Express & Star

Sports Team: Female music fans are misrepresented and patronised

The indie band has an overwhelmingly female following.

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Sports Team

Sports Team star Robb Knaggs has said female music fans are often “misrepresented” and “patronised”.

The six-piece indie revival band, who will release their debut album in June, boast a nearly all-female fan base.

Drummer Al Greenwood, the only female band member, told ES Magazine: “It’s an amazing and increasingly growing community of really young, really intelligent, empowered women who are interested in this genre not because they’re fulfilling some quota, but because they’re passionate about music.”

Knaggs said: “I think if you’re a female fan you do get misrepresented a lot. Like ‘Oh, you like bands ’cause you fancy them’.

“But I was a 16-year-old kid who was obsessed with bands and wanted photos with them and ’cause I was a guy no-one would (say that).

“The idea that female fandom is inherently a crushing fandom is so patronising. You just look at it and you’re like ‘Come on, really? In 2020?’”

The band will release their debut album, Deep Down Happy, on Island Records on June 19, after rescheduling the launch due to coronavirus.

An open letter to fans said: “In a way it seems fitting that we’re trying to release our debut in the midst of a once-in-a-generation global pandemic.

“We’ve tried as hard as we can to keep everything on track. But, on a lot of sound advice, and to take pressure off all the people helping us deliver the album, we’ve taken the call to reschedule the record to June 19, and live shows until June.

“Playing for you lot means everything to us, and we’ll be back doing it as soon as we safely can. All tickets and pre-orders will remain valid.

“Keep buying music by the artists you love; it means the world. We’re seeing out the foreseeable in a studio in the West Country, getting on to new music.”

– The full interview is in ES Magazine, out on March 19.

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