“ANYTHING CAN BE A SPORTS SONG.” Is what Cale and Christian replied when I asked whether they finally feel free to make whatever they want.

When I sat down with Sports it felt like a privilege for me. This is such a pivotal time for a band that I have followed for years. Having just celebrated their 10-year anniversary, I could feel that this chapter carried a lot of momentum and personal meaning for them. Not just as middle school best friends, but as artists redefining their sound. Freshly releasing “Sports,” their first self-titled album, they opened up about their journey.

When I hear the name Sports I think of the sleek Britpop style, enthusiastic stage presence and signature dreamy sound. What I didn’t know? This band was formed by two 13 year-old friends, a dream, and a converted attic in a small town outside Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“He's the only other guy I knew that played guitar.” Cale tells me, “We graduated with like 80 people in our class… Pretty small school tucked away outside of the city of Tulsa, technically. And I wanted to start a band. I got introduced to Christian because someone I knew was like, "This guy can actually play guitar. He should be in the band." And I was like, "Yes, finally." A real musician. And the rest is history.”

As they started playing real shows they became an anomaly in their hometown; two tweens sharing a lineup with grown adults inevitably fed the classic question, “Wait… who drove you here?”

Yet this gave them audacious strength, and with support from their community they stepped into places like New York and LA wide-eyed and naive but certain of their reality.

Ultimately this friendship and support system was what they needed to propel themselves into these spaces. After several years of working with him he remains one of their best friends.

Now a decade later, they release their first self-produced, self-titled album written in their very own makeshift studio in Tulsa. Trading an attic for a full studio, but keeping the same two kids inside it.

“Having the studio space first of all allowed us just to kind of experiment. And then we just started like… What if we just self-produce this? What if we do this on our own? And it was kind of like a good time to… Jump from the nest and just do it ourselves.”

Describing it as a reintroduction, self-titled: “Sports” is a new beginning for Christian and Cale. Officially in their “Wait… Can we do this?” moment, they dove a little deeper on how having total autonomy has changed their creative process and relationship with the music.

“We were the ones deciding when it was done and when it was finished and that it was good. So just like trusting ourselves like we've been doing this for a while. We know when things are good. ..Which is for me this is the most creatively fulfilled I've ever felt. And I think it partly has to do with the fact that it was just us that made it.”

“The whole theme of making this album is learning to be like wait, maybe I do know what's best for me, you know.”

Though the album sounds different to past records, it feels right. More like Sports than ever. If their early years were them trying to prove something to themselves, then this record is them believing in themselves.

“As long as we make it, it's a Sports song.”

Anxiety, self-trust, existential crises, masculinity—are just a few themes that the album explores. Their single “Drama King,” particularly centers around anxiety.

“I've been an anxiety struggler for like a long time,” Cale tells me, “It just kind of comes out, you know, whenever I'm writing lyrics… When I listen back I'm like, "Oh, like this sounds like it just sounds like what goes on in my head." All the ruminating and overthinking and questioning and you know, trying to find myself.”

Everything they build feels extremely intentional. Even down to the very first song on the album: Gravestone.

“We were originally going to call the album Cale and Christian. I came to the studio and was like.. What if we wrote a song and it starts with your voice and then my voice? So we tried that and then just kind of built out this song… I feel like it kind of takes you on a journey, but I feel like it sets you up for what you're going to hear on the record, which is like the most important thing to me with an album.”

“I guess it's an existential song, you know, just thinking about how I'm going to be remembered or whatever. It's like I'm not even going to know how I'm going to be remembered. So, I don't know. Maybe it doesn't matter. You can put whatever you want on my gravestone.”

When I asked Christian his favorite song from the album he pointed to “Jelly,” saying “that song is something that's quite different than anything we've ever made… It's also the fastest song we've ever made.” Describing it as “Gaga Bass” due to how poppy it is, he admits he’s most excited to play it live.

Cale highlights, “I Can't Cry,” a track about emotional restraint within masculinity. “I didn't realize how much it would stand out. But it's about the whole boys aren't supposed to cry thing, you know, like just being taught as a kid not to.”

“There's been many times where I want to cry because I'm like I just would feel so much better if I could just cry about this, but I can't. So therefore, I can't release the trauma. I think that's why men are so f****** angry all the time because they're not crying enough.”

Ten years in. They’re still learning and growing, and somehow hitting that milestone feels surreal.

“I still feel like we're just getting started, which is crazy because like we have some friends who are starting to make music and we're helping them out and they're just like, "How did you guys do this? What do I do?" And I'm just like, "I don't know. Just keep making music. That's all we've been doing."

“We used to kind of just trust other people too much and we would say yes to things we didn't actually want to do.”

Sports is already looking ahead, using their new production knowledge as a jumpboard to new projects. It won’t be long until we will see them helping other artists bring their dream to life.

“My hope with self-producing is it opens up the door for us to produce for other people. It’s something I really enjoy.”

And the truth is, they're doing what they want. On their own terms.

“It's good to know we can just do whatever. It's just like every record it's like, what do we want to do? We can do whatever we want, you know?

You can catch them on tour this April, or in their astroturf-covered studio in Tulsa. No matter where their journey takes them, they’ve never lost that persistence to create their dream.

“I have this note I wrote when I was in 8th grade and I was like: I'm sitting in English class. We have band practice later today. I'm so excited. My dream is to be in a band and go on tour and I mean we ended up doing that which is crazy.”

---