Fastball “Little White Lies”
My son hates taking the bus. Most mornings, he gets picked up before 7AM which means he has to be up and at ‘em by 6AM. The ride home is no better — the 3pm Austin, Texas heat can be unbearable. So, I get it — it sucks. I almost never feel great about putting him on that rickety, rattling, yellow hellscape. But, on the other hand, it sure is convenient. It stops right at our doorstep. And pus we have two other kids who also need to get to school, plus plus we need to shower and get to work ourselves and, plus plus plus the school bus is a right of passage. We’ve all suffered through it.
But sometimes a kid can only take so much. Which is why, on the Monday after Super Bowl Sunday, when our son had not slept enough and when he was still digesting nachos and pissing orange soda, I offered to drive him to school. It’s a quick drive — just two lights and a couple turns before the crossing guard waves us into line. And because we live in one of Austin’s nicer suburbs, that line normally consists of decked out Ford pickups and gargantuan, luxury SUVs. But on this particular Monday, my first drop off of 2024, I found my junkie old compact sandwiched in between two of the ugliest, gaudiest machines I have ever laid eyes on. My son — semi-excited, mostly repulsed — quickly confirmed what I suspected: “Those are the Tesla Cybertrucks. They’re so weird!”
And that was it — the moment when Austin’s slow boil fully, finally scalded me. Years earlier, when we left New York and first arrived in Austin, I would often pinch myself, marveling at the good fortune of having landed in a city so rich with culture and opportunity. I’d rhetorically ask myself, “how did we get here” as an acknowledgment of my own appreciation and wonder. But, on the Monday after Super Bowl LVIII, I asked the same question with different intent: “How did we get here?” The “here” was pejorative. When did Austin become the city of Tesla Cybertrucks? When did the Tex Mex town become the tech bro city? I really wanted to know. But also, I think that I’ve really known for a long time.
It wasn’t 2021, when Elon Musk moved to town. And I don’t think it was 2020 when Joe Rogan moved into his comic compound. I used to think it was 2014, when Lady Gaga performed at SXSW in front of a fifty foot Doritos dispenser. But that wasn’t it, either. It wasn’t in 1999, when Sandra Bullock moved here to settle down with her singing, songwriting local beau. It wasn’t in 1993 when “Dazed and Confused” put Austin’s weirdness on the big screen. And it wasn’t 1987 when South by Southwest debuted. It wasn’t any of those dates. It was precisely January 7th, 1998.
Even more specifically, it was fifty seconds into Fastball’s “The Way,” which was released on January 7th, 1998. Yes — it was exactly fifty seconds after some enterprising Modern Rock DJ pressed play on that humble CD single from that completely unknown band. It wasn’t the first forty-nine seconds, which consist of FM radio static tuning into soundbites tuning into a mysterious first verse that sounds like Elvis Costello translating a Latin tragedy through Zydeco:
They made up their minds
And they started packing
They left before the sun came up that day
An exit to eternal summer slacking
But where were they going without ever knowing the way?
No, it’s not that part. It’s what happens next. The bass kicks in. Then the drum. The vocals are doubled. The static is replaced by a boom. The dials are all turned up. And in an instant, “The Way” goes from an intriguing new song to a no doubt about it smash hit. Just like that. That was the beginning of Austin as we now know it. And also, the beginning of the end. Because, whereas the first verse was all possibility, the second one — drunk, lost and bleak — is where shit gets real:
They drank up the wine
And they got to talking
They now had more important things to say
And when the car broke down
They started walking
Where were they going without ever knowing the way?
The unlikeliness of Fastball’s massive first hit — a song about an elderly couple who died in a car accident that was more likely a suicide pact — was surpassed only by its undeniability. Eighteen months before Rob Thomas and Santana answered the question “what would happen if we combined middle of the road Adult Alternative Rock with the Conga,” Fastball set the blueprint for Latin-tinged Modern Rock. But whereas “Smooth” was ubiquitous and intolerable, “The Way” was ascendant and glorious.
