PREMIERE | Baseball Gregg, "Slow"

The wonderful world of Baseball Gregg’s Luca & Sam; press photo courtesy of the artists.

Continuing the spirit of the season, we proudly present the latest Calender single from international pop phenomenon Baseball Gregg who debut the leisurely single about turning it down a notch with "Slow". Luca Lovisetto and Sam Regan recorded the mellow tune while in London last September that is the perfect antidote to the hustle, bustle and tumult of our daily lives. The group seeks the stillness of tranquility in our shared world that speeds about aimlessly on an amped-up treadmill hamster wheel of perpetual motion for arbitrary reasons.

The sparse production of “Slow” incorporates a melodic melange of keys and sweetly strummed strings set to a minimalist back beat. Baseball Gregg have made a song to sort out all the madness, meticulous schedules and constant spin of chaos that has consumed this year, this past decade and further beyond. “Slow” is an ode to desiring that certain kind of calm that one finds in taking sanctuary from the storms that propel our day to day lives. Delivered in the band’s own trademark tones of warmth and earnest wonder — Luca and Sam send us a sincere reminder to take some much needed down time away from the clamor and ruckus that consumes our worlds. Baseball Gregg extol the timeless wisdom of taking it easy in order to better cope and contribute to a world that is often very difficult (if not impossible) to understand.

We caught up with Luca and Sam to reflect on the year, the creative processes at work, artistic evolution and other assorted items:

Reflections on the voyage of discovery discovered through the process of creating the Calendar singles.

Luca: 2019 was the longest year, and at the same time the shortest. A lot of things have happened, and every track reminds me of a specific period of the year. It’s incredible how time flies, when you look back it’s almost scary. At the same time, this album is a sort of diary with the memories of a season, not only tied to the months in which they were recorded but also to the songs themselves. Each month we recorded the song that we were about to release, sometimes writing them in that same month. During this process, we were often rushed and felt some anxiety about finishing the songs. At the same time, while we were rushed to finish each song, the whole album unfolded slowly, and little by little we were able to get an idea of the album we were creating. In the beginning, we didn’t know what the end product would be, we just had a few songs dedicated to our friends and ideas for some collaborations.

Sam: I let Luca take control of the recording and production of this album. I’ve mostly just been feeling confused most of this year, and it’s been nice to have some time to figure things out.

Anecdotes on the London setting that contributed to the creation of "Slow".

Luca: Simone D’Avenia and I have been friends since we were little. When I was 17 I started my first band with him, we played covers of the Strokes and the Arctic Monkeys. Since then our tastes have changed, we have grown up, and it’s been six years now that he’s lived in London. He set up a studio in Tottenham, and it’s been a while now that Sam and I have wanted to go to London and collaborate with him. The city is very creatively fertile, while we were recording Rachel from the band Sedona, who we met this March at SXSW, came by the studio. Simone has become a great producer, collaborates with many London artists and he surely put a lot of himself into this track. The song was originally recorded for a compilation with the french label Nice Guys, but in the end this collaboration fell through. We then decided to include it in Calendar, even if sonically it’s a bit different from the rest of the album, because if we remain true to the original idea of the album as a diary this song reminds of us a beautiful weekend in London collaboration with our friend.

Sam: London was super fun! Simone is a kindhearted person and is really understanding, so it was really nice to work with him. There was a piano in his studio that was beautiful. If I’m not mistaken, Sedona and Simone worked on some songs together after they met each other.

Thoughts on the merits of slowness as opposed to the rushed hurry and flurry of our day to day lives.

Luca: The song is very old, I think it was born in the noughties, Sam can confirm. It’s from a period in which I, personally, lived a more relaxed and less stressed lifestyle than I do today.

Sam: This was one of the first songs I ever wrote. I was 15 or 16 years old. I’m not sure if my life was faster or slower then. I barely do anything at all in my day-to-day life, so I’m probably more sedentary now that I was when I wrote this song. I think, like everything in life, it’s important to find the right balance between being busy and having time to relax.

Insights on the evolution of Baseball Gregg and what's in store for 2020.

Luca: 2019 was, as I was saying, a very long year, and at the same time it passed quickly. We wrote, recorded, and spent a lot of time on the new songs. We played in Europe, the United States and in Iceland. We published a song every month. In a few days we are releasing the video for Hong Kong Hike, the single from May, with videos that Sam recorded in Hong Kong this summer, videos from hiking and protests. At the end of February we will collect the songs in an album, Calendar, that will also be a book, calendar and (maybe) a vinyl. We’ll have the release simultaneously in the US and in California, and then we’re going back to SXSW this March: we are very excited!

Sam:  I’m probably going to move to Bologna in August, so we’ll live close to each other for the first time since the band officially started. That seems weird!

Activists and artists that are currently inspiring and enlightening your lives.

Luca: I’ll give you some artists from my city, Laura Agnusdei and Altre di B, both of whom have had songs released in these days. The latter are local indie heroes, they toured the world and are without a doubt the city’s glory of the decade; the prior is an incredible saxophonist and composer that has just published what may be my favorite album of the year, Laurisilva. She has a bright future.

Sam: As usual, I’m really stoked about my friends. Boy Romeo is putting out an EP with Z-Tapes soon, and I think Mediocre Cafe’s album is coming out in the spring. I’ve been making music with my friend Jaycob from Blush, that’s been really fun and inspiring.

Lessons gleaned from 2019.

Luca: I could tell you a lot of anecdotes I’ve learned about table tennis and cycling, but I think Sam would agree it’s better to skip over it.

Sam: I saw a squirrel die yesterday, it got shocked by an electrical wire and fell to the ground. I don’t know what lesson I’d take from that, I guess that we can die at any moment or something.

Future hopes and meditations.

Luca:  My hope for the 2020s is to try and divide music and lyrics: I would like to concentrate on instrumental music, and at the same time concentrate on poetry — or at least on prose. But, actually, I’d like to take a break from writing and from creating things, after this year so full of self-imposed deadlines.

Sam: I’ve been writing recently. While writing the descriptions for the calendar songs I realized I like writing, so I’ve been doing that more. I’ve also been learning some jazz standards on piano. I’m also going to restart this socialist book club in Stockton, that should be a good start to 2020.

Parting words of learned wisdom.

Luca: It seems like I was just born, and in a few days we’re starting a new decade. How did this happen? After all, like Liam Gallagher once said, “Time flies.” I can't wait to live the roaring twenties and talk about them to my grandchildren.

Sam: Liam Gallagher was the first one to say “Time flies!” Never knew that. I’m not planning on having kids, I wouldn’t want them to die in the climate disaster, so I won’t have any grandkids to tell about the twenties. That’s fine though, I’ll just live through them and see what happens.

Listen to more from Baseball Gregg via Spotify.