‘I get idiot men calling me arrogant': Irish post-punks Sprints confront the mansplainers and misogynists
Mercifully, at the time of writing at least, Mescal remains secure in his position as the internet's most-wanted boyfriend – not that Sprints need to cling to their countryman's coattails. Since forming in 2019, the band – which also features Sam McCann on bass and guitarist Zac Stephenson – have risen through rock's ranks by gigging relentlessly with their cathartically boisterous, brutally candid post-punk. In 2023 they supported Suede on tour, finding a champion in Brett Anderson, who tended to linger side of stage during their sets. (McCann would often turn to suddenly see 'a menacing black silhouette' standing there. 'Like Slenderman,' says Callan.) The following year, their blistering, brooding, hook-riddled debut album, Letter to Self – which doubled as an unflinching, aphorism-strewn account of Chubb's mental health and ADHD struggles – reached the UK Top 20. In January it was shortlisted for an RTÉ Choice music prize, Ireland's biggest music award.
Now, ahead of their most high-profile Glastonbury slot yet, the band are preparing to step things up again. Letter to Self's forthcoming sequel, All That Is Over, leans harder into certain existing influences – Bauhaus, PJ Harvey – to arrive at a sound Chubb is semi-jokingly calling 'gothic cowboy', while expanding into less autobiographical territory by drawing on novels (Prophet Song, The Bee Sting, the works of Octavia Butler) and video games (Fallout). Not quite 'end of the world' stuff, explains Chubb over coffee with her bandmates in the bar of their London hotel on a sunny June day. 'But otherworldly. A lot of it is escapism – even though we're escaping from one dystopian world to another.'
The album was shaped by a contradiction: things really began to take off for Sprints just as the news cycle started to get significantly darker. 'We've built this beautiful, liberal, queer, creative bubble, and would be on tour playing these amazing shows … then you'd pick up your phone and be like, 'What the fuck is happening?' Like in Gaza, or the forest fires in LA. We're doing the most artistically true and honest thing, and it's set against this backdrop of the world feeling like it's gonna end at any moment.'
Music helps Chubb make sense of it all, she says. That is what the band's latest single, Descartes, is about, with its core lyric – 'I speak so therefore I understand' – riffing on the philosopher's first principle to capture the clarity and catharsis provided by songwriting. The track also reiterates the band's commitment to using their voice. Like many Irish acts – including Fontaines DC (whom they are due to support on tour this summer) and Kneecap – Sprints are politically outspoken. Chubb feels she bears the brunt of the pushback from this, and much more besides. Over the last year, she has been confronted with 'articles about my weight' alongside 'open letters from idiot men criticising my political stance – calling me arrogant because I had the audacity to use my platform on stage to speak about Palestine'.
Some of Chubb's anecdotes about the mansplaining she has endured are amusingly ludicrous – such as the one about the punter at a recent Dublin show who deigned to give her advice about the band's guitar parts before telling her his son 'could have done a better job'. In the early days of Sprints, Chubb felt pressure to perform solos 'to prove that I could play the guitar, because people were automatically going to assume that I didn't.' Today, she cares far less about the opinions of random blokes: 'With this album, I don't really give a fuck.'
Yet other instances of misogyny are harder to shake off. Last year, Chubb made headlines when she spoke about being groped by a gig-goer while on stage in Belfast (it happened during a Munich show too). At first, she wasn't even shocked, but then 'I started to talk about it and the guys were like, 'What the fuck?' So I thought, 'OK, this is something I'm allowed to be upset by.' When I decided to speak publicly about it, so many artists reached out and were like, 'the same thing happened to me, it's disgraceful.''
We could spend hours raking over the sexism Chubb has experienced as a frontwoman, but rather than cowed or beleaguered, she and her bandmates seem overall quietly euphoric. Rock band economics are precarious – 'there are months when we don't know how much, if any, money we're going to get in,' says Chubb – and the lifestyle can be tough: their original guitarist Colm O'Reilly left last year because he wanted to settle down. 'Touring life is not for everyone – if you don't like it, it's hell,' says McCann.
Sign up to Sleeve Notes
Get music news, bold reviews and unexpected extras. Every genre, every era, every week
after newsletter promotion
Yet the remaining members are clearly revelling in their ascent, enthusiastically reeling off their Glastonbury must-sees (Amyl and the Sniffers, Getdown Services, Nilüfer Yanya) before reflecting on the forward momentum and endless possibility of life on the road now that they get to do this full-time. 'There's always another show to play, there's always another album to write,' Chubb says, before letting out a droll chuckle. 'And there's always another crisis of faith or mental health to write a song about.'
