Cub Sport To Drop New Album 'Jesus At The Gay Bar' On Good Friday

Cub Sport have returned with a new single, Keep Me Safe, and an announcement that their upcoming fifth album, Jesus At The Gay Bar, will be out this Good Friday, 7 April.

The album title stems from Jay Hulme's poem of the same name and follows journeys through shame and towards joy, celebration and pure euphoria. The Brisbane band - Tim Nelson, Sam "Bolan" Netterfield, Zoe Davis and Dan Puusaari - engage in 2-step and UK garage music as influences, all the while embracing fragility and tenderness.

Keep Me Safe, a dance track with a dreamlike haze over it, follows the previously released singles, Always Got The Love and Replay. "I wrote Keep Me Safe about a euphoric but complicated time," Nelson offered about the song's inspiration. "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."

The music video was directed by Berlin-based filmmaker Adam Munnings and shot by Sydney Director of Photography Jack Birtles. Nelson says the video captures "what it felt like on the inside of our secret world."

The Brisbane group initially formed as Tim Nelson & The Cub Scouts in 2010 as a vehicle for Nelson's solo music; they released their first self-titled EP that year. After a line-up change in 2011, the band changed their name to Cub Scouts. The single Evie came out in 2011, and Do You Hear in 2012; both received high rotation airplay on triple j. Their six-track second EP, Told You So, was released in October 2012.

The band changed their name for the final time to Cub Sport in August 2013 after a legal injunction from Scouts Australia.

Cub Sport released their debut album, This Is Our Vice, in March 2016. The record was produced by John Castle (Meg Washington, Vance Joy). The third single from the album, Come On Mess Me Up, landed at #24 on the triple j Hottest 100 that year. Cub Sport opened for The 1975's massive arena tour across Australia in July 2016, a time that Nelson describes as "life-changing".

In a cover story with The Music, Nelson had to remain tight-lipped about new music but did reveal that Keep Me Safe reflects the days when he and Netterfield were in a relationship as teens. 

"Our relationship was very secret, and I definitely held a lot of shame around that. It was like this perfect little world, just for the two of us. But the idea of anyone else finding out about it was my worst nightmare," Nelson admitted. 

He added, "There have been a lot of experiences and emotions that I never really felt like I could share, and I think at the time, I probably didn't recognise just how important and special it was as my first-ever relationship."

Pre-order Jesus At The Gay Bar here.