Sports Team is all about the now

Sports Team’s third album is, as their frontman Alex Rice puts it, about how strange it is “to be confronted by videos of music, war, six political narratives and
a talking fox in the first minute after you wake up”. It’s about the now — sometimes a celebration, often a critique, touching on everything from social media to our obsession with nostalgia. But while the subject matter of Boys These Days might be a zeitgeisty little melting pot of contemporary culture, their ethos as a band is anything but. The six-piece — lead vocalist Rice, rhythm guitarist and vocalist Rob Knaggs, lead guitarist Henry Young, bassist Oli Dewdney, drummer Al Greenwood and keyboardist Ben Mack — have made a name for themselves by doing things in a decidedly pre-Instagram way. Taking fans to the pub after gigs. Popping up at unexpected venues, which has earned them comparisons to bands like The Libertines. Concerts at unassuming (and perhaps a bit shit) nightclubs like Fusion. That’s where they did one of their first gigs, actually. “There were two lads who’d clearly got off work early, drinking Jägerbombs,” Rice recalls. Haven’t heard of Fusion? I’m not surprised. That only came up because Rice, like me, is from Tunbridge Wells, Kent.

It doesn’t come as a shock to hear that Sports Team (who, bar Dewdney, formed while at Cambridge University) are from my neck of the woods. Their “thing” isn’t just their live performances but their ability to tap into what I’ve come to call
commuterbeltcore. They’ve got that appreciation for middle England — Alan Partridge-esque motifs like the M5 and mock-Tudor houses — that only people not from a major metropolitan city can fathom. That has changed a bit three albums down the line — their new single, Bang Bang Bang, is based on the time they were robbed at gunpoint in California. Still, no matter how “big” the subject matter is, Sports Team will approach it in the idiosyncratic way that makes them them. “Mickey Mouse, AR-15s, SeaWorld, fentanyl,” Rice, 31, reels off when our chat turns to America, for example.

Cannibalising the aspects of a privileged existence does attract some
obvious criticism, but at least Sports Team aren’t pretending to be something
they’re not. And it’s working. Deep Down Happy, their 2020 debut album, reached number two in the UK charts and number one in Scotland. They’re no
stranger to sold-out tours. They even got nominated for a little something called the Mercury prize that same year. It’s the kind of success that would make some bands evolve beyond their roots, but I’ve got no doubt Sports Team would traipse back through the sticky floors of Fusion for some kind of anniversary gig. Granted, it has now shut down, but Rice and his comrades would probably find some kind of semi-ironic way around that.

Amber Rawlings: You had 50 different directions this album could have gone
in — sci-fi, electro-clash, etc. How did you land on making a record about
modern life’s chaos?

Alex Rice: Soundwise, this was the first album we’ve made where it felt like those choices were available to us. To be honest, it’s the first time we’ve gone in and felt really confident with what you can do in a studio — to be able to experiment a bit. We had a lot more sounds to draw on. Thematically, though, I think the chaos of how you experience the world is so in your face at the moment, especially if you’re trying to get your music out on socials. It’s so unique to our generation to be confronted by videos of music, war, six political narratives and a talking fox in the first minute after you wake up. The album is trying to work out
how that affects your mind.

Amber: You’ve said you’re happier with your vocals on this record. What do
you think has shifted?

Alex: The production process was quite different for this one. On our first
two albums, we worked with a producer who was brilliant at capturing a
really pure, live sound. Matias Tellez, who we worked on this record with, is in more of a pop place. He was happy to autotune later on and just told me to give every take as much energy as I could. That’s exactly what I needed.

This excerpt was taken from HUNGER Issue 34: Fight Back. Stay tuned for the full story.