Today, ARIA platinum-selling four-piece, Cub Sport announce their forthcoming album, ‘Jesus At The Gay Bar’, due for release on Good Friday, April 7. The band celebrate the news with an adjoining new single Keep Me Safe.
On their recent singles Always Got The Love and Replay, Cub Sport capture the pure heat of a single moment – the elation of a road trip, for example, or the thrill of letting go of the past and looking towards the future. Keep Me Safe, the third single from the Brisbane four-piece’s new album ‘Jesus At The Gay Bar’, changes that: intimate in its detail but never less than grand in its scale, it’s a remarkable reckoning with love and shame, a postcard to a former self written with impossible care and grace. Musically, Keep Me Safe continues the thread of dance music that runs through the singles from ‘Jesus At The Gay Bar’, building from ambient balladry into fleet, skyward-looking house.
Detailing the secret teenage romance between Cub Sport‘s Tim Nelson and Sam Netterfield, as well as the internal conflict Nelson felt in the period afterwards, Keep Me Safe reclaims a period in the pair’s life that was initially shrouded in stress and confusion. It’s a million miles from stereotypical narratives of trauma or repression, instead emphasising the fragile rush of first love through a fluttering, emotive beat reminiscent of The Blaze and Fred Again…
Noting on the song’s inspiration, Nelson says: “I wrote ‘Keep Me Safe’ about a euphoric but complicated time. Shedding some light on it now feels like I’m validating my younger self and celebrating the magic in something I was so ashamed of at the time.â€
In the video for Keep Me Safe, Cub Sport tell the story of Tim Nelson and Sam Netterfield’s relationship through a dreamlike haze. Emphasising the song’s idea of a secluded space for a relationship to bloom in private, the song takes place behind obscured windows and inside cars, an ultimate symbol of youthful privacy and queer independence. Directed by Berlin-based filmmaker Adam Munnings and shot by Eora (Sydney) DOP Jack Birtles, Nelson says the video captures “what it felt like on the inside of our secret world.” Referencing Baz Luhrmann’s iconic Romeo + Juliet, the Keep Me Safe video is rich in iconography of protection and safety – chainmail, bodies of water, private bedrooms – and captures the spirit of Cub Sport’s ‘Jesus At The Gay Bar’, which walks a line between intimacy and grandeur, maximalism and minimalism, the profoundly heightened and the immovably real.
Since their emergence in the early-2010s, Meanjin-based Cub Sport have captivated an avid following with their vulnerable, yet self-confident, output of progressive indie-pop. Comprising Tim Nelson, Sam Netterfield, Zoe Davis and Dan Puusaari, the self-managed and self-released act are renowned for their electrifying live performances, having graced stages at Laneway Festival, Splendour In The Grass, Falls Festival 2020’s AFL Grand Final, and Summer Camp. A national favourite, the band have landed in triple j’s Hottest 100 five times, and have seen ARIA-Platinum and Gold certification for singles Come On Mess Me Up, Chasin and Sometimes. Boasting over 200 million streams – and including 2020’s ARIA #2 album, ‘Like Nirvana’ – Cub Sport’s self-produced discography has garnered praise from The Guardian, BBC Radio 1, Rolling Stone, Billboard, i-D, VICE, Gay Times, The FADER and more. Recent singles, Replay and Always Got The Love, received adoration on release via swift additions to triple j and community radio, plus press support from RUSSH, NME and more – including a PAPER Magazine premiere and takeover of Grindr’s New Music Frigay for the release of Replay.
Enjoy the imminent arrival of a new chapter from Cub Sport, by listening to Keep Me Safe today, and preparing for the band’s forthcoming fifth album, ‘Jesus At The Gay Bar’.
KEEP ME SAFE IS OUT THURSDAY JANUARY 19 2023
BUY/STREAM HERE
‘JESUS AT THE GAY BAR’Â IS OUT FRIDAY APRIL 7 2023
PRE-ORDER HERE
FOLLOW CUB SPORT
With thanks to THINKING LOUD
