Five years in, Baby Tyler sounds like a band built from exhaustion. What started as Tyler Fassnacht’s solo outlet in Madison, Wisconsin—recording short, scrappy punk songs in between jobs—has become a fully charged five-piece that’s taken their mix of garage noise and hardcore volume across basements and small clubs around the country.
Their new album, “Sucker With A Dream,” out October 17 on NightBell Records, blends hardcore, noise, psych, krautrock and garage and runs twelve songs in twenty-two minutes. Engineered by Graham Hunt and mastered by Greg Obis, it’s fast, restless, and blunt—each track peeling at what Fassnacht calls “insecurities and anxieties about being a person, let alone a person going on my second decade of making music.”
In the opener, “Sucker With A Dream,” Fassnacht takes aim at the old American promise that hard work will get you anywhere. “We were all told as children that we could do anything we put our minds to… What a crock of shit,” he says. “Everyone is in debt, the ruling class prioritizes war, selfishness and greed… We’re all suckers.”
“Forgotten Trash” and “The Pressure” trace the same frustration inward—aging, burnout, and the endless grind culture that turns struggle into a moral duty. “Everyone is anxious and stressed, blaming themselves for society’s inability to provide what it should,” he says. “It’s hard out there. And masses are easier to control when they’re too busy just getting by.”
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Other songs turn the mirror sharper. “Cheap Plastic Coffin” mocks the chase to stay relevant; “Down ’N Out” admits fear of losing the moment to constant forward motion; “Entertain” questions the worth of art when most of it just keeps people occupied. “Are we really more than just the entertainment?” he asks.
By the time “Old Advice” closes the record, Fassnacht sounds worn but certain that doing things his own way is still the only choice: “Just because someone does something differently than you doesn’t mean they are wrong.”
Check out the full track by track below.
1. Sucker With A Dream
I knew as soon as I wrote this song that it would be the opener and as I finished writing the lyrics for the album, I realized ‘Sucker With A Dream’ establishes a lot of themes and commentary that worms its way through the whole record. Hopes, fears, anger, despair; every song is a through line to my insecurities and anxieties about being a person, let alone a person going on my second decade of making music.
In the song I’m talking about a literal dream, but in the bigger picture, the song is about the failing idea of the American Dream. We were all told as children that we could do anything we put our minds to and if we were dedicated and worked hard that we would achieve greatness. What a crock of shit. Everyone is in debt, the ruling class prioritizes war, selfishness and greed… We’re all suckers and the reality of dreams is that they are not real and don’t mean a thing.
“I’m just a sucker with a dream, just got to see it and then I’ll change. But I know, it will never show. I’m just a sucker with a dream.”
2. Forgotten Trash
As we get older, everything gets harder. Knee and back pain, slowing metabolism, digestion problems, everything has too much sugar, our minds get slower and foggier. And at the same time, there’s always someone two steps ahead of you, standing exactly where you want to be standing. Maybe this is more of a me thing, but it feels like every time I get to a goal, it takes so long that the marker has already moved ahead. Nothing is satisfying, what am I even achieving? This song is about life feeling like a circle, constantly falling behind and never getting anywhere. Why do I keep running?
“And if you give in nothing, what do you expect in return? So you give everything, and still get nothing more.”
3. The Pressure
There is this cultural false narrative that if you aren’t able to accomplish xyz, the onus should fall on the individual to simply work more or try harder. The ever popular “grind.” Everyone is anxious and stressed, blaming themselves for society’s inability to provide what it should. This song is about falling victim to that idea, which I do almost everyday. It’s hard out there. And masses are easier to control when they’re too busy just getting by.
“The pressure is getting to me and I’m almost through, and once it’s done with me it will be too late for you.”
4. Cheap Plastic Coffin
As time goes by, things change. Duh. But especially in the “arts,” movements adapt, styles warp, and you are constantly enraged by the originality and talent of people significantly younger. No? Just me? This song is about blowing far past the line between growing naturally with time, and forcing yourself to try and ride a hype. Sometimes it’s done unintentionally, but reinventing yourself with every new trend is going to leave you and your artistry entombed in something forgettable that will never last. Something cheap… like plastic…
“Yet again, I crawl my way through the crowd, eyes are staring up. Elder logic, more like decrepit reform. Too blind to see yourself.”
5. Down N’ Out
I have a great fear of what is going to happen to me (is happening to me??) as I stubbornly keep doing this whole music thing. The fear that I’ll keep pushing, so focused on whatever is next that I lose sight of who I am in the present, ignoring all the great beautiful moments that happen every day. You ever spend so much time looking forward to something and preparing for it that it goes by in a flash and you’re left feeling so hopelessly empty? That’s the basis for this one.
