01	Shortwave						01:13
	02	Lou-ee Lou-ee						02:53
	03	Drifting Away						03:47
	04	Airstream						03:29
	05	I Get High						03:36
	06	Perfect World						03:35
	07	'Til I Get It Right						04:55
	08	Our Misunderstanding						03:21
	09	Someday						03:25
	10	Mercenary Girl						02:42
	11	Falling Upstairs						03:37
	12	Red Light						03:18

AUSTIN TRIO FASTBALL GET READY TO RELEASE KEEP YOUR WIG ON JUNE 8 ON RYKODISC [March 23, 2004] In ""The Way,"" Fastball's Tony Scalzo sang of an elderly couple that suddenly up and left their home, never to return: ""They just drove off and left it all behind 'em/But here were they going without ever/Knowing the way?"" The song became a runaway hit and paved the way to Fastball's 1998 through album, the platinum-certified All the Pain Money Can Buy. And now, as the band prepares for the release of its Rykodisc debut, Keep Your Wig On (to be released June 8, 2004), it serves as an apt metaphor for the last four years, in which Fastball tried to regain its balance. ""So many of the characters in our songs suffer from always wanting to go someplace else, never being satisfied with where they are,"" explains Miles Zuniga, who founded the Austin, TX-based trio nearly a decade ago with fellow singer/songwriter Scalzo and drummer Joey Shuffield. Then suddenly, amidst their success, the band morphed into characters of their own design. ""The strangest part was ending up in a place you didn't sign up to go to,"" adds Miles. ""My heroes were people like Lucinda Williams and Joe Ely. We thought, experiencing the success we had, we would have more freedom to do what we wanted. Believe me, I'm not complaining. Nobody was telling us what to do. But the pressures and frustrations got to us."" On Keep Your Wig On, the band, still in its original-and only-incarnation, sounds refreshed and freed from the pressures of major-label success. ""It's really about perseverance in the face of all hell breaking loose,"" says Miles of the new album. ""There are so many people around Austin who've been playing music professionally their whole lives. And it doesn't seem to matter whether their records sell or not. I just never want to lose sight of that. I want to belong to that branch of the tree."" During their time apart, Miles wrote with artists like Guy Clark and NRBQ's Al Anderson, whose collaborative effort with Zuniga, ""Airstream,"" appears on the new album. And finally, after working with all of these different partners, Miles wondered why he couldn't do the same thing with Tony and the two began to write together, not separately as they had in the past. That seamless interplay makes Keep Your Wig On the group's loosest, but strongest pop collection yet. Fastball returned to its home turf to record basic tracks at Viewpoint Studios in Austin, which marked a reunion with Rykodisc A&R vice president Rob Seidenberg, who originally signed the band to its first record deal. Mike McCarthy (Spoon) produced a majority of the tracks, with Sheryl Crow songwriter Jeff Trott and Fountains of Wayne's Adam Schlesinger serving as producer on the rest. ""We're not interested in what's hip or trendy,"" says Scalzo. ""This time around we're only going to do the stuff that's important, not just something that offers publicity, money or promotion. That stuff's important, the blood cells of your career, but I'd like to be more selective this time."" The band is raring to get back out and play. ""It's a fresh start and it feels real organic,"" says Miles. ""The best thing about it is, we've already been through the 'having a hit single' phase. And while we'd love to have another, we don't necessarily need to go down that road. We want to make sure we're going about this thing the way we want to. And I think on this album, we have.""