We've always wanted to be a big band, but we stay the right side of the fine line between cool and sad, says Sports Team

The Sun

22-05-2025

THERE is always a political angle to Sports Team's songs but it is delivered with energy and humour.
With their third album Boys These Days, the six-piece set out to make something that was all that — and more — delivering a satirical take on everything from social media to our obsession with nostalgia.
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Sometimes it's a critique, at other times it feels more like an endorsement.
'It's not Modern Life Is Rubbish, it's more like modern life is OK,' says rhythm guit­arist and vocalist Rob Knaggs, name-checking Blur's 1993 album.
Singer Alex Rice adds: 'Three albums in, we're finally at a point where we have the confidence to make the record we want to make. It's maximalist and hedonistic — a big sound that's in your face. We've been inspired by ­people like Bryan Ferry, Prefab Sprout and Joe Jackson.'
It's a busy morning when I meet Rice and Knaggs at their North London HQ — a hybrid of their management company and record label.
Libertines frontman Carl Barat pops in for a meeting, promo plans are being thrown around for upcoming releases, and in the middle of it all Rice is proudly showing off photos of his newborn daughter, just a few weeks old.
'It's organised chaos and that's how we like it,' says Rice, settling into the sofa, ready to chat.
Out of control
'We actually had more time with this album,' explains Knaggs, after the first two records by the band — which also comprises lead guitarist Henry Young, bassist Oli Dewdney, drummer Al Greenwood and keyboardist Ben Mack — were made amid non-stop touring.
Knaggs jokes: 'We could have hit that old, bloated, egotistical stage and thought, 'Do you know what? Maybe I'll make Tubular Bells now'.
'With the first records, we were constantly playing live. Nobody knew who we were, and we had to win over cold crowds.
'But with this third one, it's different, we're not the 22-year-old kids we were when we started.
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'Our lives have changed, our music taste has changed, and you don't want to end up a parody of yourself. You want to make music you genuinely love. Otherwise, what's the point of doing this?
'We've always said we want to be a really big band, and it's a fine line between very cool and very sad, and you want to pull the right side of that.'
The album is a journey through all the events, all these other things that come into your life
Rice
With that in mind, Knaggs says: 'At the start, because of our band name, we'd be asked to do silly sports-theme ideas. 'Hey, we've got a photoshoot idea. We are going to dress you as pins from ten-pin bowling, and we will bowl a ball at you down the lane.' No thanks!'
Rice adds: 'The album is a journey through all the events, all these other things that come into your life.'
Boys These Days kicks off with the catchy sexy sax song I'm In Love (Subaru).
Knaggs says: 'It was fun to do songs with an '80s palette, with really corny saxophones — so yes there is a saxophone on there.
'And Subaru was the most '80s song we'd written. It was us consciously trying to write a Prefab Sprout song. And then it spiralled out of control from that point.'
"Humour is a key ingredient in Sports Team's songs, and the title track Boys These Days is no exception. That one is meant to be taken ambiguously,' explains Rice.
'It's about how the generation before you always think you've lost your way.
'I've always been fascinated by nostalgia culture. There's a Facebook group called Who Remembers Proper Binmen that really got us thinking about this idea.'
'It's like boomer memes. Or nostalgic phrases like Who remembers chippy teas? Who remembers playing on bombsites? And everyone nods that they remember,' says Knaggs with a laugh.
Rice adds: 'Boys These Days is a phrase that whatever the side of the political spectrum you're on with gender, you take it in a ­different way.'
There's a line in Boys These Days about 'now it's all vaping and porn ' and the topic turns to the rise in the number of students using the platform OnlyFans to fund university costs.
There's a weird divide between older people who expect you to do certain things because you're in a band, like have groupies. It's weird
Rice
Knaggs says: 'We were actually approached by OnlyFans in the early days of the band — I think they were trying to get artists on board to give them a good image.
'I guess Kate Nash did it pretty well when she was doing bum pics to sell her tour.
'And Lily Allen makes money selling photos of her feet. I'd do hands and feet stuff on OnlyFans, if my feet weren't so grotesque!'
Rice says: 'There's a weird divide between older people who expect you to do certain things because you're in a band, like have groupies. It's weird.
'We're a mixed band where there's five guys. Music is still going through that transition but music for us has always been a positive masculine space.