Although it is often referred to as “The Live Music Capital of the World,” Austin has never been the “Recorded Music Capital of the World.” Janice Joplin passed through. Stevie Ray Vaughn settled here. But really, that’s it. Before Fastball — and not counting Willie Nelson who made his way to the Pop charts through Country music — Austin had not produced many commercially successful Rock and Roll acts. But then — less than a year after Matchbox 20, Third Eye Blind, Goo Goo Dolls and The Wallflowers took over the Modern Rock Charts — Fastball from Austin, Texas arrived. And where those other acts sounded tepid but amiable, Fastball brought the goods. They had craft. They had hooks. They had harmony. And punch. And story. And ideas. They were not Punk. Or Grunge. But Fastball sounded like something their peers were not — different. Some might even say “alternative.”
The fifty second mark of “The Way” is the sound of Austin, Texas leaping from its sleepy college town past towards its skyscraping, tech bro-ing future. It’s the mainstreaming of a place that was previously near, but ultimately outside of, the mainstream. Around the time of Fastball, Austin had bands like Sixteen Deluxe and Spoon, who sold thousands, not tens or hundreds of thousands, of records for Indie labels before getting signed and dropped by majors. But “The Way” put the zeitgeist on notice, once and for all. In 1998, all of America suddenly seemed curious about whatever weirdness was happening in the Texas capital.
But it wasn’t just “The Way.” “Out of My Head” was a mid-tempo delight that offered everything the Counting Crows had, just with less Van Morrison and more Declan Macmanus. Even the third single, “Fire Escape,” was sparkling Jangle Pop, like The Paisley Underground had left California for to The Hill Country (uncanny foreshadowing). Those three songs, plus the high end, Power Pop filler that made up “All the Pain Money Can Buy,” catapulted the band to Platinum status and brief celebrity. At the risk of overstating the importance of that album, and those songs — there would be no Hermes store on South Congress without Fastball.
Unfortunately, their timing was never equal to their craft. Had Fastball arrived in 1979, they would have had a decade to surf the new waves, from Pub Rock to Power Pop to College Rock. Had they arrived in 1989, they could have ridden the coattails of R.E.M., The Replacements or The Jayhawks, all of whom they shared some genetic material with. And had they even arrived in 1999 — just one year later — they almost certainly would have enjoyed a longer, Indie gestation before climbing their way up alongside their neighbors, Spoon. But, in 1998, with latecomers feeding on the carcass of Alternative Rock, Fastball’s days were numbered.
The top Modern Rock hits of 1998 included songs from Semisonic, Everclear, Harvey Danger, Garbage and — of course — Fastball. But, just a year later, the charts looked much different — Lit, Blink 182, Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock. Within two years of their breakthrough, Fastball ran into a wall at Modern Rock radio, which had become subsumed by Nu Metal. And they were similarly rejected by Adult Alternative and Adult Contemporary formats, where bands traded sharp angles and rough edges for warm, sudsy strumming. By 2000, Fastball was neither fish nor fowl.
They obviously were not alone. There is a cohort of Modern Rock bands from the Nineties who made off-kilter Power Pop and who became briefly, somewhat famous. Nada Surf, Superdrag, Fountains of Wayne, and the aforementioned Harvey Danger and Semisonic. But Fastball was different in that (a) they were more popular (b) when they faded, they really plummeted. Whereas “All the Pain That Money Can Buy” sold over a million copies and featured three hits, their follow-up album, “The Harsh Light of Day,” sold less than one hundred thousand records and included zero hits. But because they had once, briefly, touched the sun, Fastball was not retrospectively considered under-appreciated.
