Sports Team: Indie’s cynical straight talkers chat tours, new releases and album number three
A week away from their UK tour, the band are ready to put the pedal to the metal.
Photo: Sports Team
With insane lyrics like “Feels like driving a throne / Immaculate leather and chrome”, Sports Team recently came speeding back into our lives on windows down, volume up, highway tune I’m In Love (Subaru). Merging dissections of aspirational hype, consumerism and teenage dreams with full-throttle saxophones and a dynamic pop soundscape, the single made clear that the Mercury-nominated six-piece were well and truly back, with the song also serving as the first release from their highly anticipated third studio album Boys These Days.
Now about to head out on their nationwide UK tour this November, vocalist Alex Rice and guitarist and lyricist Robert Knaggs spoke to us about all things tours, singles and album number three.
You’re not long back from what I assume was a much-needed break, do you feel like you’re back in the swing of things yet or will that come when you hit the road?
Robert: Yeah, I think touring’s always important, otherwise you’re just kinda sat in your bedroom making TikToks, so I think that’s what we’re sort of looking forward to.
Alex: Yeah, that’s definitely true. I mean touring’s the only bit that feels tangible anymore. You can put music out in the world, but you never really know how it’s gone till you see people in a room singing it back or not.
You always give it your all when you perform live and your fans seem to deliver in return, is it important for you to connect with your fans in this way?
A: I think so, but I think we’re so aware of [that] wherever we are. I think it started off as always just a thing we felt was a bit weird to have that sort of divide you have with fans and bands. It used to be, even in the nineties or the noughties, very stark. To be a real band there was quite a weird power dynamic there. So, I think we’ve always been quite conscious of letting our fans get whatever they want out of our band and just kind of creating a space where you can be as engaged with it or not engaged with it as you want. But it’s not going to patronise you and it’s not gonna tell you that we’re great poets or… incredible artists. We’re just kind of people in a band.
Where do you guys get your energy from? To me, it’s mind-blowing that you’re able to do these insane touring schedules and then leave it all out on stage every night.
A: I think almost everyone has the primal fight or flight instinct and a lot of people never find out if they’ve got it or not. Definitely before I was in a band, I was never sitting there thinking ‘you know what, I’m a born performer, if only I could find a stage’. You kind of find out night one what comes out of you, and I think the second you’ve got five of your mates behind you and you’ve got a group of people screaming at you, something clicks in, and I think that would happen for most people if they ever got the chance.
And to talk a bit about your latest singles, I’m In Love (Subaru) and Condensation – they still retain that ‘classic’ Sports Team sound, but feel a lot bolder, more dynamic and I guess a bit more pop-y in comparison to some of your older stuff, was that just the natural evolution of your sound?
R: It’s kind of funny as a band because I remember we were recording our second EP and we were sat in this little studio in Wales and when it came on I was like ‘this is the most Radio 2 pop song in the world, this sounds like Dancing in the Moonlight or something’. And I really thought that was going to be our absolute breakthrough hit, and then you put it on the record and everyone’s like ‘it sort of sounds scrappy and shambolic and like it’s been recorded through a potato’. So, I guess, I kind of think in our heads, all of our songs have been like pure classic pop hits, if you know what I mean. I think maybe this is just the one where we actually did it in a way that everyone else sort of also saw that.
A: I think it requires different recording processes as well. I mean it’s the first time we’ve worked with this producer, Matthias Tellez, in Norway. He’s produced Girl in Red and that CMAT album that we absolutely love so that’s why we got onto him. And I think he kind of allowed us to make a bit more like a studio record where you’re using studio sounds and working stuff up using editing software, whereas in the past it’s been a lot more ‘okay we have to literally record this whilst we just play it’. So, the production makes a massive difference.
Was the song-writing process as fun as the outcome suggests?
