I met the members of Bloodsports at a Williamsburg bar last week in close proximity to their practice space – a location I am told is laced with band lore. I have no doubt that that’s true, nor do I doubt they could accrue lore at just about any bar they visit more than once. Five minutes and two mild french fry custody disputes into our conversation, I attempted to piece together the origins of their friendships, swimming in fragmented context and references to time spent in Denver and attending High School in Texas. I ultimately ask, but how they met and how long they have known each other is more or less fluff to what was the most crucial takeaway from our conversation. Whether the four piece are praising one another’s life altering music recommendations or rehashing heated contentions surrounding the use of an organ, the interpersonal relationships fostered by the members of bloodsports are well beyond the minimum threshold of closeness required to play instruments in sync.

Beyond being an endearing thing to witness as someone sitting in on pre-practice beers, the comfortability that exists within bloodsports is fundamental to what makes their music so compelling. It may seem melodramatic for me to ramble about trust in a piece about an indie band – as if they are engaging in an activity as high stakes as their namesake might suggest, but it is through this trust that their debut record manages such an emotional toil. You can point to moments of sheer chaos and total ‘pots and pans’ banging levels of corrosive noise, and you can attempt to credit them for the intensity of their music. The truth is, these bouts would be nothing without the band’s disciplined and drawn out moments of sonic austerity. They put equal emphasis on wielding the grace of four ballerinas as they do the raucous commotion of some early 2000’s scramz band. Whichever extreme they are in, or not in, they do so in sync – teasing tranquility only to decay it moments later and leaving their listener hooked in a space of liminal unease. 

I heard bloodsports live before I heard their recorded music. They had been opening for MX Lonely sometime late last year – a time when I was still fleshing out some sort of understanding of Brooklyn’s bottomless supply of bands and often found myself lurking in the right back corner of Trans-Pecos with absolutely no context. And while I admittedly harbor a soft spot for bands found blindly, cherishing the “oh so retro” nature of discovering something before my Instagram algorithm shoved it down my throat, bloodsports remains one of the most seizing sets I have ever experienced this way. It was beautiful and chilling, the kind of music that knocks the air out of you and quiets your brain, even if just for thirty minutes. When it feels like the only states a mind can exist in today are gross overstimulation and jaded apathy, those thirty minutes are worth a hell of a lot.

The bloodsports I saw last fall, and the bloodsports you will hear on Anything Can Be a Hammer, is Sam Murphy (guitar/vocals), Jeremy Mock (Guitar), Liv Eriksen (bass/vocals) and Scott Hale (drums). I mentioned that interpersonal context was less crucial than the weight of their relationships, but I will offer a Sparknotes version to the best of my ability. Liv and Jeremy have been friends (and creative collaborators) the longest – the two went to high school in Texas together, where they wrote a song about yearning for an ex partner to rear in their marijuana habit and performed it at Monkey Nest Coffee House (home to the best chocolate muffins in Austin). Jeremy met Sam whilst they were both attending college in Denver – the same city he briefly met Wesley Wolffe, (a founder of Good English, the indie label putting out Anything Can Be A Hammer) who showed the earliest rendition of bloodsports to his then drummer, Scott. Scott was hooked, so hooked he managed to learn the earliest bloodsports songs on drums – which proved convenient when Jeremy and Sam moved to New York on a whim and decided to recruit members via Instagram Story. Liv and Scott more or less joined simultaneously (who actually joined first was a conversation left unsettled that night), and these additions occurred around the same time Sam and Jeremy’s Wayfair couch ruined Liv’s life.

The purpose of my prior anecdotal retreat was to emphasize the experiential ethos of bloodsports, which is just as present on Anything Can Be A Hammer as it has been every time the band gets on stage. It is the kind of record that seizes you wherever you choose to listen. It can raise hairs on your arm amidst sweltering temperatures on a crowded J train mid July, and it can trigger those tears you have been warding off for weeks while you search for Honey Nut Cheerios in a poorly lit Key Foods. Whatever reaction it might illicit for you is certainly not haphazard, given each track must pass a sort of poignancy litmus test; “I personally try to get into the headspace in practice where if I don’t feel something hitting me, then it probably is not going to hit live to an audience,” Sam explains of his approach to writing.

