By Andrew Daly
Though Fastball is generally considered a one-hit wonder, according to the band’s guitarist, Miles Zuzinga, that’s not the case. “We’re actually a two-and-a-half-hit wonder, or a four-hit wonder, depending on which chart you look at,” he tells Buddy Magazine.
Adding: “Haters gonna hate, but how many bands have had the kind of global hits that we’ve had? It’s like someone saying, ‘You only landed on the moon once.’”
Zuzinga’s point is fair. Still, when we look back on Fastball, an Austin, Texas-born ‘90s rock powerhouse, who took the MTV world by storm alongside fellow ‘90s bands Bare Naked Ladies and Sugar Ray, it all seems to come back to songs like “Out of My Head” and “The Way.”
Those songs come from 1998’s All the Pain Money Can Buy, Fastball’s sophomore record, and where Zuzinga says the band “hit its stride.” This is also fair, as the album has been certified platinum to date and remains an enduring symbol of late-90s light-alt-rock.
Since then, Fastball has kept at it, releasing another seven studio albums. Their most recent, 2024’s Sonic Ranch, sounds like, well, Fastball. They’re not here to break ground, but they’re not slaves to their past, either. “The past is the past,” Zuzinga says.
“There’s no point in trying to relive it,” he explains. “We just keep going forward, creating, and evolving. We’re just making music.”
As for Fastball’s enduring meaning beyond the pop charts, aka their standing in their home state of Texas, a scene normally associated with virtuoso guitarists like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Eric Johnson, Zuzinga shrugs, saying, “Texas music has influenced us a lot.”
He adds: “Whether it’s Willie Nelson, Bob Wills, Buddy Holly, Roky Erickson, Doug Sahm, The Fabulous T-Birds, Stevie Ray Vaughan, or ZZ Top, there’s so many amazing artists and they cast a long shadow. I don’t worry about how we fit in; it’s not for me to decide.”
What inspired you to pick up the guitar?
I was inspired by the Nuns at my Catholic school. They would glare at me because I wasn’t singing in church. I saw a way out… play guitar in the church band! [Laughs]
What was the local Texas scene like around you as you were coming up?
There were a lot of blues guitarists around because Stevie Ray Vaughan had just exploded out of Austin. There was also a really strong college underground scene. It all kind of mixed together for me, but the blues guys dressed better!
When did you find your sound, and what did that revelation look and sound like?
There was no revelation; it’s been an ongoing thing. I keep evolving. I do have a certain sound and style of playing, but I don’t really think about it all that much.
How did you meet the fellas in Fastball and end up forming the band?
I had played with our drummer, Joey [Shuffield], in a band called Big Car. Before that, Joey had a big-time record deal that went nowhere. A few years later, he introduced me to [bassist/vocalist] Tony [Scalzo].
Fastball was called Magneto USA to start. What led to the name change, and why “Fastball?”
Lawyers. It turns out Magneto was already taken. They were a Mexican boy band, like Menudo. [Laughs] And adding the “USA” wasn’t enough for the lawyers at Hollywood Records. So, “Fastball” was the only name that wasn’t already taken and that we all liked okay enough.
What was your rig like at that point? Was it hard to afford gear as a young musician?
My first big purchase was a Fender Bassman amp, which I still use today, and I had a few pedals. But I never bought a really nice guitar ‘til I was in my 40s. The reason for that was that I never wanted to be upset if my guitar got stolen… or if it broke in half. [Laughs]
What was it like recording Fastball’s debut, Make Your Mama Proud, and how did its
reception impact the band’s second record, All the Pain Money Can Buy?
It is humbling. We thought, “Do we really sound like that?” That record is okay, but the next record [All the Pain Money Can Buy] is when we hit our stride. But with Make Your Mama Proud, there was no success. That record probably sold a thousand copies. It was a dismal failure. I guess it was do-or-die time. Luckily, we had matured a lot by the next record.
To that end, can you recall writing and recording “The Way” and “Out of My Head,” which
were big hits from All the Pain Money Can Buy?
So, “Out of My Head” was pretty straightforward. I don’t even play on it except for the guitar solo. But “The Way” was a different story. Tony had demoed the song with a little keyboard that provided accompaniment. I was taken by his demo, but he didn’t want to do it that way. He wanted a more straightforward approach. It turned into a real tug of war, but the end result was a marriage of the two different ideas. The little keyboard is what you hear in the first verse.
The first time you heard those songs, and the entire All the Pain Money Can Buy album, did
you sense you had a winner?
I knew that the record was really, really strong. I had no idea if it would be a hit because I’d
been playing music for a decade by this point and had never seen any success.
How did life change for you, and what was it like for you as a young musician? And what was
the first guitar and piece of gear you bought after that record started to hit?
The biggest change was that I suddenly had money. I could stop worrying about money all the time. I could actually afford to go to dinner or buy a plane ticket. Very quickly, life started moving at three hundred miles an hour. I didn’t race out and buy a bunch of gear or anything. People started giving me lots of guitars, [Gibson] Les Pauls, and [Epiphone] Casinos.
Catch us up on where Fastball is now, what your rig is like.
We’re on tour all summer with the amazing Bare Naked Ladies, Guster, and Sugar Ray. Right now, I’m playing through my trusty Fender Bassman and a Matchless amp. And I’m using a [Gibson] SG and going through a [Ibanez Tube Screamer] TS-9 overdrive pedal and an [EHX] Memory Man Delay pedal. I also use a Boss Chorus [CE-2W] pedal.
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