A month before being robbed at gunpoint on tour, the UK band jumps the pond and sets up in the city to shoot a live session with BdBK pals I Know We Should

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America is pretty embarrassing in quite a few ways, but one of this country’s biggest, most mind-boggling flaws is our absolute inability to get our shit together on gun control. We’re living a grief-filled Groundhog Day, morning after morning of mourning senseless violence. For a society so consumed with winning, we’re strangely comfortable with this much loss.

It’s a reputation that precedes us. Not just in newsfeeds and headlines, but as a sickness that’s even seeped into our souvenirs. Before heading out on a short West Coast run back in December, the British indie-rockers of Sports Team were aware of the bizarre American obsession with guns—a fetish they’d noticed on a previous US tour, where they marveled at merch casually emblazoned with images of AR-15s. In fact, they’d not only noted it; they’d written a song about it.

“We toured America a lot when we were working on the third album, and you would see the AR-15 logo used on coffee bags, hats, t shirts, bumper stickers,” Rob Knaggs of Sports Team shared in a press release. “You’d stop for petrol, and alongside the snacks and neon drinks there’d be racks with tourist souvenirs; a Mickey Mouse hat, pet rocks, some postcard of a local landmark, then an AR-15 thermos cup. That’s where the seed of the lyrics came from. Seeing that silhouette used like it’s just any other American icon.”

But the artists’ awareness of our American nightmare didn’t make it any less surprising, or less shitty, when they experienced it firsthand, being robbed at gunpoint one day (“ten minutes”) into their tour.

Last Friday, a month after the band’s van was broken into by a gun-wielding thief at a California Starbucks—at 9 a.m., by the way—Sports Team dropped “Bang Bang Bang,” a song serving as commentary on the US gun culture that they had now, unexpectedly and unfortunately, experienced in very close range.

Happily, the artists (and their instruments) lived to tell the tale, the experience simply adding an unrequested layer of authenticity, and a sharp shot of irony, to their latest single. Listen to it now via the Bands do BK x Sports Team live session, shot in sweeter, simpler times—back before the tour trauma—right here in NYC!

This al fresco session was produced and shot in Astor Place last November by BdBK bffs I Know We Should and features stripped-down takes on “Bang Bang Bang” as well as an unreleased track called “Maybe When We’re 30.”

Of their men-on-the-street session, Sports Team said:

“When Bands do Brooklyn asked us to do an impromptu gig on the streets of New York I was reminded of a clip that went viral in earlier days of the internet of world-famous virtuoso violinist Jacob Bell setting up to busk in the metro during rush hour, only to be completely ignored by everyone. Would the same thing happen to us? No. A man came by and told us to ‘Play Freebird.’ We had only rehearsed ‘Bang Bang Bang’ and ‘Maybe When We’re 30.’ Enjoy.”

Both tracks (but prob not “Freebird”) will appear on the band’s forthcoming album Boys These Days, which is due out May 23!

Now we just need to get them back to New York. We really do owe them an apologies-on-behalf-of-America beer.

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Follow Sports Team at @sportsteam, listen to music on Spotify and find everything you need at sportsteamband.com