Cub Sport on Queer Love Stories, Playing West Hollywood’s Pride, and Their Newest Album, ‘Jesus At The Gay Bar’
[UNPUBLISHED:] I want to start off by asking, how did you come up with the name Cub Sport?
[CUB SPORT:] When we first launched the band, we were called Cub Scouts, it was kind of just a play on the fact that we looked like a group of kids. Then, a few years in, we got a cease and desist letter from Scouts Australia and had to take the word "scout" out of the name. So we went through a bunch of different options but we really wanted to keep the "S" and "Cub." We kind of just randomly fell on Cub Sport, it felt pretty weird for the first couple of years but by the time we put out our debut album, it felt like the right name, and I feel like we've grown into it. Now I'm so glad we're called Cub Sport and not Cub Scouts.
[UNPUBLISHED:] I recall the first time I heard your song, "Come On and Mess Me Up," as being quite literally a spiritual awakening for me. How has that song further inspired your sound over the years as it has been met with critical acclaim?
[CUB SPORT:] I feel like “Come On and Mess Me Up” changed the way that I approach songwriting, forever, really. At the time when I started writing that song, I wasn't out yet and I feel like I knew that there were so many things that I was just avoiding acknowledging in my life, like being queer. And being in love with Sam, they were like two of the big ones. There’s the line, "I fell in love with avoiding problems, and that was the problem." And I kind of knew at that point in my life that, if I wanted to get to where I wanted to be, I just had to stop avoiding these things that I saw as problems and let my circumstances mess me up whatever, kind of just give into it. After I wrote that song, I remember just recording a voice memo demo of me playing piano and singing. It was the first verse and the chorus at that point. I remember one of my friends and I listened to it and liked the way the voice sounded. We were partying that night and sitting outside when I said to my friend, "I wrote this song today." and when we were listening to it, we both started crying. I didn't end up actually finishing the song for like two more years and then it finally came out a year after that so it was a long time in the making. I feel like I was catching up to where I was when I wrote that song, like I wrote it for my future self. When we put it out, it really connected in such a special way and not long after putting it out, Sam and I both came out as gay and got together and I feel like since then, I've had so much more confidence in following what I'm feeling and not shying away from writing about things that kind of expose me.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Tell us more about the name of the album Jesus At The Gay Bar and how it came about. Was the release date of Good Friday intentional?
[CUB SPORT:] For a bit of context for the name of the album, I grew up in a super religious world. I went to the Pentecostal church for as long as I could remember and then I went to a school that was attached to the church. I was going to church seven days a week and it was a very homophobic, conservative kind of world. Pretty much everybody that I knew and every friend that I had were all from within this same bubble. So I didn't really have the perspective of a world outside of that. As I became a teenager, I started to grow up a bit and realize that I was queer, and I guess I faced a lot of denial and fear around what that meant for me and all of the relationships in my life and everything. It was a pretty challenging environment to navigate and figure out who I was. I think it took me a pretty long time to even be okay with it, to be able to admit to myself that I was gay. Then an even longer time to share that with anyone else and to be proud of it. I feel like the whole Cub Sport discography kind of, more or less, follows that journey of moving from being ashamed to feeling like self-acceptance to then being able to celebrate queerness.
I feel like when I came across this poem, "Jesus At The Gay Bar," last year, it was a completely different representation of Jesus and it was the opposite of what I grew up with. Seeing Jesus presented as someone who didn't think that gayness needed to be healed or anything, the way that it's written in the poem, just really impacted me. It was super comforting for my younger self, who, for so long, would you pray to be healed from being gay. There are many things that all come together for it to have the right title, because I also feel like the music is more uplifting and fitting for, say, a club or something than anything we've done before. So I think, sonically, the setting of a gay bar feels right for this album. Then the big picture and the journey that I've been on personally with coming to terms with my upbringing and how Christianity has been interwoven through that. It just felt like the right name for this collection of songs at this point in the Cub Sport journey. Also, we actually had decided on the release date before we locked in the name of that album but when we realized that it was going to be Good Friday and it was Jesus, I was like, "Well, this was just meant to be."
[UNPUBLISHED:] I absolutely adore your music videos and the cinematic style of falling in love. Do you have a favorite that best represents your love story?
[CUB SPORT:] I think my favorite music video is probably the video for “Keep Me Safe.” It is one of my favorite Cub Sport songs ever, and it's my favorite song on the album. I'm really happy that we got to extend that universe into this visual piece. That song is largely about the secret world that Sam and I had. When we first got together, we were like 17, still closeted and way off being able to tell anyone that we were gay. It was literally just the two of us, we didn't even tell another friend about us or anything. But it was on the inside of the relationship it was the most perfect thing ever. So even though it was stressful to share this big secret with everyone else, inside it is super peaceful and like the best thing ever. I feel like that video kind of represents our love and the two of us together and the kind of isolation but also the magic.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Speaking of love stories, I just want to say how much I appreciate the intentional representation of your love story throughout your music. I know I have, as have many others, built an emotional connection to your music because of that. That being said, how has sharing your relationship with the world through your music made your love stronger?
