Sometimes it takes a little time at sea to remind musicians of the impact they have left.
That was the case for Tony Scalzo, lead singer of the band Fastball, when his group set sail on the star-studded The 90s Cruise earlier this year.
“It’s a pretty good deal,” Scalzo told MassLive. “You’re out there for a week on this cruise ship and you’re treated like a king. The hardest part is just getting through the cafeterias and stuff, the food places and people being like, ‘Hey, can I get a picture?’”
Fastball was on the cruise along with other iconic acts from the ‘90s including Sugar Ray, whom Scalzo said he has known “since before they were even called Sugar Ray.”
The frontman of Fastball has historically opposed getting lumped into the category of nostalgic music acts, but events such as The 90s Cruise have helped him become more accepting.
“I’d love to be able to separate myself from that era. But the fact is, we all have eras that we identify with,” Scalzo said. “That’s where we had our success, and we identify with that to people and might as well go with it.”
Formed in 1994 in Austin, Texas, Fastball celebrated its 30th anniversary last year. The band — consisting of Scalzo, guitarist/vocalist Miles Zuniga and drummer Joey Shuffield — released their debut album “Make Your Mamma Proud” in 1996 after signing with Hollywood Records.
However it wasn’t until their sophomore effort, 1998’s “All the Pain Money Can Buy,” that the band achieved stardom. The album’s lead single, “The Way” was a massive hit. The gold-certified track topped the Alternative Airplay chart for seven weeks and even crossed over onto the Pop Airplay and Adult Pop Airplay charts. The songs “Fire Escape” and “Out of My Head” did similarly well, and “All the Pain Money Can Buy” went platinum within six months of its release. The album also earned Fastball two Grammy nominations.
Fastball saw some success with their third album “The Harsh Light of Day” and the hit single “You’re an Ocean,” which landed in the top 30 of both the Pop Airplay and Adult Pop Airplay charts. However, the band eventually left the Hollywood roster in favor of a new deal with Rykodisc, under which they dropped “Keep Your Wig On” in 2004.
The band followed up with four more albums — “Little White Lies,” “Step into Light,” “The Help Machine” and “The Deep End” — from 2009 to 2022. Fastball also released their first-ever full-length live album, “Smashed Hits,” in 2023.
Fastball dropped their ninth studio album, “Sonic Ranch” last June. The band has been actively touring in support of the record ever since and is now supporting Barenaked Ladies on the second leg of the “Last Summer On Earth 2025” tour.
“We were invited on this tour with the Barenaked Ladies, who have a lot of fans and resources, and they sell out big amphitheaters and theaters,” Scalzo said.
“The only bad part is that we only get to play for about a half an hour,” he said. “We bring our most popular songs all in one package, and it’s a sort of a concentrated energy of 30 minutes of your best stuff.”
Despite having a shorter set, Fastball is still helping to pack concert venues even after more than 30 years in the music industry.
“Everybody seems to know our music. When we play a place like Red Rocks or the Greek Theater and there’s five or six thousand people in the audience, if I stop the song ‘The Way’ and I say, ‘Everybody sing,’ you know what, everybody sings.”
Fastball is gearing up for a string of New England shows including one at Tanglewood Music Center in Lenox on July 8 and another at Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston on July 11.
In addition to being “a bit cooler” than Scalzo’s native state of Texas, the musician said he likes that New England “is a bit more liberal.”
“We’re into freedom and all that stuff and we’re also into making maybe getting this country to shake hands,” the singer said.
Once the tour wraps up, Fastball plans on going into the studio before the end of the year to work on new music.
But if another chance to go on The 90s Cruise came up, Scalzo said he would “do it again in a heartbeat.”
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