MODERN BASEBALL really want you to believe they're just four ordinary kids. This is a band that made a name for itself by writing painfully topical songs about obsessing over a crush's social media presence—something virtually every millennial can relate to.
In reality, Modern Baseball isn't that ordinary. They're one of the most popular—and arguably one of the most important—active punk bands, which is reflected in the fact that they're fucking impossible to get ahold of. After a week of phone tag, I finally get in touch with guitarist and co-lead singer Jake Ewald, and the cell reception is spotty—the group are en route to Indiana from Ohio, and are feverishly conducting interviews in their van. In other words, they're very busy.
Modern Baseball have become the de facto torchbearer for a micro movement known as the "emo revival"—the first generation of young punk bands for whom "emo" isn't a pejorative. Ewald, however, says Modern Baseball only identify as an emo band through circumstance.
"When old people ask us what kind of music we make, we'll usually say we're a rock band," he says with a chuckle. And while the group may bear a similar aesthetic to their decidedly emo-leaning peers, their new record Holy Ghost has more in common with hyperliterate indie bands like the Mountain Goats and the Weakerthans than anything featured on a Warped Tour comp in the past 10 years.