[CUB SPORT:] Thank you so much. Firstly, that's very special. It's such a cool thing that we get to share our love and that it can help other people feel okay about being queer. I think especially having come from feeling like we had to hide that part of ourselves for so long and also, feeling like we couldn't be together. We went through so much after we were together. When we were 17, we basically tried to end things because we thought that life would be easier if we were just friends, and we tried to pursue the road that we'd grown up being told we should take. It was many years of fighting against wanting to be together. So I think that once we actually came out and could be together, there was so much gratitude for even being able to be together. Now I'm getting to be in the band, and a lot of my writing will kind of reflect our relationship, our journey, and our love. Being able to share that with the world just feels like the biggest blessing. We still like to choose to spend every moment of every day together and the longer that I'm alive the more I realize how rare it is for a couple in a relationship to actually want to spend every moment together, to not get sick of each other, and to miss each other if we're apart for a couple of hours or something. I think it was always meant to be, and it's just something that I'm so grateful for because you can't just decide to have that happen. I'm so grateful for it and it's so special to me that there are other people who find our love story inspiring.
Photo by Mia Jankin
[UNPUBLISHED:] What would you tell your younger selves about where you are now in your music or love journey?
[CUB SPORT:] Well, I feel that since I was 17, everything that I could have dreamed of is basically like where we're at now. Being with Sam, being accepted for who we are, having loving family and friends who are like ready to embrace us being in a band together, being able to release albums and like to tour the world together, and that there are people who want to come to the shows and hear it's like, literally everything that I dreamed of back then. So I think I would say hold in there.
[UNPUBLISHED:] "Songs About It" very much feels like falling in love under fluorescent lights, is this a focus for the new album?
[CUB SPORT:] I feel like "Songs About It" is one of the more clubby moments on the album. But I think that the lightness and energy in it is something that I think is like a through line for the whole album. It kind of comes out in different ways. Even though sonically it is more diverse than what we've shown so far with the singles.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What was it like collaborating with both Mallrat and Shamir?
[CUB SPORT:] So good. Mallrat is one of my best friends and we've written a lot together now. This will be the third album in a row that has a Mallrat feature. And we have a tradition where we like to spend Christmas Eve together every year. We often end up writing like a Christmas Eve demo and sometimes those demos end up being like songs on albums like "Break Me Down" off our previous album. Working with Grace is always a dream, she's just an angel and has just like a really rare skill for, like, songwriting, production, and melodies, and her lyrics are some of my favorite lyrics of anyone ever. It’s always a dream to collaborate with Mallrat. For Shamir, that was something that I'd been dreaming of for quite a while, and when I wrote "High For The Summer” I only had one verse written. And I was like, "Oh, maybe this would be a good song to send to Shamir to see if it has a vibe." So I sent it across, and I got the vocals back for the first track a couple hours later. Once I made the decision and it was just like, "I'm just going to send it," and it happened really quickly after that. When I first heard Shamir’s verse, I had goosebumps, and I was like, "Yes, this is exactly what the song needed”
[UNPUBLISHED:] From your debut album, This is Our Vice, to your most recent one, Jesus At The Gay Bar, how has the vision for your sound changed?
[CUB SPORT:] I feel like each album has sounded pretty different from what has come before. And it isn't really something that I like to plot very far into the future. It's kind of just following my gut and making the music that I want to be listening to while I'm creating it. I think that from the first album through now, I've felt more confident to kind of follow that gut feeling, and I don't ever feel like I'm locked into a certain sound or direction. I think that Cub Sport has always had the freedom to evolve in whatever direction feels right at the time. So, I feel like this album is taking a more electronic and pop trajectory than previous albums, especially compared to our last one. like the visual side as well. I think there's been a real step up, which has been really cool.
[UNPUBLISHED:] What should people expect on tour—older music or newer?
[CUB SPORT:] We'll have a mix of everything. There'll be songs from every album. I think "Come On and Mess Me Up" is always the set closer, and when I perform that song I just feel so connected to the crowd. I think we will work a lot of the new album into the setlist, which is going to be really fun. The songs that we've been playing in the live shows so far have all felt so good live and it will also be our first time touring since we released our last album, Like Nirvana. There's so much new music and energy to put into the sets, which I'm so excited for. But yeah, all of the favorites from the last albums are going to be in there as well.
[UNPUBLISHED:] How excited are you guys to be playing at Out Loud Pride Festival in West Hollywood this summer?
[CUB SPORT:] So excited. That lineup is so good. It'll be one of the first US festivals that we'll get to play. We had a couple booked for 2020, and then obviously everything got canceled that year. It’s going to be a really fun way to kick off the US tour.
[UNPUBLISHED:] When you are in the United States, what do you look forward to the most?
[CUB SPORT:] We love to stop at Whole Foods when we're on the road and go to the little buffet section to load up a little box. When we're in the South, we go to Waffle House. They have really good hash browns that are vegan and gluten-free.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you have any exciting plans for the future that you can share with us?
[CUB SPORT:] Pretty much just the album and touring. I've got some exciting international collaborations that are in the works and have been for a little while, but it looks like they're getting closer to seeing the light of day, but I can't really say much about them at the moment. There's plenty of exciting stuff on the way.
[UNPUBLISHED:] Do you have a favorite venue to play at or one that you are looking forward to playing at?
[CUB SPORT:] I'm really excited to play The Echo in Los Angeles. We played ther in 2019. The last time that we toured it was a really good vibe. We are also playing at Baby's All Right in New York which is a venue I've always wanted to play and I know it's going to be really fun.
