Project Description
Interview with
ALEX RICE
from
SPORTS TEAM (UK)
Interviewer – Connor Gutteridge
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Here’s the thing…Sports Team are a band of six singular characters who have been variously described
as one of the most raucous, electrifying and chaotic acts in the UK. Today the band reveal their new single
and video ‘Here’s The Thing’, and announce their debut album ‘Deep Down Happy’.
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How did you get your first start into music initially?
We all came to it quite late. We’d sit around each other’s rooms before nights out and listen to a lot of music. I remember us playing TRAAMS, Black Tambourines, the whole Falmouth scene, Magic Potion, Pavement when everyone else had a house mix on. I think that bonds you. Then as soon as you realise you’ve all got a My First Fender style guitar sitting around too it comes together pretty quick. First time we played, Stanton came out. It was Christmas so we called ourselves Herod’s Men and the One That Got Away and turned up at a party to play 3 songs. Very bad.
How did this then lead to you starting Sports Team?
We fell into it really, anyone that could play an instrument started playing with us, so we had quite a shifting line up. So Young gave us our first gig in London when we all moved there and people seemed to like it. I think because we always kept that consciousness that we had to appeal to people who didn’t necessarily like guitar music, make the shows an event, after parties, drinks deal madness that sort of thing.
In your words how would you describe the experience of being in a band so far?
When we all quit our full time jobs it felt incredible you knew it was better than that. Now the joy is a bit more abstract, I think deep down we’ve all found something a bit like contentment. It’s like a family, go round the world together, play poorly and people will adore you for it. Not much better.
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The new record ‘Deep Down ‘Happy’ is set for release in June, tell me about the writing process of this record?
Last year we played something like 120 shows, so we ended up recording in between dates. We’d get a ferry back from Holland at 4am, and be in the studio by 10am – record for four days late into the night and then get back in the van and head out to the next show. I think that schedules actually helped the album though, it feels like the last two years of our lives condensed. Living together, writing together, bickering. We were lucky to work with a producer who understood what we wanted to achieve and was very willing to push us way beyond any normal, decent place. Burke is the first one in the studio and the last out, he survives on nuts, has done a week in the studio after cracking open a molar, so when he’s asking you to do the 1000th guitar take, you do it. He didn’t let us get lazy or fall back on “studio tricks”. Everything you hear is as it was played.
Are there any influences that you took into the writing of this record?
We’ve always liked the erratic viva real guitar sound you get in American rock – parquet courts, pavement, iggy pop – just what we listened too. We combine it with a really English satiric, lyrical tradition though – read a lot of John Betjeman and grew up listening to Pulp. I think if you’re a band like ours and you try to sound like anyone you ultimately fall quite short and come out with something unique. We don’t sound like anyone else.
With this being the debut album release, how are you guys feeling about the record and its release?
Giddy if we can get it out.
How have the fans received the pre-release singles so far?
Inadvertently the record seems to be about growing up. Moving to London. Realising there’s no snakes and ladders game-plan to follow. Disillusionment alongside the day-to-day joys of being a group of friends living together. There’s a lot of questions in it. Is this it? Are we still mates? Are we happy? I think those themes that resonate with a lot of people. Our fans have been amazing, always are and it’s got a bit culty. We announced a pub show a few hours before the other night and people came down from Scotland for it. Couldn’t really hear the instruments over the words being sung back.
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Has the writing and releasing of this record changed any approach to your live shows?
Unusually I think, we’ve always started with how the song will sound live in the writing process, build in the pauses, riffs, long intros so I the influence goes the other way. We got the chance to test most of these live before we recorded them so we had a hunch at the bits that are supposed to make you feel a certain way. That helped.
Why should the people check out Sports Team both live show and record?
We’re the best live band in the world at the moment. The enduring appeal of a band will always be the dynamic between the people in it on stage and on record, I think you’ll hear that.
If you could play on the show of any band/artist dead or alive, who would that be?
Tina Turner
As an up and coming band, if you had any advice for someone thinking about starting up a band, what would that advice be?
Play shows all the time, think about recording later. Do it with people you care about and make sure it looks like you’re a group people would want to be a part of. Make it seem joyful, because it is.
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Follow SPORTS TEAM
Website – Facebook – Twitter – Instagram
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CLICK THE PIC TO VIEW THE NEWS
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