Alter The Press! Presents: The Rookie League

The Rookie League take the hardcore pop-punk style of Four Year Strong and add a bit of Britishness, with plenty of fun hooks, driving hooks and the occasional quirky breakdown. The Sheffield five-piece have slowly been getting themselves heard with shows alongside Mayday Parade, We Are The Ocean, Madina Lake, Polar Bear Club, Failsafe and Futures.

Now as the band head into 2011 with a new EP, 'Sinking The Friendship', The Rookie League are set to continue the feel good pop-punk style and make good use of the experience from their time with Chasing Amy and Ship To Shore.

For Fans Of: New Found Glory, The Wonder Years, Four Year Strong, and Midtown.


The Rookie League - 'The Hard Goodbye'
Alter The Press: Why should Alter The Press! readers check you out?
The Rookie League: Because we’re not like every other pop punk band. We love pop-punk but it’s not all we listen to and it clearly shows on our new EP. We put so much time and effort into this band and it’s all we care about right now. We’ve all been in bands before and nothing really worked out but with The Rookie League it’s a different story. Everything just clicks into place and we’re all really close. If we could afford to live on the road and tour forever we wouldn’t think twice. We aim to go above and beyond with this band and we will do whatever it takes to get to where we want to be. We’ve been lucky enough to play with some incredible bands over the past year. We played our debut show with Futures and ever since been lucky enough to open for the likes of Mayday Parade, Madina Lake and Polar Bear Club. We have a huge show to announce next year too!

ATP: What's the story behind the band?
TRL: After the break up of Sheffield pop punks Chasing Amy ex-bassist Sam Hague was contacted by ex-vocalist of Ship To Shore, Matt Snape. Sam then asked ex-Chasing Amy guitarist Patrick Fletcher to join. Sam also recruited ex-All At Stake drummer Shane Lloyd. So basically The Rookie League is made up of ex members of previous pop punk bands. As a joke we would say we’re made up of all the rubbish band members and this is how the name of the band came about. Originally Sam was on bass but after a few line up changes Sam took the role of guitarist. Matt recruited bassist Jonty ward who was soon replaced by new bassist Adam Richardson.

ATP: Single highlight as a band so far?
TRL: Probably recording our new EP. The songs have turned out a million times better than what we expected and we owe it all to Matt Ellis at Axis Studios in Doncaster. We can’t wait for people to hear it! Our EP launch show is at The Corporation in Sheffield on Monday December 20th. We plan to give out a free copy of the EP to the first 100 people through the door. Tickets can be purchased here.

ATP: What are your plans for the 12 months?
TRL: Our main priority is to tour. Hopefully with a bigger band but if not we will book the whole thing ourselves. We will also be back in the studio some time next year too. We’re constantly writing new material and we really want people to hear it.

'Sinking The Friendship' by The Rookie League will be on general release in early 2011 but will available to the first 100 people at The Rookie League's show at The Corporation, Sheffield on December 20th.

Official Website
The Rookie League on MySpace, Facebook and Twitter.

Sean Reid