Cub Sport Release New Single 'Songs About It'
The album will be out everywhere on Good Friday, April 7th via Cub Sport Records.
By: Michael Major Mar. 02, 2023
Independent Brisbane-based group Cub Sport release "Songs About It," the fourth single off of their upcoming album, Jesus At The Gay Bar. The album will be out everywhere on Good Friday, April 7th via Cub Sport Records. Cub Sport have also announced a North American headline tour today, kicking off May 31st at The Echo in Los Angeles. Tickets will go on sale on Friday, March 3rd at 10 AM local time.
In addition, Cub Sport will join artists such as Carly Rae Jepsen and Orville Peck to perform at Outloud, West Hollywood's Pride Festival on Saturday, June 3rd.
"Songs About It", the irrepressible new single from Cub Sport's forthcoming fifth album Jesus At The Gay Bar, cuts to the heart of the latest incarnation of the beloved Brisbane four-piece. A piece of euphoric, starry-eyed piano house, "Songs About It" is about getting stuck in a moment of hedonistic, split-second joy and memorializing it in the form of pure pop. In a sense, it speaks to the sparkling highs of the Cub Sport catalog, which has always sought to capture love and beauty in song form.
Few Cub Sport songs, though, have manifested like this: with a winking, 90s-referencing piano riff and roiling, infectious sub-bass, "Songs About It" charts new territory for the band, the track's classic-sounding rhythm managing to say just as much as its lyrics.
The Jesus At The Gay Bar Tour marks the band's first shows stateside since 2019. The current 22-date tour spans across both coasts and will visit venues such as The Echo in Los Angeles and Baby's All Right in Brooklyn, concluding July 3rd at Valley Bar in Phoenix.
On Jesus At The Gay Bar, a sense of uplift is used to reify and exalt stories from lead singer and 2023 Grammy-nominee Tim Nelson and keyboardist and vocalist Sam Netterfield's past - namely, their love story. Across this record, the early days of their relationship, at the time shrouded in secrecy and fear, are memorialized for what they are: moments of beauty and youthful ecstasy. Many of these songs, "Keep Me Safe" and "Replay" among them, recognize those moments as necessary scenes of transformation and growth. Set to booming dance-pop, they play like fairytales, stories to be heard over and over. The singles showcase Cub Sport's ability to balance introspective, ballad-like lyrics with house beats to create versatile, multi-faceted tracks.
Their 2020 album Like Nirvana, which received a perfect score from NME, was a bloodletting of sorts - dealing with the long, complex legacy that religious trauma can leave on a life - and Jesus At The Gay Bar is about moving forward unencumbered. It's an ode to celebrating one's past, not just outrunning it, and looking boldly into the future, without the fear of past demons resurfacing. "There's a lot from my life before I came out that has always been shrouded in shame, fear and secrecy. But it doesn't have to be a secret anymore, and I feel like I can really shine a light on the magic of it and recognize and celebrate it for what it was and is," says Nelson. "A lot of this album is validating my younger self - like if I could have heard some of these songs back then, I might have found some peace within myself sooner, maybe even celebration."
Using the language of bright, crystalline dance music as shorthand for a kind of hard-won spiritual freedom, Jesus At The Gay Bar, promptly releasing on Good Friday, April 7th finds the four-piece largely shedding hang-ups and celebrating love and life in all its manifestations. This album is Cub Sport in all-bangers, few-ballads mode: the production here nods to house, 2-step and UK garage, while retaining the lush fragility of Cub Sport music past.
Since they emerged as a promising young indie band in the early-2010s, the Australian four-piece, comprised of 2023 Grammy-nominee Tim Nelson, Sam Netterfield, Zoe Davis and Dan Puusaari, have become known for their powerful, must-see live show and their ardent fanbase, as well as ARIA Platinum-and Gold-certified singles like "Come On Mess Me Up", "Chasin'" and "Sometimes". Recently, the band released a Ninajirachi remix of "Keep Me Safe" as well as an Amazon original cover of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head."
Listen to the new single here:
Jesus At The Gay Bar Tour - North America Summer 2023 Dates
May 31 - The Echo - Los Angeles, CA
June 1 - The Casbah - San Diego, CA
June 3 - Outloud Festival - West Hollywood, CA
June 4 - TBA - Salt Lake City, UT
June 6 - Café Du Nord - San Francisco, CA
June 8 - Madame Lou's - Seattle, WA
June 9 - Mission Theatre - Portland, OR
June 10 - Biltmore - Vancouver, BC
June 14 - Marquis Theatre - Denver, CO
June 15 - Encore at Uptown - Kansas City, MO
June 17 - Amsterdam Bar & Hall - St. Paul, MN
June 18 - Beat Kitchen - Chicago, IL
June 20 - The Garrison - Toronto, ON
June 22 - Red Room @ Café 939 - Boston, MA
June 23 - Baby's All Right - Brooklyn, NY
June 24 - Songbyrd - Washington, DC
June 25 - MilkBoy - Philadelphia, PA
June 27 - The Masquerade (Purgatory) - Atlanta, GA
June 29 - Empire Control Room - Austin, TX
June 30 - White Oak Music Hall (Upstairs) - Houston, TX
July 1 - Club Dada - Dallas, TX
July 3 - Valley Bar - Phoenix, AZ
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