FOR SPORTS IT'S ALL ABOUT FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE

WORDS ROB CORSINI

If you were asked to name America’s musical hubs – you’d probably say New York, Los Angeles, Nashville – maybe New Orleans or Memphis. One name that might not necessarily spring to mind is Tulsa, Oklahoma – but that’s where dream-pop duo Sports have been creating music for the last decade. 

For Christian Theriot and Cale Chronister, Sports isn’t just an outlet for their creativity – but the culmination of a lifelong relationship. The pair first found each other at school and when they look back on their meeting – it feels fated. To have found someone interested in the same culture, the same music, with the same aspirations, all in the same city – and then to have made a career with them. 

With their new single ‘Keep Falling in Love’ released earlier this month and their self-titled, fourth album dropping in February next year – Sports talk to F Word about their first memories of each other, living in Oklahoma, and why they’re feeling calm about their next release.

Rob Corsini: Hey Sports, welcome to F Word. To start off – if you were going to introduce yourselves at this point in your life, how would you do it?

Cale Chronister: I think I just tell people I'm a working artist, I guess. That's what I identify most as – an artist more than a musician or anything like that. I like to tell people I'm from Oklahoma, I feel like that gives a little bit of a picture.

Christian Theriot: I feel like it's always a good juxtaposition to say I'm in a band, and then I'm from Oklahoma. And it's not the music that they think we make.

RC: What is Oklahoma music?

CC: It's one of the hotspots of Honky Tonk. It’s where Woody Guthrie is from. We love it, but it's just not really what we do.

RC: You met as kids, what are your first memories of each other?

CT: It's so vivid. I was wearing this LSU hat – which is the University of Louisiana – which is where my dad's from. We were standing outside of the lunchroom. That's what I always picture.

CC: The lunchroom was also the gym; we went to a small school. I had started a band with my friends, and none of us knew how to play instruments at all, but I really wanted to be in a band, because I had older cousins that were in a band. I thought it was, like, the coolest thing. One person in the band was like “This guy I know, Christian, he's moving back from Louisiana, he can actually play guitar. He should be in the band.” So that was my perspective of us meeting: here's a real musician.

RC: How old were you?

CCr: 12 or 13? We started playing shows around that same time. Some really funny venues for 13-year-olds to be playing.

CT: It first started out as an instrumental band. We would just go on stage and just play instruments.

CC: And then I was tired of pretending I didn't want to be the singer.

RC: If you two were to describe your friendship as another pair of famous friends, be they real or fictional, who would they be?

CC: Maybe Frodo and Sam?

RCWhich one's Frodo?

CC: I think, because I have the blue eyes, I gotta be Frodo. But Christian doesn't really look like Sam, so I don't know.

CT: We're on a journey together.

RC: You guys live in Oklahoma, what’s your favourite thing about it?

CC: Really, especially as I've gotten older, I've realized that the thing that matters the most to me about a place is the people that I know – so easily my friends and family.

CT: I was in LA for the summer, and I think everybody should leave where they're from, because they'll just appreciate it way more coming back. You kind of get used to everything, but when you come back, you can just see it in a different light.

RC: What about Oklahoma unlocks something in you creatively, as opposed to LA or New York?

CC: Everything is literally 20 times cheaper, so it's, easier to focus on being an artist if you want. In LA, even if you are crushing it, you still might need to work a second job. That's one thing about Oklahoma; we get to do this as our full-time jobs.’

CT: Being in a big city you can do something every single day, every single night. But here’s is just work and chill. I love doing both those things.

RC: You’ve just released your third single from your upcoming album, “Keep Falling in Love”, how does it feel having it out in the world?

CC: It feels great, I don't know, for some reason I’m just not anxious. I’m at peace with whatever happens. I’m proud of the work and I think the album is good. We did our best.

CT: We chose to self-title this album, for several different reasons. One of them being my brother used to be in the band and was a part of the last album. But this album, called Sports, it's just Cale and I, back how we started when we were 12 and 13. We’re reintroducing ourselves and starting over.

RC: Can you tell me the story behind this track?

CC: Our management got us a free day at this studio called Salvation, in Brighton. We weren't really sure what we were gonna do. I had this demo that I had written recently with a gibberish vocal take – I had the vocal melody but no lyrics. “Keep falling in love,” just stumbled into my mind – and I thought, how do I relate to that.

I’ve been with the same woman since I was 16 years old, so it was natural for me to keep falling in love and to try and be inspired by being in a relationship for so long. We've changed so much as people, but we keep falling in love with and staying together.

RC: What’s the big dream for this album?

CT: I think that we are doing a proper world tour, something we've never done before. We’re gonna get to go to Europe and play these songs, also we're going to Australia, which is so crazy. It just feels like a proper rollout.

CC: I hope that there's some new people out there who maybe don’t know who we are and I hope it reaches, a new type of person.

RC: What's your favourite F Word?

CC: First instinct is to say, fuck, but that's too easy. My brain is either going vulgar or really corny. Friendship.

CT: I think that's a good one, it sums up our journey.

CC: Alright, yeah. It's corny, but it feels good, honestly.

CT: It's important, especially with the male loneliness epidemic.

CC: Men, we need to embrace the corny shit. The corny feeling you're afraid of? That's where the love is, come on.

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