Modern Baseball: Philly’s Latest Musical Wonder

Modern Baseball

Chicago – Over the years, Philadelphia has produced a number of talented musical groups, from Boyz II Men and The Roots, to Pink, Santigold, and Dr. Dog. Now Philly gives us emo rockers Modern Baseball. Brendan Lukens, Ian Farmer, Sean Huber, and Jacob Ewald make up this young band, hitting it big at the height of the emo revival. Less than three years ago, these guys came together with high hopes and expectations, and with much hard work, dedication, and humor, they’ve managed to build an enormous fan base, release two albums, and tour with bands like The Wonder Years, Tiny Moving Parts, and Knuckle Puck.

Best New Bands caught up with Modern Baseball at Riot Fest, where the twentysomethings talked about recording their sophomore album You’re Gonna Miss It All (Run For Cover Records), performing for their favorite band The Get Up Kids, and living in Philly.

Sarah Hess: Music journalists have named you one of the main bands in the emo-revivalist movement. How do you feel about this?

Brendan Lukens: Honestly, we just like that people listen to us, and that’s it!

Ian Farmer: Yeah, we get clumped into all kinds of things, but it’s just nice that people like us.

SH: What bands and types of music did you listen to growing up?

Brendan: Well, Jake and I listened to Motion City Soundtrack, Say Anything, Dashboard Confessional, a lot of Gaslight Anthem.

Ian: I listened to a lot of Green Day, System of a Down, The Mars Volta, The Ramones, The Clash, Weezer.

Sean Huber: I’ll never be as cool as you guys! (laughs) I listened to Bob Dylan, Blink 182, Green Day, The Offspring, Rancid, Bob Marley, and the Dropkick Murphys a lot.

SH: I read that The Get Up Kids are one of your favorite bands. You played a Riot Fest aftershow with them. How did it feel to perform for your idols?

Ian: If there’s a way to properly say “smacking your forehead,” just like… (Ian smacks his forehead).

Sean: If there was a noise to describe it, it would be like “whoagh!”

Jacob Ewald: I feel like it would have meant more if they weren’t so nice to us.

Brendan: Matt Pryor came up to us and was like, “You’re so incredible! I’m going to be real honest, everyone told me to check you out, I didn’t do it until tonight, and I fucked up.”

Ian: It was like, “Whoa!”

SH: Did you tell him how big a fan you are?

Brendan: No, but he kind of knew.

SH: You guys relocated to Philly, right?

Brendan: Jake and I are from Maryland.

Sean: Me and Ian are form New Jersey.

SH: What brought you to Philly?

Sean: School.

SH: Did you guys drop out or are you taking a break?

Brendan: We did not drop out. Never plan on it. We are taking a few semesters off to tour. Jake and Ian just finished three semesters at Drexel, and I go back in January.

Ian: And Sean was teaching courses at the University near by… for the last fifteen years. (everyone laughs)

Sean: I’m like two years older than them, and we like to exaggerate how much older I am. I graduated… but on academic probation.

SH: Philly produces a lot of musical acts. What do you think it is about Philadelphia that inspires musicians?

Ian: It’s definitely something in the water. It’s all the Prozac in the water. (laughs)

Sean: Honestly, I think Philadelphia is just a good incubator for good music because…

Ian: Because of the water!

Sean: No, no it’s just a very happening city. There’s a lot going on, and it’s very cheap to live there. It’s not like Brooklyn. Brooklyn is very, very expensive. It’s amazing to be in Brooklyn, but it is very expensive to live there. Philly is very cheap still, and a lot of the areas where the music is coming out of are at that point where it’s about five years before it’ll be super expensive. So everyone lives there for very cheap. I don’t know, it’s weird, I’m constantly walking down the street and see some of my favorite bands walking by. It’s weird. We all live there.

SH: Have you thought about relocating after school?

Brendan: Honestly, we really like Philly a lot. I know Ian and I said if we’re ever going to move, then maybe Seattle or Portland. You know, one of those places that really has a lot of green. Philly doesn’t have a lot of green. There’s a lot of gray.

Ian: Not as much gray as say Cleveland or New York.

Sean: We all have our places that if we were doing really well, we’d live, but as a band, it’s Philly!

SH: Let’s talk about You’re Gonna Miss It All. What was the recording process like?

Ian: We were just continuing to write after Sports came out…

Brendan: We were very, very proud of it. Jake and Ian killed it, recording it. Jon Low, I have to say Grammy-nominated Jon Low, mixed it for us. We were getting mixes while on tour and…

Ian: We were blown away when we first heard the mixes!

Sean: It was literally like, “Okay, we made the right move!”

Jacob: We would get a Dropbox link from him, and download it to our phones while we were driving, and plug into the car stereo.


SH: Your video for “Your Graduation” is awesome! Tell us about the making of this video.

Ian: It took a very long time and it was a lot of work. (laughs)

Jacob: Well, a lot of work for Brendan! (laughs)

SH: Who came up with the idea?

Brendan: Our music video side of our crew, of the MoBo team. Kyle Thrash and some of our other homies… [Kyle] Bubba Thrash was like this is what I want to do, “I want to take four days. I want us take like 12, 14 hour days, and I just want to slay this.” We were like, “You got it babe!” … The best part about it was we spent four days and got two videos out of it. (“Pothole” being the second)… It was like three in the morning and Jake had to walk down the street while they were doing the “Jake parts” of it and then Bubba came on tour with us to finish it off.

Sean: It’s been the very the model of our band, and that video is the culmination of just hanging out with homies, drinking a lot of beer, and just hanging out. Somehow all of our homies are super talented.

Jacob: Even the whole film crew was film kids from the school that we go to.

SH: Talk to me about “Two Good Things.”

Jacob: In the chorus, I say, “stuck between two good things” because it’s like all this good shit was going on, but then I was like, “Why am I still bummed?” All this good shit is here, I don’t know.

SH: If you were to bring two good things on tour, what would you bring?

Jacob: Ugh… a puppy.

Brendan: No, that’s too high maintenance.

Sean: PUP. (Everyone screams PUP!) And Diarrhea Planet.

Ian: Yes!

Modern Baseball are hitting it out of the park on tour. Click HERE for tour dates, and click HERE to purchase You’re Gonna Miss It All.
Sarah Hess

Sarah Hess

At the age of six, Sarah Hess discovered True Blue by Madonna. This resulted in her spending hours in front of the bathroom mirror with a hairbrush microphone, belting out "La Isla Bonita" off key. Her love for music only intensified over the years thanks to her parents; her mother exposed Sarah to The Jackson Five and had her hustling to the Bee Gees, while her father would play her albums like 'Pet Sounds' and 'Some Girls' from start to finish, during which he'd lecture on and on about the history of rock & roll. Sarah would eventually stumble upon rap and hip-hop, then punk and alternative, and fall madly in love with Jeff Buckley and film photography.

After attending The School of the Art Institute in Chicago, Sarah went on to study education at Dominican University, earning a degree in history. When not teaching, writing, or taking in a show, she is most likely to be found with a camera to her eye or hanging out in a darkroom.


You can follow Sarah Hess on twitter at @Sarahhasanh and view her music photography on her website: smhimaging.com.
Sarah Hess

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