By Jeremy Thacker
Picture this: It’s the early-mid 2000s, and you’re experiencing one of the best days of your life — you’ve got tickets to Warped Tour. A day without parents. It’s hot and crowded, but you don’t even care because you’ve got some sick merch and the chance to see some epic bands. You’d finish the night with sunburns, blisters from walking and standing all day, and memories that will last a lifetime.
A lot of things have changed since then. Warped Tour may be coming back, but its heyday is long past. Now I’m a parent, I work in an office and it’s been over a decade since I cut the scene fringe (though I do still wear my skinny jeans any chance I get. I don’t care what gen z says). But when I turned on Johnny Baseball’s debut record, STILL SWINGIN’ BACK, it’s like I was back in that moment. And if the example above resonated with you then it’s an album that you HAVE to listen to.
A five-piece group from Salt Lake City, Johnny Baseball is proving that the pop punk and melodic hardcore so many of us grew up with are still alive and well. The record is a quick listen, clocking in at just over 20 minutes, but is absolutely jam packed with the fast melodies and catchy riffs you would expect from the genre. There’s plenty of influences you can pick out when listening to the album – there’s very strong Allister or The Wonder Years vibes and the album closes with a Deez Nuts cover – but they’re incorporated in a way that pays homage and respect to these bands without blatantly trying to copy them. The end result is an album that would completely fit in a Warped Tour set while also standing out on its own.
Lyrically, STILL SWINGIN’ BACK hits very familiar tropes and classic pop punk themes, blending angst, defiance, and self-awareness with sharp emotional energy. “Look Out Below” reflects on personal failure and the introspection that follows, while “Where I Stay” tackles the toxicity of a relationship fueled by unnecessary conflict. “Good Dudes Backed Hard” critiques the pressure to overlook bad behavior to stay in with the “cool” crowd, and “F.O.F.” flips the typical getting back together narrative, rejecting a second chance at love after a bitter ending. “Pump the Brakes” leans into the theme of personal growth, realizing a relationship is holding the narrator back, and “Eye to Eye” channels pop punk’s more mischievous side, reveling in tales of sabotage and revenge.
“Adderallenema” shifts toward self-reckoning, confronting the consequences of personal change, much like The Menzingers or Taking Back Sunday often explore. Finally, “Still Swingin’ Back,” a standout and personal favorite, captures the genre’s never-say-die attitude, channeling the anthemic resilience of bands like New Found Glory or Rise Against. It’s a rallying cry for refusing to back down, proving that no matter the struggle, the fight isn’t over.
During the song “Still Swingin’ Back,” the band cries “Johnny Baseball … still swingin’ back, twenty years too late!” which is a sentiment that I both agree and disagree with. Obviously this album evokes a lot of nostalgia. It’s a feeling that’s embraced with open arms throughout the tracklist, and in that sense Johnny Baseball is swinging back twenty years too late. And yet it’s hard not to think that they’re swinging in at the exact right time.
The guys in Johnny Baseball are carving a very unique niche for themselves in the flooded Utah music scene, and with the introduction of events like Power Chord Guitar Fest here in Utah as well as Warped Tour’s revival bringing a surge of new interest to the pop punk genre as a whole, the sky is the limit for Johnny Baseball’s potential growth.
Be sure to follow Johnny Baseball on Instagram and check out “Still Swingin’ Back” below!