All That Is Over is released on 26 September on City Slang. Descartes is out now. Sprints play Glastonbury's Woodsies stage at 2pm on Sunday 29 June
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
34 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
From delays to 'sub-par' performances with barely any singing - insiders reveal what's really going on with Justin Timberlake's world tour
Justin Timberlake 's world tour has been mired in controversy since his DWAI arrest in the Hamptons, where he made headlines when he told the officer, 'This is going to ruin the tour.' Since his much-publicized brush with the law in Sag Harbor, Timberlake's tour has been plagued with a slew of issues, including wardrobe malfunctions, low ticket sales, last-minute cancelations, feuds with his staff, and now, accusations of 'lazy' performances. Earlier in July, an explosive video surfaced of Timberlake, 44, completely losing it on his stage crew in the middle of his set at England's Lytham Festival. The viral clip showed the pop star trying to keep his cool after sound issues disrupted his performance of Cry Me a River. Timberlake seemingly had a meltdown, and launched into a furious tirade before storming away from his stunned team. But that's not the end of his touring woes. Now, the pop superstar is facing backlash from his fans for his tour stops in Romania and Ireland as they accuse him of a 'lazy' lip sync and demand that he's canceled for wasting his fans money. Daily Mail can exclusively reveal the drama behind his controversial concerts... and why his wife Jessica Biel is pleading with him to give up touring amid the brutal backlash. One insider told the Daily Mail that the SexyBack singer is 'in a rut' amid his flailing tour and desperately 'needs to do something new.' After he played Romania, a viral TikTok received 460,000 likes after a fan who paid 'a lot of money' to see him called him 'an absolute disappointment.' The Social Network star was late getting onstage, and then apparently only sang about five words of each song, according to concert-goers. He also wore glasses and a hat, so the audience couldn't see him, leading many to walk out in anger. 'You can't be singing two songs and then taking a break,' the content creator said, calling his behavior 'rude' and 'disrespectful,' before asking him to 'rethink' the concept behind his tour. The 'lackluster' performance was so embarrassing that multiple fans demanded a refund. In Dublin, his performance was much the same, as showcased by videos of Timberlake dropping the mic and simply walking around the stage lazily, without doing the dance moves he's known for. The same insider divulged that Timberlake 'wants to create new music and to do something he hasn't done yet' but feels stuck singing the same old songs he's been performing for decades, leaving him unmotivated. While there have been murmurs that he would reunite with his boy band NSYNC, it has yet to come to fruition. The reunion rumors reached a fever pitch as their former competitors the Backstreet Boys reunited at the Las Vegas Sphere as part of a historic residency. In fact, fans online begged Timberlake to rejoin his former boy band, joking that if he wanted to sing so little during his recent tour dates, he should at least have the others join him onstage. 'It's embarrassing how he's been basically doing karaoke,' the insider agreed. 'He knows that he's lost his mojo and he really wants it back.' A separate source weighed in on the state of his marriage, and how the tour has been leading to issues with his actress wife. The couple share two children, Silas, 10, and Phineas, four. 'Jessica thinks Justin has aged years since he started The Forget Tomorrow World Tour last April,' the insider claimed. While the tour is set to end on July 30, with stops left in Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, Biel, 43, has seen 'how it has taken its toll on him, not just physically but emotionally.' Timberlake's devoted wife has stood by him amid multiple high-profile controversies, including in 2019, when he was caught holding hands with actress Alisha Wainwright during a night out in New Orleans. Now, Biel is worried that he's 'taken on way too much,' with the insider adding that 'he's no longer a twentysomething who can fly around the world doing concert after concert.' While Timberlake previously reigned supreme in the pop world, he's been met with lackluster sales and even worse reviews throughout the tour. Some locations have even dropped tickets to embarrassingly low prices while he's also performed to half full venues. It hasn't helped Timberlake's case that he's been forced to cancel a number of concerts with short notice, leaving fans fuming after they spent money and in some cases even traveled to the shows before getting the news that he wasn't taking the stage. In February, the Cry Me a River singer canceled the final show on his U.S. tour at Columbus, Ohio's Nationwide Arena Thursday, claiming he was sick. The shock announcement came only four months after he canceled his October 23 concert at the same venue amid a bout with laryngitis and bronchitis. It's not just his fans that are upset. The insider spilled that one reason Timberlake has been upset is because 'ticket sales haven't been as buoyant as he'd hoped.' 'He's become short tempered both on and off stage,' the source divulged.
