A change in lineup brings fresh energy to the Dublin indie heroes as they release their spellbinding second album All That Is Over.
The socially-conscious Dublin garage rockers Sprints have been persistently tearing through national and international music scenes since 2019. In the past few years, their profile has rapidly increased globally, in part due to their attrition and tunes, and in part due to some coveted support and festival slots. “I think it’s a ton of hard work, but a lot of it comes down to luck,” their frontwoman, Karla Chubb, tells Totally Dublin of their success on one of their rare days off this year. “I think it comes down to who sees you, who comes to your show, who at the right time finds you, and I think that ‘firework’ or ‘big break’ moment, I’m not sure if that really exists; I think it’s a lot of little moments that finally come.”
Karla also attributes some of their traction to their sincerity. Finding social media to be a gateway to apathy, she focuses on using it to elevate awareness on the Palestinian genocide and the global rise of the far-right that has been eradicating a lot of the progress made in the twenty-first century, which afforded a band like Sprints to even exist in the first place.
But Karla admits to some consternation between the bands’ beliefs and what they are required to do to maintain survival in the contemporary industry. A major point of contention for them is the ubiquity of streaming services like Spotify and its CEO, Daniel Ek, who has been pouring millions of dollars gained from the platform’s music into AI military defence instead of paying those who made it. “I think we would all love to pull our music from Spotify,” she admits. “I don’t agree with any of his views or the platform, but I think in the unfortunate world we live in, the majority of people don’t give a shit. They are not gonna make that extra effort to find a new band, to use platforms like Bandcamp or NTS Radio to seek out music, because not everyone’s a music lover; most people are music fans, and they passively consume music, and it’s part of their world, but it’s not their life. “I think the unfortunate fact is that platforms like Spotify or Apple Music, none of them are great. I’ve looked into the alternatives, and none of them are really doing anything for artists. Even TIDAL, who apparently pay the most, are still not great. That is where 90% of people find their music, and if we can’t get new fans, we’ll never grow, and we did quit our day jobs to invest absolutely everything into this, and if we don’t continue to grow, our career will die out within a year.
“I don’t want to devalue protest, because I think it absolutely makes a difference, but if the likes of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young couldn’t fuckin’ make it work, how are we meant to? And it’s very disheartening. I’m not really sure what the answer is, and every part of me disagrees with being on the platform, but there’s vanity in there, isn’t it? I want to keep my job, and I want to be able to do this for a living.”
After years of gigging, in January 2024, Sprints released their debut album, Letter to Self, which garnered enthusiastic reviews and charted in Ireland and the UK. As they were capitalising on this success, their longtime guitarist, Colm O’Reilly, decided to step away from the band. In need of a replacement for their upcoming dates, the band enlisted Zac Stephenson, a Dublin musician, producer, and DJ, who was best known for his solo act lil cis, whom the members knew from seeing around the local scene.
“I kind of came in four or five months after Letter to Self”, states Zac. “So, we had just finished the first string of the debut album tours,” Karla clarifies. “So, the album came out in January, and we did the U.S., UK, Europe, and Irish tour, and the last date was the fifth of May in Dublin. “Colm had decided to leave in April, and we had just booked another three tours for the rest of the year, and that’s when we were like, ‘Not only do we have to do a whole other album run again… – they wanted us to do the whole thing again, because it went so well … but we have to do thirty festivals that summer.’ So, that was the immediate concern.”
“Initially, I was just filling in for the summer,” Zac continues. “And it just became very natural very quickly. It was really fun, hanging out with the four of us, and it just became inevitable that, after a few weeks, you guys were like, ‘We might just get you for the winter tour, as well!’
“So, I didn’t really have time to think about any of it, because I had just started a full-time job, where I was at the office five days a week, and spending all of my holidays – before I had even gotten any holidays – going to play festivals all summer. So, I honestly didn’t really have time to process any of it, other than it was an adventure.”
Unfortunately, the band were unable to secure a visa for Zac before embarking on the North American leg of their tour. While in the States, Karla began crafting some new music, inspired by what she was listening to on the road.
“I definitely leaned into some more modern references, like Mannequin Pussy and Viagra Boys,” Karla says of her inspiration. “I read a lot on tour, so, by nature, I listen to a lot more ambient music, because I can’t listen to lyrics while I read. So, I was listening to a lot of Aphex Twin, Portishead, Massive Attack, so that started to creep in.”
Karla would send these demos to Zac, who was back in Dublin. She felt that he got what she was going for, and the idea for a new album began to emerge naturally. “The most important part for us was the familial,” Karla says. “Because it is like a family, essentially, on the road. I mean, you’re living with this person!
“The chemistry that we built for years as a four-piece, we had, instantly, with Zac, and I’ve never experienced anything like that before, so we knew this was just too serendipitous. And I think it gave all of us a new lease on life, and that’s why we always say that this feels like a second chance at a debut album, because we feel like a new band. We feel really impassioned and invigorated again.”
This new iteration of Sprints was introduced to the world with the release of their second studio album, All That Is Over, in September. Produced by their long-time engineer and collaborator Daniel Fox, the album is infused with a foreboding atmosphere that reflects how we all feel about perpetually being on the uncertain precipice of tomorrow.
“This kind of felt like a rebirth, a new beginning,” Karla says, explaining the concept. “A beginning of what? We don’t know, but it did feel like the end of something, for sure, and I think a lot of people, maybe, feel that about the world; is that we’re not quite sure where we’re going. We probably know that it’s not heading somewhere good.
“A lot of the liberal and positive social change that we had in the last few years are very quickly being reversed, and we’re not quite sure what the future we’re barrelling towards is, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to be good for a lot of us, so all we can do is come together in community, and I think the arts are super important for that. It’s super important for us to stay in touch with that humanity and that empathy, and it’s the only thing that’s gotten us through, and continues to push us through, all the crises, and it’s something that we’re always going to come back to. And All That Is Over is supposed to reflect that; that it is the end of something, but at the end of something is always the hope of the beginning of something new, and in the album there is a real thread of hopefulness; that if we survived what we survived in the last year in this world, that we can continue to survive, but we have to be using our platforms and our voices to be outspoken about it, because, otherwise, we’ll just fall into the abyss of… who knows.”
On November 20th, the band will headline their largest Irish gig to date at Vicar Street. Anyone who has seen Sprints live will attest that the most memorable aspect of their shows is how they interact with the audience, including banter, stage-diving, and hopping into the crowd for a song or two. For Karla, she doesn’t envision their growth deterring this energy.
“I’m really excited,” she says. “We’ve played big stages at festivals, and we’re a hands-on band, quite literally. If we don’t get the energy we need from the crowd, we’ll physically go into the crowd and get what we need from them. “Even though the venues are getting slightly bigger, there is still an intimacy there, because I think it does tie back to our advocacy, and the messages that we want to portray, and the music, and the passion and the rage in it all, I think it naturally pulls you in, and I would like to think of them as safe spaces for people who might not feel safe in the ordinary world all of the time. But, at the end of the day, it’s just a lot of fuckin’ fun!”
The one detail that the band are not looking forward to in these larger venues? The imposed merchandise cuts. “We’re already making no money, let’s make even less!” Karla quips. “Yeah, that’s not great, is it? But, you know what? Maybe we’ll be one of those bands that sell our CDs in the boot of our car, afterwards!”
Words: Aaron Kavanagh
Feature Image: Sprints by David Willis
Sprints’ latest album, All That Is Over, is out now. The band will perform at Vicar Street on November 20th. Tickets can be found at sprintsmusic.com.
