Interview Sports Team: Boys To Men

Beyond the new addition to the Sports Team family, plenty has changed for the outfit since 2022’s ‘Gulp!’. They’ve had the longest period of downtime since the band formed (“We were all on Duolingo,” quips Alex). They’ve changed record labels – swapping Island for Distiller. And last December, the band were robbed at gunpoint whilst on tour in San Francisco – giving an accidentally poignant new meaning to January single ‘Bang Bang Bang’.

Such obstacles have been abundant throughout the ten-month semi-literal “pregnancy period” preceding Sports Team’s third album ‘Boys These Days’ – with the release date’s three-month delay serving as the cherry on top. “It’s been the longest album campaign,” sighs Alex. “It’s the antithesis to what people do now, this long march… if you’re Wet Leg, you announce it, like, one month away and then everyone comments, ‘We are so back!’”

Before the wheels first started moving last July via sax-infused lead single ‘I’m In Love (Subaru)’, Sports Team decamped to the Norwegian coastal city of Bergen - also known as both the capital of black metal and “gateway to the fjords” - to record ‘Boys These Days’. More importantly, however, it’s the base of producer Matias Tellez – whose golden touch on CMAT’s 2023 album ‘Crazymad, For Me’ had the band sold, Alex explains.

“The face of Bergen is so ‘Scandi perfect’ – people live in a very level society, it’s well looked after,” he begins. “But then it’s got this spookiness about it,” adds Rob. “Is it the black metal church [Fantoft Stave Church]? I guess there’s been lots of notorious murders around Bergen too.”

Between wading through ankle-deep snow, photo shoots in ski resorts and bassist Oli Dewdney’s capitulation after a particularly taxing 12-hour hike (“he had to find this gym on Google Maps and sign up just to use the showers”), Sports Team set about recording ‘Boys These Days’. Sonically, it recalibrates the band in the ‘70s and ‘80s pop spheres of Prefab Sprout, Roxy Music and XTC, a marginal departure from the frantic indie-punk that characterised their 2020 debut LP ‘Deep Down Happy’ and ‘Gulp!’.

“On the first EPs [2018’s ‘Winter Nets’, and ‘Keep Walking!’, released the following year], we were literally trying to make Toploader’s ‘Dancing In The Moonlight’,” explains Rob. “We always wanted that classic Radio 2 song. I think we just didn’t really have the ability [back then].” Feeling somewhat trapped in the constraints of their reputation as a live band, the residential studio experience lent itself to crafting the razzmatazz of ‘…(Subaru)’ or the bitty experimentalism of ‘Bonnie’.

“It was more about making sounds, rather than playing the part,” confirms Alex. “I think this album definitely is the most listenable stuff that we’ve done… [it’s about] letting that do the talking.”

“Satire and ridicule are such powerful tools,” muses Rob, whose lyrics address warped indicators of masculinity (‘These Days’) and gun culture (‘Bang Bang Bang’) – perhaps slightly more socially consequential topics than most might imagine the band who penned ‘Fishing’ and ‘M5’ would tackle.

“The element of comedy is always the best way of portraying a serious point,” he continues. “Something like ‘Adolescence’ is so serious that something’s maybe lost there… if you’re a 13-year-old boy who’s a fan of Andrew Tate, and they make you go to assembly and watch that, it’s not gonna make you [change your views].”

“I think the one thing people hate more than far-right maniacs is righteous left-wing people,” adds Alex. “I’ve always hated the ‘lecturers’… I think that’s the mentality that gets you [towards] totalitarianism. I think making a point of view look so ridiculous or absurd, that’s the most powerful thing you can do, politically, rather than tell people what you think.”

While these types of conversations are consistently at the forefront of contemporary discussion, the beauty of the open-ended messaging across ‘Boys These Days’ is that it remains somewhat timeless. “Boys these days look like girls” – that’s something they would say in the ‘60s,” suggests Rob. “Remember when [David] Beckham wore a sarong!” butts in Alex.

Now approaching their thirties, in an increasingly precarious world, do Sports Team feel their priorities are changing? Is there an added sense of social responsibility to their younger fans that wasn’t necessarily prevalent during their happy-go-lucky earlier days? “I feel no sense of responsibility, except to not patronise people and talk to our fans in a way that is human,” Alex declares calmly.

If anything, Sports Team are in it for the same reasons as always – delivering a messy, frenetic live show to hoards of indie fans that they once were part of themselves, owning the self-deprecating image of honesty and humour in the process.

“So many bands are still stuck in that ‘90s portrayal of being in a band,” begins Alex, recalling their horrendous attempt at pulling off leather jackets around ‘Gulp!’. “Even Fontaines DC are just aping Oasis. You see new musicians coming through TikTok like Lola Young and Gigi Perez – it’s heart-on-sleeve stuff, no pretense. I’ve always identified with that [more].

“I think [our fans] still see us as an honest band, who are very open about things. The lyrical concepts haven’t gone anywhere. The grumbling old suburban person saying, ‘Men aren’t what they used to be,’ or ‘…(Subaru)’ [being about] having a sense of real life when you get older… the album addresses masculinity in quite a non-direct way. I think it does the whole span.”

Though ‘Boys These Days’ might mark a swerve between BBC Radio station playlists, the Sports Team ethos has perhaps never been clearer. As they approach indie “elder statesmen” status – their words, not ours – you can now sense the ambition that has always underpinned Britain’s most unserious guitar act. “We’ve always been a band that wants to take it to the next level,” smiles Alex. “One that reaches arenas and stadiums.”

‘Boys These Days’ is out 23rd May via Distiller.

Tags: Features, Interviews, From The Magazine, May 2025, Sports Team