Ball Park Music have announced their first headline tour of Australia in over four years. The tour coincides with their forthcoming album Weirder & Weirder, which is due for release on Friday, June 3 on the band’s own Prawn Records.
The tour kicks off in the band’s hometown of Brisbane before heading off to all capital cities, playing some of Australia’s most iconic venues including Perth’s Astor Theatre on Saturday, June 11.
The Weirder & Weirder Tour will feature Melbourne band RAT!hammock performing at all shows with Darwin outfit King Stingray and Adelaide duo Teenage Joans sharing the other support duties.
“We are so excited to have King Stingray, Teenage Joans and Rat!Hammock joining us on this tour,” said Ball Park Music. “We’ve been admiring their music from afar for a while now, we can’t wait to share a stage with them on what’s going to be one hell of a tour. Whilst we’ve jumped at every live opportunity that’s presented itself to us over the last couple of years, there is nothing like headlining your own tour. We’ve missed that shared experience of live shows with the fans, and we can’t wait to do that again…with a few new tunes in tow!”
Ball Park Music have already delivered two slices off their seventh studio album Weirder and Weirder, the first of which was summer single Sunscreen, which entered triple j’s Hottest 100 at No. #21 marking an impressive 12th entry in the countdown.
The second, new single Stars In My Eyes is as much emotional as it is nostalgic. “This song has two sides,” Sam Cromack said on writing the song. “One side looks to the past: did I ever have stars in my eyes? Was that romantic version of myself from yesteryear experiencing something real? The other side looks to the future (which is getting increasingly hard to do). This side wants to be told one thing, even if it’s a lie. It wants to be told yes. Yes, there is romance to life. Yes, you should bother to dream. And yes, you still have stars in your eyes. It’s a kinda sad, but kinda hopeful song.”
Since the release of the band’s critically acclaimed debut Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs, Ball Park Music have secured no less than five consecutive Top 10 ARIA Album Chart debuts. Weirder & Weirder was recorded and produced by the band in their Brisbane studio (Prawn Records) and mixed by 5 x ARIA Award-winner Paul McKercher.
“While the shit-show that was 2021 unfolded we tried to take advantage of it best we could,” frontman Sam Cromack said on recording Weirder & Weirder. “Jen got stuck in Brisbane (again) and eventually decided to just move back (a huge delight to us). We worked on the record on-and-off for the whole year. We’d moved into a new studio; a little timber cottage in The Valley, which was once part of Brisbane’s first Italian restaurant, Mama Luigi’s.”
“A new home really helped breathe new life into our music-making. This is probably the most time we’ve spent all together, day-in and day-out, just making music together. We really threw it all at the wall for this one…we wanted more instruments, more people, more voices, more experimentation, more, more, more. It’s a twisted but hopeful lament about growing up in an otherwise strange world.”
Ball Park Music’s new album Weirder & Weirder is out Friday, June 3. Ball Park Music hit Astor Theatre on Saturday, June 11. Tickets are on sale Tuesday, March 8 from www.ballparkmusic.com
