Music
The former Mass. resident and Berklee student is making a splash with his debut album, “For the First Time, Again.”
Rhode Island native Tyler Ballgame, once a Berklee student, is making waves in the music industry. El Hardwick
The first time I heard a Tyler Ballgame song, he popped up on an “artists you might like”-type shuffle. I was walking, and stopped in my tracks to see who it was.
And honestly, “What the *@#$?” is probably a common reaction to hearing the Rhode Islander for the first time. There is simply no one like this dude in music.
He’s Roy Orbison meets Fruit Bats, peppered with with an amalgamation of influences — some ’50s doo-wop, some ’70s singer/songwriter, Nick Drake-esque lyrics. (“Kill me in your mouth like an animal.”)
Songs hit like dramatic indie folk-pop as sung by an opera-house tenor singing to the back seats, who can swing from bel canto to a near-Tom Waits growl.
He is refreshingly genre-less.
But when you see him live, it takes the whole experience to a new level. A commanding stage presence, the vocalist is all hand gestures and facial expression. He smiles at nothing. Hands on hips, he sways.
Must listen: “Goodbye My Love” (shockingly Orbison-esque).
And “Matter of Taste.” I recommend watching his recent Jimmy Kimmel performance of the latter for a solid introduction.
I learned during this interview that Tyler Ballgame grew up spending weekends and beach days not far from where I live.
He was Tyler Perry then.
And if you spent any time in Westport, maybe you ran into him at Horseneck Beach.
Or you might know Ballgame, 34, from his years growing up in Cumberland, R.I. From his time at Mount Saint Charles Academy in Woonsocket or Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Maybe from his bar gigs, open mics around Rhode Island.
If you did — or even better, if you didn’t — that’s why he named his debut album: “For the First Time, Again.”
Because Rhode Island’s Tyler Perry now knows what Minnesota’s Robert Zimmerman knew when he fled to New York and became Bob Dylan.
The secret is the mask.
“Entertainment is presenting an image and delivering an experience. It helps to put the mask on and get lost inside the experience, to truly surrender. Then both sides can surrender to it — audience and artist,” Ballgame, 34, tells me in a recent phone interview from his new home in Los Angeles.
Tyler Perry “might’ve been self-conscious. But Tyler Ballgame is uninhibited. If Tyler Perry were up there, maybe I wouldn’t dance around or act like that or look people in the eyes. Because it’s this mask: I’m Jim Morrison up there. I’m Elvis up there.”
Ballgame has natural talent in spades. Grew up with people telling him how talented he was. In voice lessons by age 8. Got a scholarship to Berklee. Singing was like breathing.
His dream of performing was so singular, felt like such destiny, that when his big break didn’t happen quickly and easily, depression set in.
Living in his mom’s basement in Cumberland, smoking copious amounts of pot, he realized he needed a major change.
In 2021, with a suitcase and a dream, he moved to L.A.
With Red Sox legend Ted “Teddy Ballgame” Williams in mind, “Tyler Ballgame” was created in an L.A. bar out of sheer will, spun from the intangible — from vocal chords, vibration, air and gut instinct.
Call this his second at-bat. And it’s a grand slam: A bidding war. Late night shows. CBS Saturday Morning. A UK Tour.
With his first major album out now via Rough Trade, gigs from London to Lisbon, and a North American tour just announced, I called Ballgame for a wide-ranging interview.
Tickets are on sale now for his shows June 21 at Greenfield’s Green River Fest. He tells me he’ll be hosting an after-show benefit at Newport Folk Fest — more details to come. He’ll also play Brighton Music Hall Sept. 19.
In conversation, Ballgame gives off still-waters-run-deep vibes. Quiet, subdued, apt to quote Eckhart Tolle or Jerry Garcia. Some lines hit like poetry. Example, when he’s telling me about the house in Westport where his ancestors lived: “I know it somewhere in my geese memory.” (That’s a song lyric, Tyler.)
We talked the beauty of coastal Massachusetts, Rhode Island gigs, Berklee days, Roy Orbison, the power of masks, and powering through.
Boston.com: I feel like you’ve had this meteoric rise in the last year. You’ve got such a unique story and voice. Take me back to your roots: What you were like as a kid?
Tyler Ballgame: I was always musical. I have a younger brother. It was the two of us. We were mostly raised in Cumberland. I was taking voice lessons around 8, 9, doing theater as a kid. I remember listening to classical music and musical theater with my mom. She was a music teacher, we’d sing in the car. It came natural.
Then I discovered classic rock and Nirvana — eventually, the songwriters of the ’70s. Since I was 12 or 13, I was always in bands, writing my own songs. I felt very encouraged along that route.
You got a scholarship to Berklee.
It was great at Berklee, surrounded by such talent and so many people taking it so seriously. It was like a mini arts community, even if it was built and designed via the structure of school administration. But it was a nice little pressure-cooker.
How long were you there?
I only went for what the scholarship paid for. I was like “I don’t need to take Conducting III. I probably got everything out of this that I’m gonna get.”
[laughs] You grew up in Cumberland. But some articles say you’re from Portsmouth, R.I.?
I think that was a mistake on my Spotify page. That’s where my mom’s family’s from. And my dad’s family is from Westport, Mass.
Wait, what? I live near there.
Really? My family owned Perry’s Bakery.
Are you kidding? That’s where my family got Thanksgiving pies when I was little.