'Small venues are where you find a lot of community. It was for us when we were young and we are trying to create that as well.'
The band — who formed while at Cambridge University — believe their privileged academic background has often been a double-edged sword.
Knaggs points out other acts, including Clean Bandit and singer Rina Sawayama, went to Cambridge.
He adds 'Although I was always a bit annoyed, because we'd get branded as posh, whereas Rina Sawayama would be called an academic queen.'
Smiling, Rice says: 'I've always liked these fun little narratives, these beefs. Like when Liam Gallagher called Pete Doherty and Keane's Tom Chaplin 'posh lightweights' and when Kasabian joked that Tom was 'addicted to port'.'
Boys These Days was made in Bergen, Norway, where Rice and Knaggs say they made the most of the different environment.
Rice says: 'We loved it and worked Scandi hours, like 10am till 4pm which we'd never done before. And it was the end of January so had the heaviest of snow which was so beautiful.
'Me and Rob visited the Cold War bunkers there and walked a lot. We swam most days too. It was a great place to work.'
Knaggs says: 'But the Norwegians know how to live. We saw A-ha playing at a festival. Morten Harket is still a dish.
'We were backstage and he came straight off stage, got a ski jumper on and drove straight into the mountains. He's living very well that man.'
Rice says: 'We worked with [CMAT and Girl In Red] producer Matias Tellez who was experimental with the band and our way of working.
'He's so comfortable in the studio. There are no preconceptions about how music should be made. In the past we've thought everything needed to be played live, or it's not credible.
'Matias's methods were very freeing, the way he worked on the vocals and made us try things again and again. He made it spontaneous. He has a very sunny vibe and is incredibly energetic.'
Knaggs adds: 'Also he doesn't come from that guitar world. We love guitar rock and are super nerds in that sense. With that comes a weird set of rules to how you record guitars, drums and bass.
'Brutal welcome'
'But Matias is happy to do whatever. He's about Scandi-Norwegian pop, which has separate rules to the UK or New York or LA music scene.'
Other standout tracks on Boys These Days include Head To Space, a song about billionaires blasting off to the moon, and Moving Together, which includes a clever Coronation Street intro sample, (through copyright laws, the soap now own 20 per cent of that song).
Bang Bang Bang tackles the issue of gun violence — eerily written before the band were robbed at gunpoint on the first day of their US tour in San Francisco last December.
The boys had been enjoying breakfast when two masked men stormed their rental van at gunpoint, forcing tour manager Lauren Troutman to the ground and stealing thousands of pounds' worth of equipment and personal belongings.
It left them shaken but deter­mined to carry on with the tour, with Rice describing it as a 'brutal welcome to America'.
He adds: 'We wrote the song months before and so the timing seemed strange.
'It went from being this song about how jarring it feels to go into bars in the US, where people would show you their guns, or gun holes in the wall, or in shops, weaponry would be next to other things, which felt odd. Then suddenly it felt a very personal song.
'What was weird though was having the media come out and to see the massively different angles on the gun argument. We were doing all these interviews and just describing what happened rather than the (pro-gun) political line that some people wanted out of us.'
Shaking his head, Knaggs says: 'It happened in a petrol station, so if we had a gun, we could have had a little shootout in the petrol station. No problem.'
The band began a record- store tour last night in ­Edinburgh before summer shows in London and Margate and festivals.
Being in Sports Team is about having fun and creating a narrative about life — we've grown up a lot since we started — but it's just given us more things to write about
Rice
Rice says: 'We are playing Truck, Y Not, Kendall Calling and Leeds. There's a few more to be announced, and a big autumn tour. They have also been supporting Supergrass during their ongoing I Should Coco 30th anniversary tour — and will perform at their Mexico gig in September.
'We are excited. I love Supergrass. We've played with a lot of bands now and they are the people you want to be like that. They are fantastic live and the nicest people.
'I'm just looking at how touring will work now I'm a dad. Paul McCartney took his baby on tour — it's definitely doable.
'There will be a lot of time when I'm probably around way more than with a normal job. It's the balance you strike. And this year, we've taken it a bit easier than we would do normally and my partner has been great and is a great mum.
'Being in Sports Team is about having fun and creating a narrative about life — we've grown up a lot since we started — but it's just given us more things to write about.'
Boys These Days is out today.
SPORTS TEAM
Boys These Days
★★★★☆
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