British band Sports Team have revealed on their social media that they were robbed at gunpoint at a Starbucks in Vallejo, California on Tuesday morning, ahead of their upcoming US tour. The robbers got hold of their laptops, personal items and other valuables – leaving their tour van ransacked.
Sports Team are an indie, alt-rock band comprised of lead vocalist Alex Rice, rhythm guitarist and vocalist Rob Knaggs, lead guitarist Henry Young, bassist Oli Dewdney, keyboardist Ben Mack and drummer Al Greenwood. The band, who experiment with post-punk instrumentation and jovially delivered lyrics, have over 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify and two UK Top 5 albums, respectively from their 2020 release ‘Deep Down Happy’ which peaked at number 2 and their sophomore album ‘Gulp’ released in 2022 and peaked at 3.
The ‘Here’s The Thing’ band uploaded a phone recording of the altercation alongside the caption: “Just been robbed at gun point 10 minutes into the US tour. Stopped for coffee. Man runs in saying some guys are smashing into a van. Ran out to try to stop it and find masked guys ransacking the van. Start yelling and they pull out a gun. Police response was “submit an online report.” Lost a lot of personal gear, but they didn’t get the instruments so driving on to Sacramento to play tonight. They can take our Nintendo Switches but they can never take our ability to play rock songs about motorways. In all seriousness pretty shocking how resigned everyone seemed to be to it. “It happens”. 9am at some petrol station Starbucks. Wild.”
The band’s frontman, Alex Rice recalled the experience to Sky News stating, they responded with “natural reaction, you sprint towards it and try to stop it, and immediately [one of the robbers] pulls a gun… He pulls a gun, he sort of points it at our tour manager Lauren, there’s another guy loading stuff out and a third guy in a getaway car”.
He continued: We all sprint back into the Starbucks. They’ve taken a huge amount of personal stuff and musical equipment from the middle of our van. So haven’t played a note yet, one minute in, we’ve got our stuff taken.”
Rice’s testament to the event and the band’s first-hand experience seems to prove their astonishment surrounding gun control in the US. Sports Team notified the police of the incident, who advised them to submit an online report, in a taken-aback statement Rice claimed that was the “saddest bit to see” that “people take this [gun altercations] in their stride now”.
Apart from a few missing passports and the panic of getting home to the UK in time for Christmas, Sports Team were adamant to start and complete their US tour. They were to continue their drive to Sacramento to perform there last night.
Sports Team are currently in the US to promote their upcoming third album, ‘Boy These Days’, which is set to release February 2025. Thus far, the indie band has released two tracks from the LP including: ‘I’m In Love (Subaru)’ and ‘Condensation’. This current tour will showcase Sports Team’s artistry which has evolved from their Mercury Prize nominated debut to their upcoming and unreleased third album.