In fact, they were hardly reconsidered at all. Fastball never had a second act as prestige artists on an Indie label. Never had a third act as songwriters to the stars. They just — and just barely — kept going. They’d hang it up and get back together. Find side gigs, but return to the main gig. Leave Austin, only to return. They are the extremely rare band who are not exactly one hit wonders, not flashes in the pan, not cautionary tales, not nostalgia acts and not where are they now files. Fastball never really went away. They had one massive hit, two minor hits, and then spent decades gutting it out as a nominally viable concern who — oh by the way — kept writing great songs and very good albums.
While unfortunate and unjust, their descent is not completely illogical. Fastball’s sound was always hard to pin down — exceedingly well made, mid-tempo songs featuring organ and guitar hooks, but not really riffs. Two vocalists, who often sang in harmony — one who sounded easy and unpretentious (Miles Zuniga) and the other who sounded almost exactly like twenty-something Elvis Costello. They mixed jangle with sparkle with a little keyboard wiggle. Had Elvis Costello and The Attractions made “Armed Forces” in sunny, sleepy Austin instead of cloudy, wiry London, they would have sounded a good deal like Fastball. And I say that as high praise to Fastball, but also to indicate how nothing lined up for them — their timing, their location, their look, their pace. They were a band out of time.
Stephan Jenkins and Third Eye Blind got their millennial reappraisal. Matchbox Twenty launched Rob Thomas into Pop stardom. Sugar Ray made a TV host out of a singer who could not sing. The Goo Goo Dolls still own parts of Adult Contemporary Radio. But Fastball survive by playing clubs and filling the 7pm slot before the band opening for Everclear and The Gin Blossoms — two totally fine bands who, at their very best, were not half as good as Fastball. A quarter century removed from their breakout hit, Fastball is still at it — steadily releasing songs and albums, seemingly on their own label and at least partially funded through the patronage of their modest fanbase. I can put the pieces together. I can describe the narrative. But, sometimes I do still wonder, “how could a band that good end up there — nowehere?”
Which begs the more important question: am I misremembering Fastball? I mean, I only ever owned one album by the band — “All The Pain That Money Can Buy.” And I only heard parts of two others — “The Harsh Light of Day” and “Keep Your Wig On.” So, maybe this great band that I recall coming out of nowhere (Austin) and then quickly fading into oblivion (Austin) was really not so great. Maybe it wasn’t timing? Maybe it wasn’t that everyone else was underestimating Fastball. Maybe it’s that I am overestimating them.
Reeling from the prospects of my own potential unreliability, I returned to the “big three” — “The Way,” “Out of My Head” and “Fire Escape.” Check. Check. Check. All still fresh and excellent. And then I skipped ahead a bit to the album after the last album I’d heard. “Little White Lies,” from 2009, came five years after “Keep Your Wig On,” and was mixed by Bob Clearmountain, whose resume is long and stately and includes more Rock and Roll Hall of Famers than I can count. But, whereas its predecessor was released by Rykodisc, an esteemed catalog imprint that flirted with major label status, “Little White Lies” was (ostensibly) self-produced and self-released. It had one toe in the major leagues and nine in the minors, teetering on the brink of semi-pro ball.
Just moments after pressing play, however, I’m relieved that the record’s humble origins are outmatched by the band’s unwavering skill. Unlike their first few albums — including their best seller — most of the songs on “Little White Lies” were composed jointly by Tony Scalzo and Miles Zuniga. The two men, who have very different voices and compositional styles — who spent many years as bandmates before they became friends and several years as friends before they became writing partners — are formal complements. Scalzo prefers mid-tempo. His melodies soar. His songs emphasize (unsurprisingly) keyboards and bass. Zuniga, meanwhile, likes to pick up the pace. His melodies jangle and move. His songs (unsurprisingly) push the guitar up front. The former has a little more McCartney and Elvis Costello to him while the latter leans more Lennon and Peter Buck. But together, they figured it out. Quickly. And consistently.