R: I think song-writing is always actually like being dragged through glass. I mean, it’s kind of one of those things that in theory is fun but, in reality, is [you] sort of lock yourself away from the sun and sit in a room, and you have these brief moments where it all feels absolutely magical and you’re convinced you’ve created this masterpiece. And, you go away, and you go back to the studio, and it just sounds like a mess. It’s just a constant horrible battle. But I feel like it is one of those compulsion things, if you know what I mean. When you put something out, you’ve got to the point where you’ve basically heard the song a thousand times and all you can hear is the mistakes. Like you’re hearing that one tiny bit where you’re like ‘okay, that syllable should be slightly modulated higher or that guitar line needs to be compressed’. All this kind of insane stuff that no one who hasn’t spent sort of two years in a windowless room would ever hear or think about. So, it only really gets fun and enjoyable when you’re touring it and you’re like ‘Oh wow, I can hear this song again for the first time’ and not be thinking about it like work or sort of like an essay that’s due or something.
With your latest singles being about some of the more positive aspects of life, it seems you guys have become a lot less cynical over your break, what’s changed?
R: I think on the album as a whole, it’s still pretty [cynical]. I guess that the album sort of goes from Subaru as a sort of optimistic, sort of adolescent song, a love song about cars and everything’s sort of great. Definitely by the end, we go back into songs about death and politics. So, I think yeah probably there’s a couple songs, like Condensation was kind of nice to do a song where you don’t have to get therapy after you listen to it, you know.
Second album nerves and overproduction are a common conversation in the music industry, are you feeling any pressure with album three?
R: I think album one was far worse than that. I think a lot of the time you forget that album one is like an immediate death sentence for a band, you know what I mean. If you look at that, that’s the most tricky bit. As soon as you’ve done album one, it’s sort of like album two, fine. I think there’s a thing, or I guess there used to be a thing with the press, where it’s quite fun to absolutely stick the boot in for a band that’s done really well. Like I think it always used to happen to Kaiser Chiefs or Razorlight or any kind of band like that, where it’d be like ‘Let’s get them on album two’.
A: I think as well, we had a bit of a weird one, didn’t we? I think we probably felt the most relaxed making it, whereas the first album I think I would say we felt pretty relaxed making it, obviously a bit anxious about bringing it out. I don’t think any of us expected it to do anything massive. We just loved being a band, like we wanted to make music together and put it out. And then I think ‘cause that one did go so well, the second one was the one that kind of felt pressured. You know, you’ve suddenly got twenty voices that want to get involved and have their take on the music. But this one felt the most relaxed, I would say.
What’s the meaning behind the album’s title, Boys These Days?
A: It’s a line in one of the songs. I think over the whole album generally, it’s a feeling [that] we’ve all been entrapped in narratives that you base the world. All you have to do is go on your phone for five minutes and you’re exposed to war, probably death, or whatever it is. You’ve got a million narratives coming at you all at once and one of the ones that kind of stuck with us was this sort of narrative of men in a band, and how you’re supposed to behave as men was always a part of it. There’s always this sort of nostalgia-based stuff… where people look back and go ‘Oh, when men used to be men’ and [the title] kind of takes this sort of character approach to that, looking at the characters that think like that but trying to do it an empathetic way.
And to finish off, as someone who now regularly sings “Call me a letter, ‘cause I deliver”, I was wondering if you guys have any favourite lyrics off the new album?
R: I like that line because it doesn’t really make any sense. It’s one of those ones you sing and you’re like ‘yeah it feels good, but it means fucking nothing’. It doesn’t make sense. There’s a song called Maybe When We’re 30, I like a lot of the lines in that. It’s like: “Maybe when we’re 30 / We could get a dog / And once a year we’ll go out / And watch the war on drugs.” I kind of like that it’s quite universally meaningful. I feel like it’s about me and my friends, you know what I mean. I think that’s always quite fun showing the album to like ten people or fifteen of your mates, there’s already like five of them that think that line’s about them. When it’s got that universal element, you’re sort of like ‘yeah okay, this is nice’.
Hoping to hear these lyrics live? Sports Team will play a 10-date nationwide UK tour this autumn, kicking off in Manchester on November 14th and culminating in a show at London’s O2 Forum on November 24th (full dates below).
Sports Team’s 3rd album Boys These Days is set for release on May 23rd 2025 and is available to pre-order here.