Sports Team's Alex Rice talks about second album Gulp! and four-way chart battle to Number 1
28.09.2022 - 13:01
/ officialcharts.com
When we connect with Sports Team singer Alex Rice as the band are currently travelling the length and breadth of the country performing live shows and promoting their just-released second album, Gulp!, we have just one thing to say...
...here we are again!
Cast your mind back to 2020 and you may remember that the indie-rock band - just then releasing their debut album, Deep Down Happy, were caught in the middle of an intense chart race with Lady Gaga's comeback album Chromatica for the Number 1 spot on the Official Albums Chart. Gaga won that round, but a Number 2 debut for a first album is nothing to sniff at.
And it seems that Sports Team - or Alex, Oli, Al, Rob, Ben and Henry - just can't get enough of it, because this time they're back for another chart race; this time, though, the lane's have widened a bit and they've found themselves up against D-Block Europe, Mark Owen and 5 Seconds Of Summer.
"I mean, I wouldn't have picked a Take That member [as our competition]," Alex tells us over the phone. "5 Seconds of Summer, we were always kind of aware of them, and the D-Block Europe album has some huge people on it! Like, Ed Sheeran."
But how are the band feeling about the prospect of another battle for the top this time around, as seasoned chart fighters?
"I think we're feeling great," Alex says. "I mean, we're kind of a little band and we don't do things right. It doesn't look polished, or anything like that. The way we conduct ourselves, we're not trying to PR ourselves and it's nice when that seems to resonate with people, because the last time we didn't really get a chance to do that."
Ah, yes. The last time. The perfect time to release the major label, debut album you've been working towards for years...in the