Austin, TX · power pop

Fastball

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'The Way' — power-pop's great mystery-novel single, still gleaming, from an Austin band with sturdier album cuts than one-hit status implies.

Fastball came together in Austin in 1992 around songwriters Tony Scalzo and Miles Zuniga, with drummer Joey Shuffield. Scalzo had moved from Orange County and played in a band called The Goods, while Zuniga and Shuffield had worked together in Big Car. The trio played Austin clubs under a string of temporary names, including Magneto and Magneto U.S.A., before signing to Hollywood Records and settling on Fastball.

Scalzo and Zuniga both write and sing, which gives the catalogue two distinct voices trading off across records. Their 1996 debut, Make Your Mama Proud, was produced by Jerry Finn, fresh off Green Day's Dookie, and set the template of guitar-driven pop built around that dual songwriting.

The band broke through with 1998's All the Pain Money Can Buy, which went platinum and spent a year on the Billboard 200. Its single "The Way," which Scalzo wrote after reading about an elderly couple who disappeared from Texas, hit number one on the Adult Alternative chart and earned two Grammy nominations. "Out of My Head" and "Fire Escape" followed from the same record.

Fastball has continued recording and touring since, working in a guitar-pop style rooted in melody, harmony and compact songwriting. In late 2021 the band launched a Patreon campaign to fund new material, sharing demos and the stories behind their songs along the way.

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power pop