[laughs] Must’ve been from Grammy Gwen. My family sold it in the ’80s. I grew up partly in Westport because my mom and dad divorced. Every other weekend we’d be in Westport with my dad, going to Horseneck Beach.
This is wild.
[laughs] So it’s cool to hear from someone who knew Perry’s, because Westport is such a small town. My mom lives in Tiverton, R.I. now.
What? You’re basically from my neighborhood.
[laughs] Yeah! I love that part of the New England coast. It’s like the smallest little corner of the world. There are spots that feel out of a Hemingway novel.
Ooh, I like that. OK, so you mostly grew up in Cumberland. It sounds like you felt destined to be a musician.
It was so natural to me. I never had to try. I’d excel in singing, drama, music. That’s where I got my joy. I always knew I was meant for this. That never wavered within me.
That’s partly why I was depressed. If it’s something you never have to try at, you don’t understand why it doesn’t just happen. But that’s the naivety of being young.
Tyler Ballgame – El Hardwick
After I left Berklee, I moved home, depressed, playing bar gigs around Rhode Island. Then I recorded at the Columbus Theater [in Providence] around 2019, with Jeff [Prystowsky] from the [Providence-based] band The Low Anthem. We made this record — and it did nothing.
I put so much weight on it. I spent all my money on it. And nothing happened. A couple friends were like, “Yeah, cool.” I was like, “No, this is supposed to change my life — to save me from my lot.”
Right.
I knew I needed to go to a bigger pond. During the pandemic, the world wasn’t really asking anything of me. I got a chance to recalibrate. I responded to a Craigslist ad for a recruiter position in L.A. They said “Can you be here in two weeks?” I put my whole life in a suitcase, found a place in Venice Beach, and played open mics every night until I found my people.
You said you were depressed. How did you find the will to get up and go?
It was partly an act of desperation. I’d been working with a great counselor, took a personality test, and discovered Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now.” All these things snapped into place. I felt free suddenly. I understood what was troubling me. I saw my suffering and laughed at it. I was able to not take myself so seriously. I realized that everything that was bothering me was just a story, which is inherently a fiction.
This sounds like Alan Watts‘s philosophy.
Totally! Expectations versus reality: If you don’t like your reality, change the context of your surroundings. It was inspiring to move to L.A. When I got here, I went to a Tuesday open mic and it was packed. People were dead silent listening. I was like, “Oh, wow. I’m in the right place.”
You eventually put a band together and started playing free shows.
Yeah, kept playing until a manager saw me. Then I made the record with [producer] Jonathan Rado. My managers did a great job of building buzz to the point where music industry people came to our free shows. There was a label bidding war that changed my life.
You did Roy Orbison covers at one point.
In Rhode Island, this couple always asked me to sing “Crying.” In L.A., I’d do that cover and people freaked out. Subconsciously, I was like, “Maybe I should sing more in my supported style, the way I learned how to sing as a kid.”
Roy Orbison songs — it’s not so much his style, it’s the writing of the melody that can support such a voice. I learned I needed to write songs [like that] because I was writing Elliot Smith, Nick Drake-type songs — flat whisper-singing.
I made the song “Help Me Out” in this new voice, this new swagger, this “front man arrives in L.A.”-vibe. I wanted to write for this new character.
I love that song. Why “Tyler Ballgame”?
It’s after Ted Williams: Teddy Ballgame. It came from the lyrics of my song “Got a New Car,” which I wrote in Rhode Island.
When I came out of my depression, I saw how I was torturing myself. I laughed at my problems: “Oh, Tyler Ballgame, killing it. Living in his mom’s basement.” Just joking at myself. It stuck.
You told me you feel “uninhibited” when you’re Tyler Ballgame.
I always loved the different voices Paul McCartney used on “The White Album.” There’s no rules. I can occupy different characters and present each song as its own world.
What’s your songwriting process for Tyler Ballgame?
I turn off my mind. I just babble and record it, and then listen back and hear if there’s anything interesting. Or I’ll find whatever vibrates something within me. Art-making is decision-making. It’s a hundred small decisions. There’s no rhyme or reason to it— it’s just that inner compass, that gut feeling.
You’re also what you listen to. You take the songs you’ve heard, chop them up, run them through the grinder and put it through the prism of your experience.
True. And I’m curious: Why Ted Williams? Is he a hero?
No, I just pull a lot of things just from the subconscious. I love Boston sports. I’m obsessed with the Bruins, but the Patriots, Red Sox, and Celtics are never far from my mind.
So it didn’t have anything to do with a baseball philosophy?
No, but looking back, you find meaning in it. My life does feel like a baseball season. We’re gonna do 100 shows this year. It’s like the 162 games in an MLB season. You don’t have to get hung up on one game. You might get beaten by the Yankees 13-2, but the next day you’re gonna go beat the Mariners 4-3.
I love that. You just played Jimmy Kimmel. When did you feel, “Whoa. What’s happening here?”
My label, Rough Trade, is based in the UK and even before Kimmel, we played some TV shows there.
We played the End of the Road Festival in the UK, and people were singing every word to “Help Me Out.” Now we’re seeing more of that, and it’s exciting. It’s a type of energy transfer I’m still wrapping my head around. I’m just glad to be making music. Everything else is just icing.
Interview has been edited and condensed.
Lauren Daley is a freelance culture writer. She can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagrams at @laurendaley1. Read more stories on Facebook here.
Lauren Daley is a longtime culture journalist. As a regular contributor to Boston.com, she interviews A-list musicians, actors, authors and other major artists.
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