What springs to mind when you hear the term 'Punk Rock Baseball Club'? If, like us, it's 'please tell me more immediately' than you're in luck. Isotopes have had a huge 2017 so far, releasing their incredible second album '1994 World Series Champions'. The Canadian punks are also well on their way to playing the most shows in a single year that they ever have. We managed to catch up with the bands creator and front man Evan October for some answers.

Kicking things off we went straight in with THAT burning question, just what is a ‘Punk Rock Baseball Club’? “It began as an official long form distinction for the band,” October tells us. “Modeled after the way baseball teams have official long names like that. It evolved to a point where we began a team made up of the guys from the band and friends. The idea of punk dudes playing baseball spread in our home town of East Vancouver, and soon some dudes from other bands got together to form a rival ball club so we could play some games,” sounds like fun to us.

So just how big has this idea become? October explains “From there it grew again and now the Isotopes are one of 10 teams in a real baseball beer league comprised primarily of musicians and artists from Vancouver, called East Van Baseball League, which I’m the creative director of, and co-founder along with Justin Safely of the Isotopes and two other friends.”

Baseball, beer, bands! Whats not to like? But is October himself the pioneer of this? or is this just some obscure genre of punk we’d never heard of before? “The idea of baseball and punk going together to me stems from Johnny Ramone,” he tells us. “Somewhere he said he’d have rather been a baseball player. That stood out to me because I feel the same. My first love was baseball and I got into punk in the mid 90’s, there’s a lot of songs about, and references to baseball from punk bands of that era.”

He does admit, however, admit that he may well might not be the pioneer. “The internet was young when we started this band so I couldn’t tell you who was out there doing what at the time, but over the years I’ve come across a few other great bands that have a strong baseball theme to them. Good ideas often pop up in multiple places. I can tell you this, though, nobody’s doing it better!”

Now that October has given us some insight into the whole concept, we wanted to know what his inspiration was. “I was starting a new band and I came up with this song called Infield Fly. I wrote it in my head in about a minute after a guy on my beer league team in 2004 starting yelling at the umpire when he got called out on a dropped pop up with nine out and the bases juiced.” we’re not sure exactly what that means but it doesn’t sound good. October continues. “The song was funny so figured I could probably write a few more of these things. They say if you wanna be a good writer, write what you know, ya know?” and who can argue with that.

Baseball is obviously a huge part of October’s life, so we asked him what he feels is special and unique about it to other sports around the world. “I couldn’t say anything better than this quote by Earl Weaver, ‘You can’t sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You’ve got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance.’ That’s why baseball is the greatest game of them all.”

With the band currently on tour in Europe and baseball being mainly a North American sport, we wondered if October had any thoughts about the sport becoming bigger in Europe. “Honestly, from what we’re seeing out here I don’t think any sport that’s more complex than chasing a melon around an empty parking lot has a hope in hell of catching on.” he tells us, which I guess says a lot about his thoughts on the subject.

Moving on to the bands new album, ‘1994 World Series Champions’, we wondered what fans and new listeners alike can expect from the record and October had this to say. “It’s short, fast, and funny. Sounds just like the Isotopes,” and trust us, he’s not wrong.

While the album title ‘1994 World Series Champions’ is certainly baseball related we just had to know, why ‘1994’? October duly obliged with some baseball schooling for us. “1994 was the strike year and there was no World Series,”  he continues. “I’ve been sitting on the title for almost 10 years. I wanted to save it for if we ever got around to world domination. For years we only did one show a year, like if the Queers or Teenage Bottlerocket were coming to town. This year we’ll knock down 100 so I figured it was time. Plus anyone who knows the reference immediately thinks we’re geniuses, which we are.”

As October says, the guys are well on their way to playing more shows than they ever have this year. So will we see a UK show soon? “We’d love to get over to the UK,” October says. “Right now we’re trying to get on the next John Fogerty tour but that’s not confirmed yet,” so keep your eyes peeled guys.

Obviously playing so many shows means the guys will be away from home quite a lot. So what does October miss when he’s away? “I miss my woman, Elisa, the most,” he simply says.

Speaking of home, the guys hail from Canada. So what Canadian bands have influenced the guys? “When we started this band the only Canadian bands I listened to were Gob and The Smugglers,” he says. “I actually hadn’t heard of the Hanson Brothers when I conceived this thing, believe it or not. But they became one of my favourite bands. Just as a point of reference I started the Isotopes when I was 19. There’s a ton of great Canadian bands but I don’t listen to any of them any more except Carley Rae Jepsen, but if she doesn’t get a new record out soon she’s gonna lose me, too.”

So there you have it, Isotopes are well on their way to world domination so keep an eye out for updates on them.

you can follow the band through their Facebook and their new album ‘1994 World Series Champions’ is out now.

CHRISTOPHER LEE