The Baseballs explain their David Hasselhoff problem
Scott arrived with a dramatic account of a gig at University College London’s Summer Ball. David Hasselhoff had briefly joined him on stage and the organisers marked it with a confetti cannon positioned far too close to Scott’s face. He ended up with ticker tape in his mouth and had to be patted on the back, turning a celebratory entrance into what he called a near-death experience.
The Baseballs were in to discuss their album Strings ’n’ Stripes, and immediately noticed that Scott’s voice appeared on its introduction. The German rock-and-roll group had last encountered the programme at the team’s ill-fated World Cup party, where England’s performance had spoiled the mood despite the beer and the band’s set.
They talked through their approach to turning contemporary hits into retro arrangements. Their version of Martin Solveig’s Hello began with the group enjoying its tennis-video absurdity, then finding room for harmonies and a different melody-led structure. Scott played snippets from their other cover choices and invited listeners to identify the originals, treating the game as a chance to admire how far the songs had travelled.
Hasselhoff was never far away. The group said their first concert had been a David Hasselhoff show, and described his German advertising work, including a panda-related commercial. They had wanted to record I’ve Been Looking for Freedom, but said their own record company had stopped the plan, an outcome Scott regarded as almost impossibly unfair given the show’s connection to the Hoff.
The interview also covered the group’s stranger television jobs, including painting garden gnomes and being asked to take their shirts off on Spanish TV while Vin Diesel was present. Scott compared German entertainment with the marathon pacing of the country’s talent shows, recalling Eurovision and a final that seemed to spend hours opening an envelope. It was an enjoyably chaotic interview, capped by the band’s continued disbelief that the Hasselhoff cover was the one song they could not do.
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