Cub Sport

Sam: Yes, we are here just for the three months over summer. We have just spent two weeks in Lisbon and it was so beautiful. We came to Barcelona like two days ago and then we will go to Berlin, south of France, Sardinia, Greece and London.

Sam: Yes, we [are] only going [for] one day. We want to see Omar Apollo, Troye Sivan, Lana del Rey —things for the gays (laughs). It depends how late we want to stay, but also Disclosure, Sega Bodega and Arca. They’re all a bit further in the morning, so I’m not sure. We will see how we go, but I think it will be really fun!

Tim: I came across it on Twitter. Yeah, I think it was just going viral on Twitter, and I read it. I think because we had such religious upbringings, and it was always painted in a way that Queer people weren't welcome in that world. Even though I don't relate to any of the Christianity anymore, just seeing Jesus depicted like that really resonated with part of my younger self. It made me feel quite emotional. It felt like a nice way to tie together the journey that we've been on to get to this point of feeling comfortable and proud to be queer, I guess.

Tim: I always just make the music that I feel like listening to. I think with having a bit of a break away from being around people much through 2020, once we could be back with friends, I just wanted to make music that we could dance and party to together. That was the reason for the change. There have always been a lot of changes, like album to album and the sound for Cub Sport. I think it's something that I'll probably keep doing, like exploring different sounds through different albums.

Tim: Yeah. Well, this is what I'm thinking at the moment, a mixtape, and then there'll be an album that comes after that. The album sounds really different to Jesus at the Gay Bar, but the mixtape feels a bit more aligned with where that has come from.

Tim: Yeah, it's been really good. There have been lots of award nominations and stuff that we haven't really had before in Australia. It isn't something that I've ever really cared about that much, but I don't know, to have that recognition for the first time, five albums in, is a good feeling.
Sam: Especially because we're independent, too. We just do it ourselves. I feel like some of those things in Australia are reserved for people with major labels and stuff. It's a different world.

Tim: It just feels right doing it all ourselves. We were with a label for our first album, and it felt a little bit restricting and sometimes a little bit discouraging. Having full control over what we do and when we do it works really well for us. You hear about artists who find the perfect team for them, and they love their label and love their management, and it all just works really well. But a lot of artists feel trapped in the label situation. I think because we can do it all ourselves and it's going pretty well doing that, it's how we feel we'll keep going. But we're always open to any possibility. If the right manager or label partner came along, we would consider it, but we enjoy doing it ourselves.

Tim: I don't think I really regret anything. Maybe some of the really early stuff, our EPs that we put out, some of the visuals for that. I had to take them off YouTube. They were so bad.
Sam: We were doing the best we could at the time. It's all part of the journey.
Tim: No, I wouldn't change it. It feels like it's all part of the journey, and it's all like you learn and grow from everything you do, whether it's good or bad.
Sam: I reckon the only thing I would change is maybe some of the clothes I've worn. That's it. I could have done better at times (laughs).

Tim: I was listening to Fred again.. a lot. It was when he had just started putting music out. I remember Styalz, who I did a lot of that album with. He's a producer in Melbourne and he was like: “Have you heard of Fred again..? I think you'd really like it.” It was when no one had really heard of him. We were like: Oh, this is so good. That was a bit of an inspiration. Charli xcx too. Some 2000s references like Daniel Bedingfield. There's a song called Sweet Like Chocolate by Shanks & Bigfoot and I remember we pulled that up as a reference in the studio as well. Robert Miles, a little bit as well.

Tim: Well, there was a whole concept for the shoot that we did for the album art. We didn't know exactly what the album art was going to look like, but we got this. We were in an old abandoned mansion in Sydney, and we had some different outfits and stuff. We had a crown made by Chris Habana. I think he's in New York, and he does just a lot of amazing elaborate jewellery. He's done stuff for Lady Gaga. He made a crown that was like Jesus' Crown of Thorns, but if you actually look closely, it's like an orgy happening. That was originally going to be part of the album art. But then we ended up doing a shoot where it was just us wearing jeans and no shirts, and we were oiled up. Then we were just wrestling on this wooden floor, and we were laughing. I don't know. It felt like those were the photos that really captured the energy. There was a lightness to it, and it was a bit horny. I don't know. That was just the photo that ended up being the perfect image to capture the feeling of the album.

Tim: Shamir and I had followed each other on Twitter for a while, and I always wanted to do a song together, but I was waiting for one that felt right. Then I just sent High For The Summer to them, and they loved it and sent vocals back, literally within a few hours. I went through it all and comped something together and sent it back. It happened very quickly, just over Twitter. It's great.

Tim: It's exciting, and I think it's liberating for a lot of queer people. Sexuality has always been such a big part of pop music, but for queer artists, it's always been a bit more inappropriate or something. It’s cool to see it out in the world. It resonates with the people that it's meant to. Seeing photos and videos from Troye's tour that started last night in Lisbon it's really exciting to see because it’s very queer.

Tim: We've met a couple of times. We actually wrote a song together last year. He's amazing. Writing with him was really cool. It's very obvious to me why he's so successful. I think being in that space with one of your favourite artists and getting to see the ideas pour out of them is a really cool, special experience. Hopefully, we'll do more together at some point, but we're going to see him play tomorrow at Primavera, which I'm really excited about.

Tim: No, it was part of this songwriting camp thing that Troye curated. I don't know if this song fully fits on any of the bodies of work that I'm working on, but I love that it exists and we can listen to it.

Tim: I think Oneohtrix Point Never is someone who I would love to work with. Frank Ocean is always on my dream list. Lana Del Rey. I've got a song in the works with The Drums for maybe the next Cub Sport album, and that's a bit of a dream come true collaboration as well.

Tim: We’re just kind of travelling around a lot at the moment, but having our Euro summer dream. Just enjoying having some time off cycle. I've got some studio time in the south of France and then on a Greek island in July, so I'll probably keep working on some music there. We've got some collaborations coming out as well. One of them, I can't really say it yet because it's still being worked out, is one of the biggest collaborations we've done, and it's a really fun song.