BRISBANE indie pop band Ball Park Music is gearing up to release the first single from its forthcoming album.
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While the title remains under wraps, the song itself has already had an unofficial preview with fans in Canberra.
"We played a show in Canberra about two weeks ago and our tour manager asked us if we had a walk-on song we would like to play, so we told him to just play our next single from the new record," guitarist Dean Hanson tells Weekender.
"We sent him the recording and he said 'No, seriously, do you have one?' And we were like 'No, just play it'. So we played it over the speakers while we were backstage and nobody in the audience had a clue what was going on.
"They heard Sam's [frontman Sam Cromack] voice and they started to cheer. I think they were waiting for him to pop up on stage [laughs]. They were confused, so it was pretty funny.
"It's a very on-brand, stupid Ball Park Music thing to do, but we like to keep people guessing."
The upcoming album follows the 2018 release, Good Mood, which marked a triumphant return for the band.
It produced two successful singles, Exactly How You Are and The Perfect Life Does Not Exist, and took out Triple J's album of the year award, giving the band the reassurance it needed after its previous LP, Every Night The Same Dream, failed to match the response of earlier releases.
We made the music that we felt like making and grabbed that and embraced it on this record.
- Dean Hanson, Ball Park Music
Hanson says while they felt the pressure to get it right with Good Mood, the weight of expectation was lighter this time around.
"We were feeling a lot of pressure going into the last album," Hanson says.
"Our fourth record was a bit more experimental than we had been in the past and it didn't have the popular reception that our other records had had.
"Going into our last one we were like, 'OK, we've done that experimental thing, let's try to come back to thinking about what makes our band great, why people love us and who we want to be'.
"So that pressure actually helped us a lot to go and make that album. We are immensely proud of that record and it did so well, so it kind of had this opposite effect with this new one.
"We were actually feeling more relaxed. I think if the last one had not been received so well, then we would be really panicking about this one - probably panicking enough to make stupid decisions and try to force our music to be a certain thing.
"We are embracing our strengths on this one. We've been a band for over a decade now and we've never really had to push ourselves into uncomfortable territory.
"We made the music that we felt like making and grabbed that and embraced it on this record."
While songwriting duties are usually left to Cromack, Hanson has contributed one track that made the cut.
"Generally, if I can squeeze in one song out of a group of 10 or 11 that is strong enough to compete with Sam's songs, I'm a happy person," Hanson says.
"He is such a talented songwriter and he's become my inspiration as a songwriter so, for me, if I can write anything that the other guys think is up to scratch with some of Sam's stuff, I'm immensely proud of it."
Ball Park Music is returning to the stage this month for a run of shows touring with The Drop Festival alongside The Presets, Boy & Bear, Allday, DZ Deathrays, Kita Alexander, and Graace. The festival lands in Newcastle at Empire Park on March 7 held in conjunction with the World Surf League Champion Tour.
So how does the band stack up in the surf?
"Umm, look, Sam and I went for a surf about a month ago and it was the first time I'd been in 10 years," Hanson says. "Growing up, I was never good at surfing. I have surfed in the past but, truthfully, we suck [laughs]."
Read more about The Drop Festival