While Anything Can Be A Hammer bridges gaps between bloodsports’ current iteration and their available recorded discography, the band views the album (and the experience of recording it) as somewhat of a turning point for the project. “When we were putting this album together, we didn’t really know what we were going for. I think it feels like a jumping off point. I think what we are working on now and what we’re moving towards feels a lot bigger and more realized.” Jeremy says.

“I think the pressure and the whole ordeal of recording pushed us in the direction we are going now, which is definitely in the record,” Sam adds. “Especially the title track, which came together almost entirely in the studio. We are honing a lot more of a frenetic and crazy energy that still feels controlled, and I think we have found a place where we are all very comfortable collaboratively writing and putting things together.”

We recently sat down with bloodsports to discuss dynamics, the secrets to writing “edging music”, and Anything Can Be A Hammer, out tomorrow via Good English Records.

Manon: Tell me about your biggest individual influences 

Scott:  I’m kind of like all over the place. In terms of my drumming inspiration, I started out just learning classic rock songs. I loved John Bonham. But I think as I was becoming a real drummer, I was doing a lot of jazz and then also started playing in punk bands. Musically, my biggest inspirations are a lot of nineties post-hardcore bands, like Unwound. And just a lot of emo / post-hardcore drumming. 

Jeremy: I think for this album, it kind of changed a bit. I was really into Swans’ Soundtracks for the Blind, and I wanted to throw that into the pot. I was really into Glenn Branca. Also, Women and Iceage are two of my all time favorite bands that I grew up listening to, and I think both of them made their way into my influences for this album. I feel like I have always worked with a lot of constraints when I made music – growing up I was really into Steve Albini and that whole approach of “oh, you just record something and then it’s live and then you don’t change it cause that’s inauthentic.” But with this album, there were a lot of third and fourth and fifth guitar parts, it was just a lot bigger. And I really tried to lean into that. It was also the first album that I have recorded in a proper studio, and that helped a lot. 

Sam: Unwound is probably one of my favorite bands ever. That was definitely a reference point for me, especially vocally with a lot of the heavier sections and the screaming parts. I was listening to a lot of slowcore when writing the album. I love Women – Jeremy put me onto Women and it changed my life. Also a lot of post-punk

Liv: I guess early on, you know when you’re a kid and you just kinda listen to what your parents listen to and it takes a while to explore your own thing. I remember Bedhead was a really big record – my friend Reed showed me and I was like “oh, not everything is just Euro-pop like my mom likes”. So that was my first guitar music, and then he also put me on to (lint). I remember I had talked to Jeremy about that briefly in high school. The strokes were my end all be all then. Later, when I was in college, I got really into French Psych – where a lot of crazy bass lines come in. I didn’t play bass at all at that point, but that was the first time I actually noticed bass lines, because I had always been someone who focused more on vocals and melody. I had a friend who pushed me to pick up the bass when we would listen to that together. And definitely the classic 2000’s garage rock. That has always been my biggest influence and what I love the most. And then Jeremy and Sam put me onto Swans and Women and that was an absolute game changer – I was like “this is maybe the coolest music I have heard in my life.” Soundtracks for the Blind is easily one of my top three favorite albums of all time. 

Manon: Anything Can Be A Hammer is heavier than your EP. I think one thing you do really well on this record is how you approach a more abrasive sound – you have a lot of great buildups, and then some tracks that are a bit more immediate. Can you tell me about how you honed that on this record, and perhaps how a prior bloodsports sound influenced it? 

Sam: I think we wanted to focus a lot on dynamics rather than fitting as much as you can or how complex we can make the tracks. A lot of our builds are the same thing, just with dynamic ranges, which I think is really cool personally. With the heavier stuff, I think I wanted to have these slowcore-ish riffs, and just ruin them. 

Liv: We do a lot of ruining. But in an intentional way. 

Jeremy: Since the nineties, there has been a pretty solid relationship between slowcore and noise rock. Bands like Slint and Unwound. They are kind of one in the same. 

Scott: Spiderland is one of my favorite records

Jeremy: Yeah I think an album like Spiderland, and a lot of the stuff I grew up listening to, still holds up today. I have always wanted to make music like that cause there is just so much possibility in it. 