“All I Was Looking For Was You,” which opens Fastball’s first officially middle-aged album, sports a hook so fetching, a melody so familiar, and sentiments so friendly that it almost dares you to underestimate it. In spite of its pleasures, your brain starts to think something like “A little Smash Mouth, a Little Elvis Costello. Something about fated love. Heard it before. Yadda Yadda.” Except you absolutely have not heard this before — Smash Mouth was never this deft and Elvis was never this sweet. It’s what separated Fastball from their peers and predecessors and also what also doomed them to the unclassifiable bin.
“Little White Lies” bears the marks of its origin — which is to say that it sounds a notch better than your above average Indie record but also that it lacks those super addictive, definitely expensive ingredients that major labels can afford to douse onto hits. Everything on “Little White Lies” is immediate but nothing jumps out and screams “Listen to me! You must listen to me!” For whatever it lacks in MSG-injected hits, though, it makes up for with a very Austin, very easy going dependability. The harmonies — Zuniga’s steady lower tenor next to Scalzo’s reaching higher range — are the definition of bittersweet. The songs are economical — three to four minutes, no codas, terse solos, really not a wasted note. The lead guitar is clean and ringing. The rhythm guitar is steady and thick in the middle. The organ is loose and soulful, but not boogie-woogie. The Attractions, The Rumour and Brinsley Schwarz were all famously “tight” bands. But they were “English tight.” Nervous tight. Coal in their bottom and get a diamond three minutes later tight. Fastball are more Austin tight — less neurotic, but maybe more assured.
That ease is frequently, deceptively satisfying, but it also caps their upside. Fastball’s competence comes at the expense of the grandeur, tension, weirdness — whatever it is — that separates great bands from superstardom. Songs like “Mono to Stereo” and, especially, “How Did I Get Here” are master classes in love discovered (the former) and love lost (the latter). They say and do exactly what they want to say and do and then move on. When handclaps are needed, they arrive. When one singer needs to step out from the harmony, he does. When the sharp edges need rounding, the organ arrives. The lyrics are metaphorical without ever veering into abstraction or philosophy. For most of the Nineties, these could have been minor radio hits. But ten years later, they were excellent songs that went unheard.
The gift of two songwriters can also be a curse — it makes bloat inevitable and final cuts difficult. Any way you slice it, two people require more real estate than just one. Which is why most Fastball records are one or two songs too many. “Angelie,” for instance, is a minor genre exercise with major skill. “She’s Got the Rain” is surely empathetic, but it’s also empathetic filler. And “White Noise” is more energy than elegance. But if “Little White Lies,” suffers from a bit of bloat (it does), it’s a charming, middle-age paunch.
Fastball’s fifth album was their final one as a full time, going concern. Their sixth took eight years and a Kickstarter campaign to birth. Somewhere in between, the band seemed to acknowledge that nostalgia plus crowdfunding was their path forward. That self-awareness — as unfair and kind of sad as it seems — was also pragmatic. It’s ultimately what has allowed them to tour and record regularly, while still leaving room for side hustles, families and lives far removed from stardom. As an Austin resident who loves music and likes Fastball, I literally never hear a peep about Fastball. I never see the guys around town and — frankly — I’m not sure I’d recognize them if I did. Best I can tell, they survive — maybe even thrive — like the Austin bands of the early Nineties. They get by doing a bunch of things, working some jobs for the money and some for the love. They work at their own pace and don’t sweat the small things — except when it comes to the songs, where the small things are the things.
As much as they are frozen in amber — the three Austin guys who made that song in the Nineties — Fastball were always an anachronism. They are a band out of time. On tour, alongside Everclear, The Gin Blossoms and Vertical Horizon, Fastball are the outliers. They sound different. Better. Less like the Nineties. Meanwhile back at home, they’re a throwback to bygone days. They’re The Broken Spoke wedged between two giant, luxury condo developments. They’re Guerros full of international tourists and guys in Patagonia vests talking about their Series B funding. Austin’s not weird anymore. Austin’s the new normal. Fastball is the quirk. “The Way” is the glitch — the great, forgotten accident that started it all.