“I’m losing all the memory and what they were before. Silhouettes without a face ain’t worth nothing anymore.”
6. Rinse/Repeat
I often get stuck in thought cycles, hyper-focusing on some specific moment, feeling, or unknown, until I get so stressed that I give myself anxiety attacks. I’m sure a lot of other folks with clinical depression can relate, but sometimes all you can do is lay low, stare at nothing and let the ole noggin run wild, and it almost never goes in a helpful or healthy direction. You try and reset your thinking or tell yourself “it’s not that bad,” but like a moth to the flame, it goes back. Rinse. Repeat.
“Dirt imbedded into the skin, peel it off but it’s rooted within.”
7. Entertain
I think a lot of people, myself included, who are performing musicians sometimes get a little lost in the artist sauce. It’s easy to get a big head about how important whatever you do is, especially if you start to get some attention. I truly do think that music and art in general is one of the most important facets of humanity, and I believe some folks can move mountains with their words and songs, but for most of us out here, are we really more than just the entertainment? I guess that’s the question I’m yelling at everyone and myself. I feel like most of these songs are just me yelling at myself…
“Ain’t so pretty, ain’t so smart, you keep failing, going back to the start. Such obsession, all in vain, think you do more than entertain?”
8. Good Motivator
We all need motivation sometimes to get things done. You’ve got friends coming over, so you clean up the house. You need some extra cash for something, so you pick up an extra shift. Etc. and what better motivation to succeed and keep kicking than spite. Maybe one of my most straight forward songs?
“Fame and money don’t mean shit, as long as you’ve got less of it.”
9. What’s Yours Is Mine
Maybe I am a pessimist, but I believe that the majority of the time, if someone is going out of their way to help you, it’s because they will also benefit from the outcome. The bigger the favor, the bigger the pay off. Especially in music, where there are currencies of notoriety and gate-kept resources, young folks get taken advantage of all the time. We see this in scammer record deals, and the general soul-selling of the major industry, but it happens at small DIY levels too. This song is me saying watch out and always be suspicious.
“You line them up just right, pay their worth in time. Put a voice in their mouth, what’s yours is mine.”
10. Stranger Than Fiction
I went to school for Creative Writing and one day in workshop my professor gave some advice after an especially rough story read. He brought up the Mark Twain quote- “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.”
encouraging us to avoid adding too much of our own personal anecdotes of turmoil and conflict into stories, as often it will break the willful suspension of disbelief. Like damn, no way this weirdly specific, horrible, crazy thing would actually happen (oh but it did!!). I think about this as someone who gets caught up with bad experiences, brushing off the good stuff as outliers I can’t depend on. Especially when participating in something that naturally comes with a lot of rejection, it can feel like nothing positive ever happens, but of course that’s not true. This song is a reminder to myself to shut up and not obsess over every little thing, because no one wants to read that shit.
“My hopes keep falling through a grate, my plans keep crashing, some sick fate. And when I sit still long enough, the dread somehow always finds its way.”
11. Hard To Tell
Staying relevant is an annoying constant for a medium like music that requires some level of engagement from other people, and something that unfortunately sometimes haunts me, now that I am a musician in their 30s (gasp). Baby Tyler has now become my most prolific project, meaning it’s getting harder to push forward in an organic way. I have spent time on songs only to realize weeks later that it is almost identical to something I wrote three albums ago. Staying true to yourself as an artist and being new and original are both things that are expected of good songwriters and can be hard to accomplish the longer you dedicate yourself to a practice. This song is calling out people who just keep rewriting the same shit and expecting a bigger and better outcome, but deep down its really just another instance of me yelling at myself to try to stay on top of my game.
“So put together, but I see the scraps laying on the ground, hidden behind your back. Fake perfection dressed on a mannequin, fooling everyone and getting away with it.”
12. Old Advice
Just because someone does something differently than you, doesn’t mean they are wrong. This song is about the pressure to follow predetermined paths. From the highchool-college-professional job-family and kids-retirement pipeline all the way to “you have to make music this way and book shows this way or you’ll never make it,” no where is safe from people thinking they know better than you and their insistence on giving unsolicited advice. This one is about moving past that and paving your own path, failures and all. A little corny? Sure. Still true and necessary? Absolutely.
“Listening to old advice never hits quite the same. Hearing all the judgement between words that were said. Imitation dripping down your neck.”
