in the studio?
BPM:  It’s definitely something we struggled with in the beginning of our career. The first few recordings we made came long before we had started playing serious gigs and naturally the songs transform and evolve over time as you perform them live more and more. These days we endeavour to rehearse new material before recording it and I also think we have a better understanding of who we are now as a live band and on record, which helps to point us in the right direction.
EP:  Your new album “Puddinghead” is due for release in the UK on June 1; can you tell us a bit about that?
BPM:  This will be our first release ever in the UK and we couldn’t be happier. We love travelling to the UK and really hope that we can begin to build up a strong fan base over there so we can continue to visit throughout our career. It’s going to be great to finally have a record available to our fans over there and also to have a record available to be critiqued by UK media. Hopefully we will be able to secure some radio play and more and more people can hear our music.
EP: Â What does “Puddinghead” mean?
BPM:  A Puddinghead is a Shakespearean insult that means “a person who is capable of messing up the simplest of tasks”.
EP:  You recorded the album in a converted shack, how did that come about, and do you feel it had any effect on the sound of the album?
BPM:  This was our first effort at self-producing a record. We decided we would rent a dirt-cheap house in Brisbane and turn it into a makeshift studio; this would allow us a lot of time to work on the record until our lease ended. We spent almost 5 days a week for 6 months working on Puddinghead, which was a long time as opposed to the 15 days, spent recording our second album. Producing this record ourselves over a long period of time definitely affected how this record sounds in comparison to our earlier works.
EP:  You wrote, produced and released your album independently, do you feel it’s important for artists to retain creative control of their work?
BPM:  Absolutely. Every piece of music we create is a reflection of ourselves and a way of expressing who we are in a way that is exciting as much as it is personal. We get a great deal of satisfaction when we see music that we have created having a positive influence on anybody.
EP: Â Do each of you have a favourite song on the album?
BPM:  None of us would argue with “Struggle Street” as a bit of an all round favourite but my favourite track on the album is “Cocaine Lion”.
EP: Â What do you like to do away from the music? Do you socialise together?
BPM:  We are always spending time together outside of music whether it be going out for a drink or bonding over sports etc. We all have a lot of mutual friends and when weren’t touring or recording (which isn’t often) we always come up with ways to see each other and do something productive.
EP:  What’s next for you guys? Where would you like to see the band heading in the next few years?
BPM:  I know we would love to spend some time over seas in the UK and Europe and try to build a following over there. Our next record release after Puddinghead will be super exciting, for the first time we will be releasing a record in different territories at the same time which is something we have wanted to achieve for a long time. It feels like things are only just beginning for us over seas and that’s inspiring for us when we look towards working on our next album. For the first time we are going to be making a record for an international audience as well as our fans at home and that’s awesome.
