Fastball
CHANGE OF PACE
Fastball's New Way Adds Depth -- and Cheese -- to the Hooks
Like most "overnight sensations," Fastball had been honing their clever, moderately warped pop-craft for years -- in fact, for the better part of a decade -- before hitting big with the impossibly catchy "The Way." With that single, from their second major-label album All the Pain Money Can Buy, the band connected in a big way, attaining MTV omnipresence and finally garnering the press and sales figures they'd worked toward. Since then, Fastball have gone back home to work on a new repertoire of pitches and came up with a few change-ups, as showcased on the mature-yet-charming The Harsh Light of Day. Frontman Miles Zuniga stretches himself impressively here, waxing introspectively on some tracks and -- to use his own term -- "setting out the cheese plate" on others. Zuniga sat down to batting practice with Barnes & Noble.com's David Sprague.
Barnes & Noble.com: Obviously, selling records is better than not selling records, but do you think that having your first record go unnoticed helped you in some sense -- gave a little perspective on the success of All the Pain Money Can Buy?
Miles Zuniga: At the time, it was just the same sort of failure we'd experienced many times before [laughs]. Joey and I had it with this band called Big Car, which just tanked. Quite honestly, I was hoping to sell enough copies not to get dropped. All that stuff makes you pretty resilient, though. If you have that huge success at 19 years old, you're fucked, and at 23, you're a has-been.
B&N.com: Given the fact that you'd been doing this for a while and had written a bunch of songs over the years, did you have a feeling that "The Way" was going to be the huge hit it was?
MZ: If we could figure that out, we'd have an empire! Honestly, when we first recorded it, none of us thought it was anything special -- we didn't even pick it as a single. Our manager thought it was a song people would like, but to us, it was just another kid in our little family.
B&N.com: You had more time and more resources to work on The Harsh Light of Day. Did that add an extra layer of pressure to the process?
MZ: It's a double-edged sword. In a way, it was comforting to know you had a limited amount of time, and no time for navel gazing. And before, no one really cared a whole lot about what we were doing. No one was anxiously awaiting the record, and there was a freedom, an innocence, about that.
B&N.com: Quite a few of the songs on the album are moody and dark in tone. Were you in a funk when you went into making it?
MZ: I got pretty depressed, believe it or not, just like any human being does. Human beings can adjust to any situation, which is good if you're stranded in the forest, but not so good if you become a successful entertainer. All the things you think are amazing in the beginning, you soon get used to, and then nothing's quite as amazing as it was. That inspired the title. I wrote three songs in a hotel room in Nuremberg, Germany. We were opening for this U2-wannabe band, and the weather was bad -- and we just wanted to go home. I was really down, and I wrote "Dark Street," "Don't Give Up on Me," and "Whatever Gets You On" all in one night.
B&N.com: Most bands tend to go back to the same formula over and over, but you seem willing to take some twists and turns here, what with horns, cheesy drum machines, and so on.
MZ: We look at a song and think, Okay, what would this guy look good in? We try to figure out if he's a leather-jacket-type guy or a cashmere-sweater type. Should he be wearing oxfords or Cuban heels? The song suggests what it wants, and we try to faithfully fill in. We don't have a singular sound, but hopefully we're recognizable. I've always liked bands who have a sound that instantly strikes you as theirs -- the Police and Morphine too, actually.
B&N.com: Do you think you've gotten past the point of being labeled with the dreaded "one-hit wonder" tag?
MZ: If this is a hit, I think we'll be through with it once and for all. There were a lot of people who didn't take us seriously, but I think we're in the process of proving them wrong. I can understand why people felt that way, since we seemed to come out of nowhere, even though we'd been doing this for a long time. I'm glad we had a hit with "The Way," but I'm glad it wasn't any bigger, because it could have become an albatross.
B&N.com: What's the reaction been in your hometown of Austin, which is really a musician's town?
MZ: I have friends in that community, and the people who play for a living respect this band because they know we've been through a lot. I also have tremendous respect for that community. Without that scene, I wouldn't be doing this. Seeing people like Joe Ely play totally schooled me on a number of levels. I aspired to have nothing more than his level of success -- nowhere on the top 200, but traveling the world and playing for people who want to hear his music. That was all I ever wanted -- to be as big as Joe Ely.
September 19, 2000
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