Baseball Bat, a power pop band from Nashville, has recently released two strong, catchy songs, building anticipation for their upcoming EP set to drop in mid-June.

In an interview with Sweet Sweet Music blog, Brian Fuzzell explains that these songs have a long history.

Could you share the journey of bringing this record to life? How did all the pieces come together to create the final product?

The four of us worked together and became friends at a Nashville technology company. One day, Jerry came in with the idea that he wanted to form a band called Baseball Bat. He had the name before he had a band. So, the four of us got together to try to play some Weezer songs, but we never did. Instead, we wrote some of our own songs—the first was our own type of theme song, called “Baseball Bat.” Years later, we finally played one or two of those old Weezer songs.

But it took a lot to make these songs come to life as recordings. Over the last 12 years, we’ve recorded most of them twice in separate sessions, and both times, we ended up trashing the recordings. We also kind of, sort of, passively broke up for about six years. But like Voltron, we re-formed two years ago with the goal to give this another shot and truly make some recordings we’re proud of. Fortunately, Jeremy Ferguson agreed to produce, mix, and engineer the sessions. He really captured the sound and energy we’d always hoped for. Another amazing thing that happened is our old friend and former coworker, Brian Murphree, got involved and mastered the recordings. He’s become an incredible mastering engineer with his business, Soundporter Audio Mastering, so it felt great to keep things in the family to finish the project.

With the resurgence of cassettes, imagine curating your inaugural mixtape. Which five songs would be must-adds and why?

Harry Nilsson “Gotta Get Up,” The Posies “Daily Mutilation,” The Replacements “Bastards of Young,” Weezer “El Scorcho,” Tom Petty “Honey Bee.” We love these songs, and they get to the heart of what the four of us collectively love about rock music.

If tasked with introducing your music through three songs, which ones would you choose and what story do they collectively convey to new listeners?

“Let Down,” “Brain Dead,” and “Baseball Bat” (the song) are probably the best introduction to what this Baseball Bat thing is all about. Those three represent our blend of slacker garage-y quirkiness very well.

Where do you see yourself situated within the broader landscape of the music industry? How do you perceive your unique role and contribution?

We have absolutely no role in the music industry at all. Ha! Baseball Bat is more like an art project, existing only for the purpose of friends having some laughs and creating together. Our unique contribution to listeners is to provide the soundtrack to make memories, make babies, have some laughs, and repeat.

In the digital age, visual elements are intertwined with music. How did you approach the album’s visual aesthetics, such as album art and accompanying visuals? How do they complement the sonic experience you’ve crafted?

We keep it pretty simple. Baseball Bat is a garage band at the end of the day, and we like taking a straight-ahead approach to our music and visuals. We try not to overthink, much like the punk and garage rock we grew up on, but that doesn’t mean we want to be boring. Our “logo” came from duct tape letters, and most of our imagery is playful, simple, and fun.

We are inspired by the ones that blew our minds with simple, relatable, not-trying-too-hard releases from bands like Superchunk, Pavement, Tom Petty, The Toadies, and Green Day. Our EP cover for “It’s A Let Down” is an actual photograph from our bass player’s house in East Nashville when his basement flooded and all his vintage toys went everywhere. The natural chaos of that image felt just right for the cover and namesake.

These songs are 10-12 years old, and no matter how good we record them, it’s still just us behind them—a bunch of middle-aged dudes from Nashville, TN playing with heart. It kind of is a letdown, so we lean into it and hope that not taking ourselves too seriously is the key ingredient to make an unassuming set of songs that just wanted to get out into the world sound just right, despite the world not asking for them.

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What’s coming up?

THURSDAY, JUNE 6: Cassette release show at The 5 Spot, Nashville, TN

6-8 pm early happy hour rock show with The Robe (Soccer Mommy & Features drummer Rollum Haas side project). We’ll sell the limited edition cassette exclusively at this release show – only 50 copies pressed on assorted colors!

FRIDAY, JUNE 7: Worldwide digital release

Digital and streaming release to all major outlets, including Bandcamp.