Interview Sprints: Anger Management

“It was a case of trying to take what we’ve experienced in our lives so far and almost mark the page, close that chapter of the book,” says vocalist and guitarist Karla Chubb, discussing the creation of the band’s forthcoming debut, ‘Letter To Self’. “It was a process of putting all that pain on paper in the hopes of moving on from it.” We’re sitting in the green room at King’s Cross venue Scala, ahead of a sold-out London show - one of their final gigs of what’s been a very busy year indeed. 2023 has seen them become mainstays of both festival stages and radio airwaves, cementing the band’s wholly-deserved word-of-mouth reputation. But for Karla, the biggest milestone has been something a little less tangible.

With ‘Letter To Self’, she’s “putting this very personal part of [her] life out in the public”, and while its writing was hugely challenging, it was also hugely cathartic. “There was so much weight on my shoulders my whole life, and now I feel like a little bit of it is gone,” she says, her voice thick with emotion. “All these stories are like stones weighing me down, and now I’ve shed a few of them.”

These aren’t mere pebbles, either. Lyrically, the album explores mental ill-health (‘Ticking’ and ‘Heavy’); internalised homophobia (‘Cathedral’); suicidal ideation (‘Shadow Of A Doubt’) and more. But none of these are crosses Karla has had to bear alone. Born, like so many other bands, out of the pandemic, Sprints was “such a positive thing to turn to in such a dark time,” and the relationship between the four band members quickly flourished into something approaching familial.

“We’ve all got so much better at knowing how each other works,” adds drummer Jack Callan, “so you know when to leave someone alone, or when someone needs a bit of extra support.” In conversation, this almost intuitive bond is self-evident. When Karla compliments guitarist Colm O’Reilly’s playing, Jack leads us all in an impromptu round of applause; when she mentions her anxieties over reading the album’s reviews, bassist Sam McCann gives her a steadying smile - “We’ll take them as they come”.

Karla and Sam have both just quit their jobs - “We can’t physically or mentally manage the balance of them and music anymore” - which, while daunting, is a prospect that’s only become feasible thanks to the notable success of Irish artists in the past few years. “If you see people doing what you want to do, it obviously increases the chances of you actually thinking it’s a possibility, tenfold,” Karla states. “You have to acknowledge the cultural significance of bands like Fontaines DC and Pillow Queens. There are so few acts who managed to break out of Ireland and make careers abroad until recently, but if they’ve done it, we can do it.”

There is, of course, still a long way to go, however. Karla references a recent interview that Rolling Stone and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame co-founder Jann Wenner conducted with the New York Times, in which he commented that no women are included in his new book - “the Mount Olympus of rock and roll history” - because “none of them were articulate enough on this intellectual level” (there are also, astoundingly, no Black musicians included - but there is Bono). “[Wenner] said that Mick Jagger was ‘a philosopher of rock and roll’,” Karla says incredulously, “and that Janis Joplin or Patti Smith or Stevie Nicks - some of the greatest songwriters in the world - were…” she trails off and shrugs. “I might appear one day on a list of the ‘best female punk bands’ or ‘best female guitarists’, but I’ll never appear on a list of all-time great guitarists, whereas Colm probably will.”

“There’s always been this idea of the angry woman, or the angry gays, or the angry trans people,” Karla continues. “But anger doesn’t mean bad. Anger means you’re standing up for something; anger means you’re addressing an issue; anger also means collectiveness.”

Signed at the bottom of ‘Letter To Self’, then, is a signature of hard-won hope. Hope that “no matter what we’ve experienced as individuals; no matter what habits or hereditary behaviours you may have inherited; no matter what society or city you’re stuck in, we can get out of anything and make our situation better, just by standing together.”

‘Letter to Self’ is out 5th January via City Slang.

Tags: Sprints, From The Magazine, Features, Interviews