Ground Control Touring

Sports have come full circle. The Oklahoma band hinges on the friendship between Christian Theriot and Cale Chronister, two musicians who met as kids and instinctively bonded. Finding mammoth viral success, they’ve released three acclaimed albums, each one distilling their indie pop elixir. With their new record, the band have gone back to their roots – self-produced, self-recorded, and self-titled, it’s the sound of people with an incredible bond, making the music that thrills them.

Small town heroes who are taking on the world, Sports credit their Tulsa upbringing as fostering their mindset. A world apart from the bright lights of Los Angeles or New York, the band had to work hard to make their mark. “The odds of us meeting, having the same interests, forming a band, and making it out to have a career… it’s like, how did that happen?” Cale marvels.

Sports struck gold first time out, with early single ‘You Are The Right One’ becoming a generational indie pop anthem. Nudging 180 million streams on Spotify alone, the track has become their hallmark, a fan favourite and also an economic support structure. “I think what’s kept us going is that we just haven’t stopped,” says Christian. “We keep moving, we keep putting out music.”

After four albums working with Chad Copelin, Sports decided to take the reins themselves. Opting to self-produce, the band found a space in their Tulsa hometown, a studio HQ they could call their own. “We’d been through the same experience with all our records,” Christian says, “where the producer would hold our hand. But we wanted a different challenge this time.”

Building the studio from scratch, the band fell in love with the Astroturf at a local sports pitch – and installed it as carpet. “We just kind of got obsessed with it!” Cale laughs. “It’s so nice to walk into a studio and see grass. It may have been fake, but we were touching grass every day!”

Arranging their equipment in a circle so the band could observe one another while creating, Sports added a new keyboard to their kit list, becoming one of the record’s signature sounds. Working over long, sweaty days, the windows at the studio would allow ambient noise from the outside world to leak on to the tapes – passers-by, traffic sound, sirens, all becoming part of the final mix. “Listening back to the record,” Christian describes, “is the most creatively fulfilled I’ve ever felt.”

Sports signal the opening of this new chapter with lead single ‘If You Want Me’ – beautifully incisive songwriting, it was the first song constructed in their new studio, and acts as a marker for the record as a whole. Working with alacrity, the band lacked a chorus – until their manager dared them to write something exceptional. “We were like: OK, challenge accepted! We made it our mission to write a big, classic chorus for that song.”

Lyrically, ‘If You Want Me’ is about a maturing relationship – Cale has been with his partner for 16 years, and the insecurities of adolescence have fallen away. “We can finally love each other for who we truly are,” he observes. “It’s a song about maturing through life, and breaking down some of the walls that you’ve grown up with.”

A record rooted in trust, Sports built their new album by swapping ideas, knowing instinctively what would work. ‘Nice To Meet Myself (Bang Bang Bang)’ is a dose of pop-edged therapy, with the title nodding to a copy of How To Meet Your Self by Dr Nicole Lepera found on Cale’s bookshelf. “It’s about trying to free myself of some of the patterns I have inherited, and trying not to overthink my own behaviour. It’s about being unafraid to be myself.”

Lyrically honest, ‘Nice To Meet Myself (Bang Bang Bang)’ is also blessed with a huge, epic chorus, easily one of the most ambitious the band have ever written. “We’re kind of just joking,” Christian teases, “but this is our stadium song. It’s us asking ourselves, could we see this band in a stadium?”

Embracing different forms of social media, Sports have built an incredibly tight-knit relationship with their fans. Different ideas from their new album were first aired during Twitch live-stream sessions, with Cale building his songs in real-time. Take the glorious single ‘Magic Trick, a track that fell into place with remarkable ease. “A lot of the songs come together pretty fast,” he shrugs. “What takes a while is the production, or the arrangement of the song.”

“That’s my favourite part of it,” says Christian. “Production can really change the way the song feels. It’s like the song is wearing different outfits!”

‘Jelly’ was also penned on Twitch, a conscious attempt to write an all-out pop song. “Those types of songs have always been interesting to me,” Cale explains. “I was trying to find that Lady Gaga magic somehow!”

The new record was entirely recorded at their Tulsa base – except for one song. ‘Keep Falling In Love’ was pieced together during a trip to the UK, with Sports offering a day at Brighton’s world-class Salvation Music Studios. Unable to refuse, they fully embraced the challenge, completing a relationship ode that – in Cale’s words – “speaks for itself”.

Now complete, Sports’ new album is exceptional. Retaining the wicked hooks of their early work, it also fully embraces maturity, and creative independence. “It’s given us incredible belief in ourselves,” Cale says. “It’s like the last stage of adulthood, making a record by yourself.”

Arriving 10 years on from their breakout moment, the Oklahoma group have found a way to be respectful to their past, while embracing the future. “It’s kind of surreal to have that number ten associated with the band,” Cale laughs. “It’s hard to think about the weight of it… it makes me feel old, I guess.”

It all comes down to the core friendship between Christian and Cale, and the boundless possibilities they find within one another. “We’ve known each other since middle school,” Christian reflects. “And we’re still doing it. To me, we’re just getting started.”