Daily Mail
36 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Flight attendant's bizarre 'air aerobics' class mid-flight leaves passengers stunned
Flights are often getting delayed, but one airline employee has come up with a unique way to make sure passengers aren't held up too much. A traveler on a recent EasyJet flight, named Joe, took to TikTok to share a hilarious video of a cabin manager taking passengers through a series of movements in their seat, dubbing it 'air-aerobics.' The clip began with Joe in his plane seat listening to the voice of the crew member speaking through the inflight PA system, with a strange request for the passengers. On the clip, Joe wrote: 'What is going on?' as he looked amused and listened to the crew member. 'Just before we come into land … I've been flying for 30 years now … a couple of weeks ago, I just tried something to help the crew out, to help our operations to turnaround the plane quicker,' he said. 'I came up with an idea,' the experienced crew member continued. 'If you want to join in with this, please feel free … it's a bit of a laugh and a bit of a giggle. It's called air aerobics.' The crew member then pointed out the passengers had been cooped up in their seats for three to four hours due to a delay, before guiding them through some stretches. 'So what I'd like everybody to do is stretch around,' he urged. 'Lets see those arms.' He told everyone to lean to the right, then to the left, and then the middle. 'Touch your head,' he instructed. 'Touch your nose, touch your shoulders, touch your knees, no touch your toes.' Then, the stretch got interesting, with the crew member telling passengers to reach into the seat pocket in front of them and locate the safety card. 'Everybody pull that out and wave it in the air like you just don't care,' he directed, before delivering the final instructions of his air-aerobics. 'Put the card back in the seat pocket, with the "safety on board" sign facing you and placing the card in front of the other literature in the seat pocket,' he requested. 'Believe it or not, that's knocked seven minutes on my turnaround time,' the cabin manager told the plane full of passengers. 'Thank you very much for helping us.' The Daily Mail has contacted EasyJet for comment. Users chimed in with their thoughts in the comment section, many whom work in the airline industry. 'That's hysterical! Putting the safety cards at the front facing the right way does actually knock time off the turnaround,' agreed one user. Another joked: 'I thought he was going to say, "So you see the instructions for a crash landing, that's the brace position you all now need to take as the landing gear is stuck."' Someone else pointed out making sure to move on a flight can also help prevent deep vein thrombosis, which is a a blood clot that forms in a deep vein, usually in the leg or pelvis. 'In 2001 there was a lot of awareness of DVTS. I was on a flight and part way through Mr Motivator came on and made us exercise! No making us read though!' they quipped.
The Sun
36 minutes ago
- The Sun
Kia Joorabchian removes several horses including ‘spectacular' £4.6million Frankel filly from Ralph Beckett yard
KIA JOORABCHIAN has moved several horses away from Ralph Beckett — including the unraced £4.6million Frankel filly named Partying. The AMO Racing chief has shipped a number of his string from Kimpton Down Stables to Freemason Lodge where his new trainer Kevin Philippart De Foy has recently moved. 1 Joorabchian has left former Irish Oaks heroine You Got To Me with Beckett for now but has moved on the majority of his horses previously with the Arc-winning handler. De Foy sent out his first runners since his switch to Freemason at Leicester on Wednesday and has also recently received Ghostwriter, who was with Clive Cox. The £2m purchase was red-hot favourite for the Princess Of Wales's Stakes at the Newmarket July meeting earlier this month. But had to be withdrawn after rearing over when being saddled ahead of the 1m4f Group 2 won by Charlie Appleby's El Cordobes. The Belgian trainer recently issued an update on the four-year-old colt, saying: "Everything is fine with Ghostwriter and hopefully he'll be back soon." But it is Partying who is real headline-grabber. She was the most expensive yearling sold in the northern hemisphere last year and is out of the Royal Ascot-winning Shamardal mare Aljazzi. Joorabchian's right-hand man Alex Elliott helped strike the decisive blow at the Tattersalls Book 1 sale last October. And he said at the time: "She's a Frankel filly with that kind of physique from that kind of family. "We've seen Ylang Ylang from the same farm on the same Shamardal cross – we just need history to repeat itself! "I keep saying to people horses will pay you back. "It was a good bit more than we thought we'd have to pay but when Kia and his partners decided that they wanted the filly, they wanted the filly. "She is a spectacular filly, it is a spectacular price, and there's a spectacular bunch of horses here. "I'd like to say I was a cool customer when all that was taking place, but that would be a fib – I have never been in that rarified atmosphere before." De Foy moved to the now-retired Sir Michael Stoute's former base recently after being appointed AMO No1. Speaking of his decision to take on the trainer, who he called a 'perfect fit', football superagent Joorabchian said: "Kevin is a fantastic horseman who understands our goals and shares our ambition. "Having known and worked with him for several years, it makes this transition even smoother. "We know his character fits and our ideas align perfectly. "We believe he's the right person to take the operation to the next level, and we're excited about what's ahead with him leading the team at this historic yard." While De Foy added: "I am deeply honoured to have been entrusted with the responsibility of taking over at Freemason Lodge and training such an exciting string of horses for Amo Racing. "This is a major milestone in my career, and I'm incredibly grateful to Kia and the team for the opportunity. "Amo Racing's investment and ambition in the sport are truly inspiring, and I look forward to playing my part in what I hope will be a very successful journey together." . Remember to gamble responsibly A responsible gambler is someone who:
