Sports Team

Sports Team first got people talking when their rumoured ‘beefs’ started circulating ‘the scene’ with many not seeing the funny side, something the band relished and often played up to. A year later, the outlying mockers of ‘the scene’ are now forging their own way with no obvious peers. Their satirical indie hits have opened doors to a pathway to greatness not seen in these parts for some time. We caught up with the band at their local to talk Poundland beginnings, Britain’s bridleways and not being too Partridge…

Q: Take us back to beginning…

Alex Rice: We were all at Cambridge together living on the same corridor and before we’d go out we’d sit and listen to Pavement, Family Cat and we always had this implied want to be in a band that no one ever really spoke about. And at about Christmas time that year, we wrote ‘Stanton’ and thought “OK, this could work”. We had two acoustic guitars, that was about it…

Q: Who was in the band then?

Alex: It was me, Rob, Henry and a guy who left quite early days. But I remember it being around Christmas time and we played what was kind of a gig in one of the bars and we played our ‘Christmas Song’… It really pissed people off. ’Herod’s Men and The One That Got Away’ was the first name we played under… But it felt good and right. Putting ‘Stanton’ on Soundcloud pretty early on was for our own benefit and to be able to listen to it, but we got loads of approaches actually. When we first starting putting on gigs we put on a night called Poundland where you’d get in for a quid and we’d get all our mates down to a social club by the river.

Rob Knaggs: It was a staff and student bar, the sort of place that would hold flamenco lessons, but it was cheap to rent.

Alex: We’d have wild line-ups, lots of cover acts, rap acts. We did like three of them, still got the poster pinned in the kitchen in Harlesden from the first ever one. People found it endearing if not good. I think people just thought we were joking for so long. I think they still do now, people are still like, “are Sports Team real?”

We then graduated and had a bit of a wilderness year where we played the odd gig. It was probably only last year when we all ended up in London with everyone living together, we’d play The Old Blue Last a lot and had a good moment where we met our manager about a year ago and have been working with him since. And it’s become serious since then…

Rob: And then we met Dave McCracken.

Alex: We just got amazingly lucky and he was like, “come round to my old timber yard in Hammersmith… you can use this for free for as long as you want.”

Alex: Then we did ‘Winter Nets’ in about a week and the reception that got spurred us on a bit… So that’s where it’s at now… there’s been some mad moments along the way, bizarre little things have happened, like the festivals in France for me have just punctuated it… Then we played Moth Club and that was our best ever live gig. We didn’t know how it was going to be and we walked in and a hundred people had to be turned away, packed out room, just seething.

Q: We saw you a few days after that and you were still buzzing from it.

Rob: It was just after we’d released the EP as well and it was the first time people we singing along, there was like 15/20 kids we’d never seen before, singing along to the words.

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Q: You’ve all moved to London as graduates with pretty decent jobs and now you’ve made the decision to leave those jobs, which is pretty brave. What led you to make that decision?

Alex: I think we all had that moment where we realised you’d be mental not to give it a go and you really need to give it a full go. You’ve got to be able to sit down and spend a lot of time writing. It’s pretty finite as well, we don’t know where we’re gonna be at in a year’s time. If you never gave it your all you’d get to thirty and feel horrible.

Al Greenwood: You only have a limited window where people actually give a shit.

Rob: There’s the tours aswell. At the end of the year we’re doing two months touring and there’s no way we could have done it.

Q: We’re in September now, what’s the live plans from now?

Alex: We’re doing The Magic Gang tour, there’s some unbelievable venues on that. That’s with The Orielles too so I reckon it’ll be brilliant. The Magic Gang are one of our favourite bands… After that we’re heading to Europe… Portsmouth to Paris.

Q: Where has your front man approach come from, Alex?

Alex: I think it just kind of came naturally, it’s not very considered, you’ve seen it! It’s very much like, can’t really dance, what do you do? Flail legs. Yep.

Rob: And it’s also like, what do you do if you’re not an amazingly gifted, natural singer, not an amazingly gifted musician, you haven’t done it before and you need to hold an audience.

Alex: It’s also because initially people were turning up and not wanting to see guitar music, that was the first point. People were very sympathetic and came down to see us so they needed jokes and whatever it is to make it entertaining. It’s always been about putting on a show, it hopefully comes from a place of trying to entertain people rather than putting on some high concept art.

Q: What direction are you taking things next, musically?

Alex: I think we’ve always known the place we want to come from with songs. Suburban England, to an extent. Rob got me into Betjeman recently which has resonated.

Q: So Rob, you write the lyrics that Alex sings…

Rob: Me and Alex have known each other for so long and it’s always been the way we’ve done it.

Alex: It feels completely natural, he’ll be like, “give this verse a go” and I never find anything jarring…

Q: Have you ever had a ‘beef’ with someone that you haven’t realised until someone tells you exactly what you’re singing about?

Alex: (laughs) Why do I keep getting hit?! People keep punching me.

Q: What are you working on now?

Alex: Set piece gags, slapstick stuff, just sketches really…

Al: Got a good mockumentary in the back pocket (laughs). We’ve actually got a great one but our manager said it was too Partridge.

Rob: We do get told that though, people go to us, “you can’t be too Partridge”, I think Rice’s personality is quite Partridge, where on stage he’s got a certain persona and then you meet him in any other context and he’s an idiot.

Q: Do you ever vary that Saturday Kitchen line?

Alex: Yeah, change it quite a lot, I’ve got a lot of fishing chat at the moment. I had a bit about Britain’s bridleways for a while. That’s the documentary we wanted to make. We wrote an episode… Britain’s bridleways. Me and Rob going round in a classic car meeting local historians talking about the history of bridleways… No we’ll probably have an album out next year at some point. We don’t really know though. It’ll be ready when it’s ready… When we’re happy with it.

Words by Sam Ford and Josh Whettingsteel | www.joshwhettingsteel.com