'For our generation, the social contract is broken'

Fresh from a too-close experience of armed robbery in the US, indie band Sports Team tell Mark Beaumont why their new album has taken a lyrical scalpel to American culture

- Mark Beaumont

Many UK bands have broken America; few have seen its civilised facade so quickly shattered. No sooner had Sports Team landed in the US last December to start a tour prepping their third album Boys These Days than their first breakfast at a Californian gas station was interrupted by a concerned citizen rushing in to tell them their van was being broken into.

Intrepid drummer Al Greenwood was halfway across the forecourt, filming the robber as evidence, before she realised she’d brought an iPhone to a Glock fight. “Our tour manager [Lauren Troutman] was ahead of me, running towards them and shouting, asking them to stop,” she recalls, clearly shaken at the memory. “I saw quite immediately that they were carrying something that Lauren hadn’t seen.”

Like the more crossfire-savvy Americans on the scene, Greenwood took cover behind a car, hysterically screaming for her tour manager to get down. “Eventually they pointed the gun at her,” she says. “She backed away, and we took cover in Starbucks, and they proceeded to load out all of our personal belongings, which was very upsetting to watch.”

For fans back home watching one of rock’s most dramatic ever TikToks – an acoustic album showcase in an unkempt kitchenette this was not – Greenwood’s post provided hardhitting evidence that US gun crime could affect anybody. This was a devil-may-care art rock six-piece from London and Margate (via Cambridge University), famed for performing lighthearted tunes referencing Ashton Kutcher and the M5 motorway while dressed in toreador outfits, Eighties pop garb or psychedelic tank tops. Over seven years as one of indie rock’s great rising hopes, in songs slathered in literate wit and comedic metaphor, they’ve wryly dissected the modern British malaise on two Top 3 albums – the Mercury-shortlisted Deep Down Happy (pipped to No 1 by Lady Gaga in 2020) and