Scott: Having a push and pull keeps things interesting. I keep thinking about that one Hum song 

(Liv and Sam): “Stars”

Scott: “Stars”. It starts out so fucking quiet and then it just goes 

(Scott, Liv, Sam): *guitar shredding onomatopoeia*

Liv: I feel like that music sounds so much more conversational and human. It’s not just one complete thought, it stops and flows and there are things that add onto or take away from each other. I think all these guys do that really well when they’re writing parts – it sounds very conversational. I feel like I can speak for the band, maybe I can’t, but I enjoy listening to music that has that push and pull between heavy and soft, and I want to play in a band where the music is interesting rather than just riffing on one thought or idea for three  minutes. 

Jeremy: I also think what I like and what I want to do more of is music that just makes you wait for it for a little bit.

Sam: It’s edging music 

Liv: Redact that 

Sam: No keep that

Scott: Edging indie rock

Jeremy: Not get all meta about it or whatever, but we are in this age of short form everything. So I like making people wait a little bit more. Not that we don’t all consume vast amounts of brain rot daily.

Liv: Speak for yourself, kid.

Jeremy: We don’t even do it that crazy. A band like Swans will make you wait half an hour. We make you wait three minutes.

Liv: If even. 

Jeremy: Yeah, if even. So it’s not really on the same level, but that is definitely where we draw inspiration from. Music that is not so immediate.

Liv: I also feel like a lot of it is written with performance in mind. You have to tap into the slow parts, and then you get so much more in the headspace for the louder release. 

Scott: I like listening to everybody, the jazz drummer in me feels a requirement to listen to everything that is being played. But being able to be really dynamic, and have Liv make big eyes at me when I am playing a little too loud during practice. But that rocks, because it means we are all listening to each other. 

Liv: That is also part of what makes it more conversational. When we play we really do face each other and interact with one another and I think that adds a lot. 

Manon: I know Liv mentioned a lot of these songs being written with performance in mind.  Were you able to also play a lot of these tracks prior to recording them? And if so, did that further shape them at all? 

Liv: All of them, except the title track 

Scott: We were basically playing the album for a year before we recorded it 

Sam: I do think they have changed a lot. Just from playing them live, and then they changed a lot after we recorded them. With writing them with performance in mind, I personally try to get into the headspace in practice where if I don’t feel something hitting me, then it probably is not going to hit live to an audience. 

Liv: I think we never shy away from making adjustments like, just ’cause the song’s finalized in the record. If you feel something can be added to like, why would we let that constrain moving forward?

Manon: Where did ‘Anything Can Be A Hammer’ come from? 

Sam: The title predates the lyrics and the songs, I just walked past a sign in Soho that said ‘anything can be a hammer’ in a shop or something, and it really stuck with me for some reason. I was thinking about it for weeks, and I was like, “what does that mean?” But once you think about something for that long, it kind of takes on its own meaning, which I felt was similar to a lot of how I wrote the lyrics on the record. I write a lot without really having an idea in mind, then as I am writing I look at it and start to understand what I am trying to say. 

Manon: You are putting this record out on Good English Records, which is a new label. I would love to hear about that decision and your experience with them. 

Sam: Nick and Wesley came to us, well Wesley just texted me one day and said “I have a proposition for you.” And he explained they were starting a label and wanted to put out the record. We met with them and we were like “this is awesome, I want to put out a record with my friends.” They have been really great, it has been so much fun and they’ve been killing it. 

Scott: As a whole, they’re both just super active in the scene, even outside of music – they’re good at building relationships and being good homies to everybody

Sam:  and they have so many more friends than we do 

Liv: They are genuine music fans, like it’s their lifeline. They love it so much. 

Jeremy: They pooled money together to build it. Any really great indie label is built on a labor of love, and you’re doing it cause you are just stoked on what your friends are doing. 

Scott: Who else would I want in my corner, pushing my band’s record, than my friends who came up to me after I played a show to like, 20 people and said “that shit was so good” or “that sounded better than the last time I saw you.” That whole team, Kenzie and Miles and everybody believes in the records they’re putting out. They believe in us. That shit rocks. 

Jeremy: I play in Wesley’s band and I’ve known Wesley forever, it just feels very much like a partnership. 

Scott: I’ve known Wesley since I was buying him beers and getting him into my college campus to practice. I’ll trust him with anything.

Written by Manon Bushong | Photo by Luke Ivanovich