All Weather Sports: The Chicago Band for Every Season
Pick your player, All Weather Sports can’t be beaten!
PHOTOS BY CHARLOTTE STRAZIS
First out, we have Ruby “Legos” Gifford (they/she/he) on drums. Next on the roster is Liz “gracefully sad”Jenson (they/them) on vocals and bass guitar. Coming up to bat third is Connor “incredibly too positive” Mahern (he/they) on guitar. And coming home last, but certainly not least, Sarai “beautiful haphazardness” Warner (they/them) on electric uke and vocals. Ready to play ball, the Chicago quartet came out swinging with their first single off their debut EP Runner Up.
Complete with recordings of dogs barking, “The Hounds” establishes the mood for the rest of the release. As an introspection on the vulnerability of childlike intimacy, it provokes the confusing and intoxicating feelings of love, friendship and growing up that paint one’s early 20s.
The second song on the release, “Julia,” is an intelligent extension of this idea. Lines like “I wanna cut my hair on a Monday / In time for my parents / To get here / And say they like it short” examine the importance of support during the tumultuous time between being a child and an adult — one we can all relate to. “I cried just immediately…because that is an emotion I’ve felt so many times,” Mahern said, praising fellow bandmate and lyric-writer Warner.
It’s hard to follow such a smashing opening to a release, but the next three songs demonstrate All Weather Sports is not one to back down from a challenge. “Lobotomy,” “Pennies in the Well,” and “Loser” could all be stand-alone singles themselves. A favorite of the band, “Pennies in the Well” is a protest against the standards society places on us. Warner’s favorite line, “Perfect health is easy to see / Too bad I threw out all my magazines” is a hard punch in the gut to the Western idea of physical perfectionism. Ending the EP with a live rendition of their song “Lobotomy,” All Weather Sports immerses the listener in the “playground-like” crowd of one of their shows.
Runner Up is a beautifully intimate introspection on growing up that ties in the classic sounds of midwestern indie rock with undercurrents of unbridled childlike protest. Drawing from inspirations like The Beths, MJ Lenderman and Paramore, All Weather Sports is a band for every season.
While Jenson, Mahern, and Warner attended the same university, they didn’t come together as a band until reconnecting in the city. Warner began the project with Jenson and Gifford after being invited to play Gossip Farm — a Chicago DIY scene venue. A year later, Mahern was added to the band because he asked to play with them, and as Warner explains, “just never stopped jamming.” With that, the four became the extension known as All Weather Sports.
At their core, All Weather Sports is an “honest” band; Mahern says, “The mentality that we have is very, anti-establishment, regular, f*cking anti-capitalist, [and] honest.” Honest, as Oxford Dictionary defines it, is something “free of deceit and untruthfulness; sincere,” and this is exactly how All Weather Sports write, perform and exist as a collective unit.
Upon meeting the group on a late summer evening in early September, I immediately noticed the sincere strength of their friendship. The four arrived on their various wheels, including rollerblades, skateboards and bikes, and define a team in every sense of the word. Between finishing each other's sentences, asking permission to share and inviting each other into the conversation it's obvious they care deeply about each other and the world they are creating through their music.
“We're kinda just having fun, which is part of what makes it so fun for other people. We're having a good time, that means that other people are, I hope, having a good time,” Warner said when asked what the future holds for All Weather Sports.
Growing up can sometimes feel like the world wants to beat out your capacity for joy. But the resilience All Weather Sports cultivate in their open fun-loving community is commendable and hopeful in our current world. Like real Legos, Gifford, Jenson, Mahern and Warner fit together in all the ways that matter as a band. The Chicago DIY scene is lucky to have a “queer heaven anxious gut-punch rock” group like All Weather Sports in the community, and this is just the beginning. We at Pleaser Magazine cannot wait to see how this game plays out for them.
