Sports Team are a six-piece alternative rock band from London, and they have made their return after a break following their second album Gulp!. The band have shifted their gears and put their foot on the gas with their latest singles ‘I’m in Love (Subaru)’ and ‘Condensation’ which were released in July this year. ‘I’m in Love (Subaru)’ deals with themes of cynicism about the capitalist dream, with the central character falling more in love with the dream of a new car than their romantic partner. It is a new sound for Sports Team with an added saxophone placed on top of melodic group harmonies that repeat the car manufacturer's name; it feels distinct from their previous two albums. The Mercury-nominated six-piece have also announced their latest album “Boys These Days”, which is set for release February 28th via Distiller Records and Bright Antenna. I sat down with the band via Zoom to discuss their return, their latest music and their upcoming tour starting this November.
MUSE: Can you tell me a bit about the release of your latest single and how the sound differs to the previous albums?
Rob Knaggs: I think the main thing is that we discovered the saxophone. We saw how well Black Country, New Road were doing and we thought we’d add a bit of that, so we put saxophone in. And I guess going into a new record it is always fun to play with expectations and to do something that doesn’t just feel like a part two to whatever comes before it. So with the songs we put on the front of the record for this first single we were mainly trying to throw people off balance a bit and not just do exactly what everyone would expect us to do coming back.”
MUSE: Could you tell me about your upcoming album release Boys Like These?
Alex Rice: It’s set to be released on February 28th.
Rob Knaggs: The date will almost definitely change though. Whenever you see a band push an album forward by a week and they go “This is because the reaction from fans has been overwhelming and we can see how much you guys want the record so we’re going to bring it forward.” The actual reason is that they’ve discovered that Charli XCX is about to do a BRAT tour. I think the last record moved about eight times, and each time you have to come up with an even more ridiculous excuse. So definitely watch out close to the date as we might release it early.
MUSE: Please do!
Rob Knaggs: We are industry whores, what can I say. Talk about The Last Dinner Party when they came out was “Oh they’re industry plants”, but I am a number 1 industry plant.
I was born to be a management consultant, but forced to rock.
MUSE: What do you think about industry plants?
Rob Knaggs: I think that whole thing was a bit ridiculous.
Alex Rice: Well to be fair. I don’t think industry plants really do exist. There are probably people who are more savvy about using stuff than others. But now, I guarantee you, major labels seed people being industry plants as a feud so that they can come back with a retort like: “how dare you? We’re just kids that love making music.” It’s a perfect way to start your career being called an industry plant. We got called industry plants when we first started.
I think there are a lot of industry plants on the industry side of things. If you look at Universal, it seems to be largely populated by Universal senior manager’s sons. That’s where you want to look for the real levels of nepotism in the music industry.
MUSE: Do you think there is a benefit to band’s changing their sounds to keep people engaged?
Alex Rice: Being in a band is great because you have all the freedom to do whatever you want, but I think a lot of bands seem to have got trapped in their own myth. You see them and you think: fucking hell… it's six years down the line and you’re still singing about the same stuff you were singing about when you just started out. Something doesn’t feel quite right about it, it feels as if they’ve been trapped in the leather jacket. So I guess you always want to not worry too much about what you are. You don’t want to sit down and think about your core principles as a band, you just want to be able to enjoy yourselves day to day.
MUSE: What are your musical influences?
Rob Knaggs: I guess you get a bit of what everyone in the band likes. Henry (our guitarist) is super into Brazilian music and a lot of jazz stuff, he’s probably the arty guy with a lot of the intellectual heft in the band. Olly (our bassist) likes Techno so he loves playing things like Fall to The Floor. And then what Alex has got is this sort of Bon Scott, AC/DC singer, so I guess it’s like this sort of blend of influences. When we started out, we thought we wanted to sound like Pavement, and you sort of do your best attempt at an impression of Pavement, which I think at the time we thought at the time was almost perfect. Then you release it and everyone says that you sound like Cudd… There’s always that process of trying to emulate something and then slightly fucking it up and then doing your own thing.
MUSE: Do you think music has to specifically be about anything?
Rob Knaggs: When you listen to certain bands, it feels like there is that GCSE poetry thing going on there, so I don’t want to do that and you don’t want to lay it on too thick about what the songs are about. I think, if you listen to any of our records or EPs, there’s a lot of stuff in there where the messages are pretty clear.
Music is this funny thing where it is expected to be honest, but I actually think that sometimes it is a lot more fun when you are being that unreliable narrator or singing from other people’s perspectives. We did that a bit with our song Here’s the Thing where you can take different perspectives. I kind of like it when you are not that sure if someone is being honest in a song, you know?
MUSE: Do you think guitar music is changing in the UK?
Alex Rice : Yeah I think so. I think it has definitely become a lot more interesting. It has become more outward looking and it has become more fun. I think the kind of scene we grew up with felt a bit exclusionary in a way because it was always like: “Can you make yourself seem so cool that no one can touch you?” And I think we always saw that as not a particularly appealing thing to us. I think the way that culture has gone in general though is that you can kind of tap any group. I think what The Last Dinner Party found was this group of people that always existed, but they never really had anyone to be their talisman. But I think now it matters less and less where you find that group. I think like Brat did for example. I don’t think it’s mainly kids listen to Brat or Charli XCX, I think it's people who were living dull lives like we were .. you hit 30 and you’re living in Clapton drinking natty wine and you’re going out a bit too much and instead of it being like “Christ this is tragic…”, you can suddenly say “Well, this is BRAT!” I think we’ve always had that with the stuff we grew up in very leafy suburbs and I think you grow up listening to The Strokes or something like that and like that’s the antithesis if cool right, it’s like the least cool you can be. I think a lot of what we try to speak about on social media and in our songs is about mythologising really local specific stuff.
MUSE: Looking to the future, what’s next for Sports Team?
Rob Knaggs: We are really excited about the next tour we are doing in November. Actually touring the UK again is really nice. For the past few years, we haven’t really played in the UK, we played for four months in America, so playing in the UK again will be so great. I feel like the best audiences you get anywhere in the world are UK audiences. It's just that UK gig culture that is really fun.
Sports Team’s tour dates are:
14th November – Manchester, New Century
15th November – Birmingham, The Castle & Falcon
16th November - Liverpool, Arts Club
18th November – Sheffield, Foundry
19th November - Glasgow, SWG3
20th November – Newcastle Upon Tyne, Boiler Shop
22nd November – Nottingham, Rescue Rooms
23rd November – Leeds, The Wardrobe
24th November – Bristol, The Trinity Centre
25th November – London, O2 Forum Kentish Town
