In advance of his band’ visit to Ireland for what promises to be an epic gig, Rebecca Kelly hopped on the phone to Australia and chatted with Tim Nelson of Cub Sport to discuss music, marriage and queerness.

Photo by Jacqueline Kulla.

Cub Sport are an independent alternative group from the capital of Queensland - Brisbane. Comprised of Tim Nelson, Zoe Davis, Sam Netterfield and Dan Puusaari, the gang have three studio albums as well as three EPs under their belt. Their most recent creation, Cub Sport, is their third self-titled album, which they released in January this year.

Tim, lead singer and songwriter of the group, discussed the unique fact that he and fellow bandmate Sam are married. Though the couple are very happy together today, it was a long and confusing road for the pair who have been best friends since childhood. Always extremely close, they attribute their religious upbringings, as well as the fear of losing each other’s friendship, as the reason for not expressing their romantic feelings for each other sooner.

So what’s it like to work with someone you are married to?

“We really love it,” shared Tim. “We like spending as much time together as we possibly can. think in the music industry it can be hard if you’re not in the same band or on the same tour, you hardly get the chance to see each other. It works really well for us. write a lot about us. We’re also self managed and we’re our own record label, so it’s a very unique situation. We’re very fortunate to be enjoying all the things we get to do together.”

Regarding the passing of same sex marriage in Australia and the battle, both politically and personally, it took to get there, Tim had this to say; “It was a pretty intense time. We had only been out about a year and then we got engaged and that whole debate opened up. feel like that situation, it encourages people to be vocal about where they stand on the issue, which was largely pretty great because we’re fortunate to have a large support network around us who believe we deserve love and marriage if we want it, just like any other person. But there were also people close to us who ended up coming out of the woodwork saying they didn’t believe we should get married, and those moments can be challenging obviously.”

While Tim recognises the uniqueness of their situation, he feels a sense of responsibility as such a visible member of the LGBT+ community. He and his husband are aware they could positively impact those within the community who are struggling with coming-out, while they also know there is a possibility they could educate others.

“I feel like we had an existing following before we started talking about being queer, so for people who already liked our music who maybe weren’t as on board with same sex marriage, feel like that was a really good opportunity for us to give some insight to people who might not know gay people.”

Due to this strong intertwining of the bandmates’ personal life and their music, it is no surprise that when asked whether or not Cub Sport views itself as a queer band, Tim responded, “For sure!”

He spoke about the period before he had come out, when he and Sam were not yet together romantically and how writing music and performing together actually helped him to confess his feelings. “As was writing songs about what was going through, would kind of reveal details about how was feeling through song that would never say out loud. feel like it was at that stage Sam started to get an idea of what was feeling. Since then the songs have followed that journey. It feels like queer love is the centre and the driving force of Cub Sport now.”

The band are set to return to Dublin this October, having previously played Whelans before. Tim expressed the band’s excitement to return to the city - “We played in Dublin earlier this year. It was awesome, we loved the town, so beautiful. And then the gig was maybe the most lit show of our tour!”

Cub Sport will play Whelans on Saturday October 12,