“We try to follow the excitement in life” – An Interview with Sports

Cale Chronister and Christian Theriot have been making music together for nearly twenty years, but with their new self-titled album, Sports, the Tulsa duo seem to be entering a new chapter. Written, produced and recorded entirely on their own in a studio they built from scratch, the record pushes their dreamy pop sound into louder guitars, faster tempos and a freer, more instinctive approach to songwriting. We talked to Sports about nearly two decades of creative partnership, Tulsa’s influence on their work, learning to trust themselves in the studio, and what they are expecting from their first European tour. Sports will perform at A38 Ship in Budapest on November 6.

You two have been making music together since middle school, and you are closing in on twenty years as a duo now. Listening back, what feels most different about the way Cale and Christian write together today compared to your earliest records?

Christian: We trust each other more. Less about “look how good I am” and more trying to get a reaction out of each other. 

Cale: But we are actually so much better now.

You have leaned into being small town heroes and credited Tulsa for your work ethic. How does staying rooted in Oklahoma, away from the LA and New York machine, shape the kind of band you have become?

Cale: We were mostly comparing growing up in a small city to a city like that. I love LA and New York. Those cities are so inspiring to work and perform in. But I do think being in a city that doesn’t have endless opportunities for fun, leaves us going back to the studio more often than not. 

Back in 2024 you released Thank You For Leaving, a single you made with Gus Dapperton and Ruby Amadelle that reportedly came together in about two hours, during one afternoon when Dapperton stopped by your place in Tulsa. Do the best things usually happen that fast for you, or was that a rare exception?

Cale: I feel like half the songs we end up releasing/being proud of are easy and the other half don’t come together so fast. When it’s easy, it’s easy to feel like you figured it out. Like you finally understand how to write songs. But I don’t think that’s ever the case. They come in many forms and different levels of effort are required depending on the idea. You just gotta show up and ride the wave. 

The new self titled record is the first one you produced, wrote and recorded entirely on your own, in a studio you literally built from scratch in Tulsa. What did having your own room, with no outside producer in the chair, unlock that you could not reach before?

Cale: It made us get better at certain things. it made us learn to trust ourselves. It made us dig a little deeper when we were at a road block. 

You spent years perfecting a soft, glistening dream pop sound, and then this album kicks the door in: heavier guitars, faster tempos, autotune on your voices for the first time. What was the moment you finally gave yourselves permission to just rock, and once you heard where it took you, what surprised you most?

Cale: Maybe giving ourselves permission to self-produce gave us the permission we needed to do a lot of things. But I don’t think we ever made an out loud declaration that we were gonna make a certain type of music. We just followed what was interesting to us. We try to follow the excitement in life. 

If You Want Me was both your comeback single and the first song you made in the new studio. The video is also the first time you really played with actual sports imagery, even though the band is literally called Sports. After steering clear of that obvious joke for years, why did it finally feel right to lean into it?

Cale: Well, you’re band is called Sports and now your album is called Sports. Why not lean into it a little bit? 

Keep Falling in Love, from the new album, is such a tender moment in the middle of all that noise. It is a love song Cale wrote for someone he has been with since he was sixteen, who was in the room the day you tracked it. What do you remember about that session?

Cale: Yes. I had that melody and demo for a while and was searching for the right lyric. It just fell into my mind when we were walking around in London, the day before our trip to that studio in Brighton. It just made a lot of sense. You know, when you’re with someone for so long, you have to keep falling in love with each other because you change over time. I wanted to write about that. 

Cale, you have talked about writing melody first and letting the lyrics stay almost subconscious, so people can read themselves into the songs. Are there lines on this album that even you did not fully understand until much later?

Cale: That happens all the time. Almost too much to where it’s hard to pick one. The lyrics change shape in my head over time. Especially when we perform them. With Jelly, I wanted it to sound like a heartbreak type of song, but I’m not really going through that in life, so I’m personally  just singing about trying to disassociate from my negative thoughts. Trying to not run away with made up narratives in my head. Like I’m under a curse. The chorus “why don’t you wanna be mine?” feels like my mind trying to rope me back in.

Your 2026 world tour behind the new album takes you across the US, Canada and a proper run through Europe, with the Budapest show as one of the stops. What are you most curious to find out about how these louder new songs land with crowds who might be hearing them live for the first time?

Cale: Well it’s our first time playing any of our songs in Europe, so I’m just excited to see how they react to it all. We’ve toured the new songs in the US already and it was so good to see people already singing the lyrics, even though the album hadn’t been out long. Hoping to sing along in Budapest as well!

Every band has that one story that gets told over and over on tour. What is the strangest or funniest thing that has ever happened to Sports, whether on the road or back in the studio?

Cale: The craziest thing I can think of, is we lost a trailer wheel without knowing it while we were driving through Pennsylvania. We arrived at our hotel and noticed one of the wheels was completely gone. Not just the tire, the whole wheel. We don’t know how long we were driving like that. (It was a tandem axle so it didn’t feel like anything changed). It’s still a mystery to do this day. I hope no one got hurt. 

On November 6th you are playing A38, which, in case nobody has warned you yet, is a former Ukrainian stone carrier ship moored on the Danube in the middle of Budapest. Is there anything you are hoping to do or see while you are in the city?

Cale: Wow I did not know that. That sounds amazing. I know there’s gonna be a lot of amazing architecture. My wife has been educating me on the Art Nouveau movement. But that’s about it.

Do you know anything at all about the music scene or the audiences here in Budapest, or is it a total blank slate you are excited to walk into?

Cale: it’s a blank slate. Excited to be cultured.