Adam Prudhomme
Editor
When Napanee’s Nathan Amey set out to write a baseball song, he knew he’d have to call to the ‘pen to bring a closer.
And so that’s what the lead singer of Master Nate & The Reprobates (MNR) did, reaching out across the continent to enlist the help of former MLB relief pitcher Scott Radinsky. The Californian not only has 481.2 innings and 52 saves on his resume, but also fronts the punk rock band Pulley.
Amey, a longtime fan of Pulley, swung for the fences hoping to work out collaboration. Much to his delight his pitch struck a cord and Radinsky was game. The result is a track known as The Baseball Ballad, which was released across all platforms on March 31.
“I had thought if I could get him to agree to a baseball song then I would write one,” said Amey. “I kind of presented it to Scott that I was writing one and then once I got his commitment I figured it would be a good idea to follow through.”
Once Radinsky agreed work got started on the song that took about one year to reach the finished product. MNR-which also includes Tony Gerhardt and Dann Bertrand-aka Danny Addicted-worked on the bed track from the Bathhouse Recording Studio and then sent digital files to Radinsky in California.
“It felt odd trying to give Scott direction because it felt totally foreign me trying to tell the singer from Pulley what I him wanted to do in this song,” said Amey. “It was a very strange experience and a very humbling one and as well a very good learning experience too.”
The lyrics, which alternate between Radinsky and Amey, do just as the name suggests, telling the story of a baseball game from the top of the first into extra innings, including a bang-bang play at the plate to cut down the potential winning run in the ninth.
The song combines two things Radinsky knows well-punk rock and MLB. His 11-year big league career spanned from 1990 to 2001 with stops in Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Cleveland. In 1994 he joined Pulley.
Amey hopes to further play on the baseball angle by setting up a meeting with Radinsky when Pulley comes to Toronto for a show in June. If everything lines up, Amey is hoping the band can get together to shoot a music video-ideally inside the Rogers Centre, home of the Toronto Blue Jays. He’s currently working on the logistics of making that happen.
One potential hiccup to the song came when MLB’s players were locked out in December, putting the start of the season in doubt.
“That made things a little tricky for us because we had lined it up for an April 1 release then it was mentioned that baseball was going to start on March 31 so we moved our release day back one day. Then the strike happened,” said Amey.
Ultimately the band pushed ahead with the March 31 release and was rewarded when MLB put aside its differences and agreed to open the season just one week later than originally intended.
The single now released, MNR will now return its focused to the ongoing mega music project of releasing eight albums spaced out over just a few months, all of which tie in together. To date they’ve released two of the Diem series-The Dawn and The Day.
The project has long been a dream of Amey’s has afforded him the opportunity to work with some of his idols.
“None of these guys really know me,” said Amey. “They might see our touring history or our release history and give us a little bit of credibility that way. But these people are taking part on Master Nate and the Reprobates based solely on the merit on what they’re hearing in the (song) pitches. We laid out the type of song we wanted to do with Scott, explained the baseball theme and he saw the merit and agreed to it based on that. As a musician it’s really hard to get even the general the public to believe in you. To have someone who pitched in MLB for 11 seasons, who has been in a huge band that I’ve been a fan of for over 20 years, that belief it really goes straight to the heart. To have him to agree just based on the merit of this music, I can’t ask for more than that, I’ve already hit a home run.”
For more on the band, visit Master Nate & The Reprobates on Facebook.