When Ball Park Music land at Kuranda Amphitheatre this Saturday as one of the headliners for Carve It Up, the indie rockers come riding an impressive wave of success.

Barely any time has passed since they burst onto the scene with their debut album Happiness and Surrounding Suburbs in 2011 (and resulting win as triple j Unearthed act of the year), yet the Brisbane-based five-piece already have a second full-length out on the streets and are fast becoming one of Australia’s favourite live outfits.

Inspired by the quick turnaround between albums from bands like The Beatles, Museum is a triumph for BPM, producing the hit single Surrender and debuting at No9 on the ARIA albums chart on its release last month.

Ball Park Music’s guitarist and vocalist Sam Cromack says he’s glad the band didn’t wait long between drinks – it’s not a luxury you can take for granted in the modern music industry.

“We turned it around pretty quickly,” he says.

“The first one came about a year ago, but we had material coming together on the road as we toured the first album. We just got more and more excited about getting straight back into the second one, and here we are. A lot of bands have a longer gap between records and can make that cycle last longer, but we’re not particularly interested in that. Some bands can afford to take a huge break and come back strong, but there are so many great bands around these days, we didn’t really want to take that chance… I think we made the right decision, everything is flowing along nicely at the moment. Some bands unfortunately shrivel up and disappear if they don’t keep the ball rolling. We thought we’d just follow our hearts a bit, it felt like the right thing to do and we’ve got no regrets. I think we’ll milk this record for all its worth though, the next one might not come as quickly.”

The actual recording process was even shorter than Ball Park Music’s turnaround between albums, taking only around two weeks in July.

“We tracked a song a day, it all came together really quickly,” he says.

“It was all a bit of a blur in retrospect. We were working on such a tight schedule, it’s kinda difficult to reflect on it now. Both the band and the producer were feeling pretty burnt out by the end of it, but I’m proud of everyone’s efforts… if the material wasn’t there, we wouldn’t have forced it. But we had songs we could work on, so we wanted to do it while we could.”

Sam says the risk of waiting too long is that someone new, with fresher or more original ideas, will quickly take your place.

“It’s such a competitive thing, so many artists wanna have a go at the same thing we’re doing,” he says.

“If you don’t demonstrate your work, there is a younger band with fresher and better ideas to take your place. You have to stand up to the crowd and say ‘this is our band’ if you want people to pay attention to you for the next 10 years. We’ve got so much stuff left to show.”

Sam says he and the rest of Ball Park Music are looking forward to landing in the Far North for the first time – especially since he and Kuranda have a special family connection.

“I don’t really know what to expect,” he says.

“I have some family in Cairns, so I’ve been up there a bunch of times. I also know guys like Emma Louise and The Medics, so I got a chance to speak to them about Kuranda Amphitheatre. My girlfriend’s parents lived up in Kuranda for a really large portion of their life, and all I hear people say is nice things. The (Amphitheatre) sounds incredible and we haven’t played a festival-style show like that for a while, so it should be really awesome.”

Ball Park Music perform at Carve It Up at Kuranda Amphitheatre on Saturday, December 1, alongside Bluejuice, The Jungle Giants, Jimmy The One, The Young Art and more. For more information and tickets, see carveitup.net.au

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