After nine innings – no, years – away from recording studios and live performance stages, The Baseball Project is back in action.
Featuring Peter Buck, Mike Mills (both R.E.M. co-founders), Scott McCaughey (The Minus 5, R.E.M), Steve Wynn (The Dream Syndicate) and Linda Pitmon (Filthy Friends, Steve Wynn’s Miracle 3), The Baseball Project celebrates its return to the mound with a new album, ‘Grand Salami Time!’, and a tour that brings them to World Cafe Live on Aug. 22.
Catching Buck and McCaughey during a live soundcheck in Brooklyn — “We’re doing 6 shows a week so we waste no time,” said the latter — the pair recalled the friendship that bound them together since 1984 and their earliest bands.
“We always had many of the same tastes and interests, and both liked to work a lot,” said Buck, the sole member of The Baseball Project who doesn’t share McCaughey and Wynn’s rabid obsession with America’s Greatest Sport. “I’m here because of the friendships and the music, and never paid that much attention to baseball. Steve, Scott and Mike, though, keep me well informed.”
Steve Wynn, Scott McCaughey.Provided
McCaughey stated how Buck was enthusiastic about the earliest songs created for The Baseball Project, and “how after 12 songs and eight hours was in the band immediately,” he said. “Steve and I love baseball, but like all sports, it’s full of sh*t,” McCaughey laughed. “We celebrate that, always, and it’s good having a voice of dissention such as Peter’s in the band, too. We never force Peter to go to baseball games either.”
Buck does concede that music is his baseball-like obsession. “I have no room for hobbies – music is my hobby,” laughed Buck.
McCaughey countered with. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on vacation as I’m always too busy writing and recording songs and playing live gigs.”
Like its previous three studio albums since 2008, ‘Grand Salami Time!’ speaks literally and metaphorically to all that is baseball and its deepest darkest secrets. Legendary players such as Jim Bouton and Josh Gibson are as much a part of The Baseball Project’s 2023 recording as is the Buck and Wynn-written “Journeyman,” which touches on the shared traveling life of musicians and ballers alike.
“The challenge of writing for this band means that we try to cover a number of bases — and I wasn’t even trying to make that quip,” said McCaughey with a laugh. “We’re writing stories, story-songs, which is a great tradition of folk music, and not something that I do with my other bands. It’s a nice exercise for me, writing more linear songs. You think that you’ve exhausted the form, then you realize that there are so many weird stories to tell within baseball’s 150+years existence, literally and metaphorically.”
With McCaughey as the sole knowledgeable baseball fan between them, the guitarist and vocalist doesn’t leave this interview with giving his honest opinion of the Philadelphia Phillies’ chances for the rest of 2023.
“Well, they started off underachieving, as usual, then they turned it on,” said McCaughey. “It looks as if they’re going to make the playoffs, which is the best that you can ask for, really. Trea Turner just started hitting, finally, at the right time. The Phillies seem to always hit their stride just in time for the playoffs.”
If you have any problem with what that assessment, take it up with The Baseball Project on Aug. 22.
For more information and tickets, visit worldcafelive.com
