Sports are the Oklahoma duo making some of our favorite music right now. The project grew out of a high school friendship between Christian Theriot and Cale Chronister, who have spent the last decade honing their sound and finding their groove. For their new record, the band returned to their roots, choosing to self-produce, self-record, and self-title the album, resulting in their most accomplished work yet. Drawing inspiration from A.G. Cook’s innovative production to Bob Dylan’s timeless songwriting, the duo have crafted a shimmering, deep, and thoughtful record that feels perfectly in step with the current musical zeitgeist.‍

I’ve been listening to your album, and I just have to say before we start - I’m so obsessed with the song Jelly.

Cale: Oh, cool. Awesome.

Christian: Yeah, that’s my favourite right now.

Are you guys feeling more nervous than usual before a release? Just because this album is self-produced, self-titled, and made at home?

Cale: I don’t know if I feel more nervous or not. I get what you’re saying, but I feel really good. I haven’t felt this excited about a project in a long time.

Christian: Yeah, it feels like there’s just a lot of momentum. I mean, we’ve been doing this for almost 10 years, and I’ve heard the saying that it takes 10 years to blow up overnight. It feels like we’re getting ready to hit that mark where we’re going to be a little more visible. So the fact that we’re going to be this visible with a project that we self-produced is really exciting.

Was it harder to self-produce, or was it a good challenge?

Cale: It was a good challenge. In some ways it wasn’t that different, and in other ways it was totally different. But it was freeing because we had so much more time. We were on our own time, not someone else’s. At first it was kind of scary for me, but the more we did it, the better we got at it. Once we finished the first song - which ended up being the first single - it gave us confidence that we could actually take something across the finish line. The hardest part for me was knowing when something was finished. In the past, a producer would give the stamp of approval and say, 'It’s done'. This time we had to lean on each other and say, 'I think it’s good'.

Christian: Yeah, there were moments where it was like, 'It’s not right, and I don’t know what else to do'. But once we learned how to just keep pushing until it excited us, that changed everything. Also, usually we’d have a set number of songs to record, but doing it ourselves meant we had time to experiment. We ended up with a surplus of songs, and the best ones rose to the top. Eventually it was like... oh we have an album.

What have you guys learned about each other through making this album?

Cale: I feel like it should be said: I couldn’t have self-produced on my own. Christian is really the reason it was possible. He’s so good at running a session and has a lot of experience doing that. I learned that he could do things I maybe reserved for people I thought were much older or more experienced. I was really impressed.

Christian: I couldn’t have done it on my own either. It would’ve been an instrumental album. I was more behind the computer, zoomed in on details, but Kale had the overhead perspective. He could zoom out and look at the song or project as a whole and say, 'That first take was great—we don’t need to keep digging'. That helped us finish things instead of chasing perfection. Also, having someone who could say, 'Let’s work on something else for a bit—I’m not feeling this song right now,'was really helpful.

Are you guys still based in Oklahoma?

Cale: Yeah.

Do you enjoy living there? I’m so intrigued - I’ve never met anyone from Oklahoma.

Christian: It’s all I know.

Cale: I’ve moved around a bit, but I keep coming back. So that says it all.

Do you think it influences your sound?

Christian: I don’t think so... but I can’t say 100% no. Do you think it does?

Cale: I think I could argue it both ways. If we lived in a bigger city, maybe we’d be influenced by people making similar music. In Tulsa, there are people making music, but not really what we make.

Christian: Yeah, music isn’t seen as a “normal" job here like it is in LA or New York. In that sense, it gave us a kind of naivety that was beneficial.

Is there a song you’re most proud of on the album?

Cale: I feel proud of the whole thing. On past records I’d have a favorite, but with this one, I listened to a test pressing and meant to skip through it, but I didn’t. I listened to the whole album straight through, which says a lot.

Christian: In the past we might’ve had transition tracks, but this album has no fillers. All 12 songs could be singles. I’m especially proud of the first and last songs. When I listen to albums, those are the most important. The album starts with our voices on the first track, which came from the idea of calling the album Cale and Christian. And the last song just kind of floats away... it feels like a perfect chapter closing. That final track feels like a sleeper song. When it ends, you realise there are no more songs and you just want to listen again.

I like that you didn’t release the first song as a single.

Cale: Yeah, because when that happens, I usually want to skip it when the album comes out since I’ve heard it so much.

What was your approach to the visuals for this album?

Christian: Our last project was very maximalist, so this time we wanted limitations - mainly black and white. We wanted to create a compelling visual world within that restriction. A lot of the credit goes to Haley Appell, our creative director. We gave her a mood board, and she reflected it back perfectly. It was really refreshing. We also leaned into sports imagery, which we’d always avoided before. She made it feel tongue-in-cheek instead of on-the-nose.

Why did you call yourselves Sports?

Cale: We’ve had so many band names since junior high. At one point we were making an album called Naked All the Time and realised we needed a new name. I suggested Sports because we played sports in high school but chose music instead. I thought there was no way we’d actually use it, but our producer and some people we looked up to told us we should.

I like the irony of it. Which other artists are you excited about right now?

Christian: I recently discovered a duo from Denmark called GENTS. Their newer record is more acoustic and stripped, and it really hit me. There’s also an artist called Dome 3000. I heard a song that was like a minute and fifty seconds long—it almost made me mad, but then I realised I loved it. It feels very genuine, not like it’s chasing trends.

Cale: I tend to dig too much into the past.

Listen to Sports new album HERE.

@sportsband