Pure Sport takes its company culture pretty seriously. The suit-wearing punk trio conducts regular “board meetings.” (“We’ve had pretty much a show every weekend for the last year,” vocalist/bassist Jared Scott explains). Its fans show up well-dressed and on time. (“We joked around and called them our unpaid interns, and people took that as, ‘Cool, I’m gonna show up in attire,’” he says.)
And though its HR department kinda sucks, the benefits of joining up with these corporate misfits far outweigh the cons.
Scott and bandmates Justin Tejada (guitar) and Gage Walker (drums) have a zero tolerance policy for BS, hence Pure Sport’s mission statement: “Don’t be a scumbag. Genuinely be the best person you can be,” Scott says with conviction. “The world is hard enough. Don’t make it harder for you and other people around you.”
Pure Sport inverts the ideology of Corporate America by becoming the very thing it despises—and imploding it. “We’d see something in the news—‘Jeff Bezos did another dogsh*t thing today’—so we’d get together and complain,” explains Scott, whose love of theatrics and character-building inspired the band’s suits. “Then, it was like, what if we were the punks making fun of that?”
Walker and Tejada initially had doubts about wearing business attire to punk gigs, “But now it’s like there’s no other way,” Tejada says.
When the Weekly meets up with the trio for coffee, they’re off the clock. Their corporate armor has been shed, but the professionalism of a band that’s been doing this for years remains. But Pure Sport just entered the scene with 2022 EP Big Business. Since then, the trio’s anti-corporate message has reached fans across multiple generations.
“For the youth, it’s like looking down the barrel of what life is gonna look like, possibly working a sh*tty 9-to-5 job. Rallying against that is really comforting,” Scott says. “Then, for the people who are already dealing with it, they’re like ‘Yeah, f*ck that, man.’”
Pure Sport’s nonconformist nature can be traced back to its influences, which include Las Vegas acts Desert Island Boys and The Dollheads. For Walker, a drummer since age 4, the ’90s nu metal and industrial releases of Deftones and Nine Inch Nails shaped his timekeeping. Classic rock from the ’50s, ’70s and ’90s inspired Tejada, a guitarist of 11 years. And Scott, a self-proclaimed “grunge baby for a while there,” gravitates most toward the modern punk of the Viagra Boys, Idles and Amyl and the Sniffers, and the stoner-rock sheen of Queens of the Stone Age.
Pure Noise recorded its second EP, last month’s Bigger Business, with Knicc Limbs, drummer of local band Elephante King, at his studio MXA Productions. Each track ties into the overall theme. “Opening Statements”—an Office Space-esque intro—leads listeners into the pumping riffs of “The Meeting Commences,” with its zany electric guitar licks and aggressively voiced directives from Scott, the band’s eight-year vocalist who only recently picked up bass. “Waterboy” stands out for its groundswell of blistering instrumentation, gaining on you like a galloping steed. In the music video, Pure Sport beat on one another with baseball bats and bash a printer.
Pure Sport advocates for safely monitored all-ages shows, while carefully choosing venues that can “support the chaos” of full-blooded punk shows, Walker says.
With a full-length album in the works and Pure Sport set to go on tour for the first time this July, it sounds like business is better than ever.
PURE SPORT opening for Hunter’s Briefcase, with White Noise, Post NC. June 24, 7:30 p.m., $10-$15. Fergusons Downtown, blacksheepbooking.ticketbud.com.
