The Aussie alt- pop band on mixing business with pleasure
Cub Sport’s Tim Nelson and Sam Netterfield open up to Thomas Stichbury about falling in love, mixing business with pleasure and their trippy- sounding sex life…
being left alone in the company of a couple can often be a tad awkward, or at least a little trying, especially if they’re pulling out the PDAs, having a barney or failing to hide their feelings of seething resentment towards each other. On this occasion, however, Attitude happily gives the role of “third wheel” a spin to hang out with Tim Nelson and Sam Netterfield – or Bolan, as Tim affectionately refers to him – partners, married ones at that, and members of Aussie alt- pop band Cub Sport.
Following a last- minute change of location, after spotting a rodent scampering across the premises of the original suggestion, we gather at a cosy tea room run by a wondrously waspish woman who’s a cross between The Devil Wears Prada’s Miranda Priestly, Ab Fab’s Patsy and Mary from Gogglebox.
When the boys, both 29, enquire about vegan options, she bluntly tells them that there aren’t any, before adding that they look surprisingly healthy for vegans. Ouch.
It’s the morning after their headline gig at London’s Scala and they are still surfing a wave of high emotion. “I nearly cried,” lead singer Tim begins. “These people are basically celebrating our love story and it’s something that we were ashamed of for so many years, so to reflect on where we’ve come from and to be in that moment is overwhelming. I looked over at Bolan and had to stop myself.”
Crying is a common theme. Indeed, the lead single from Cub Sport’s upcoming fourth album is called
I Never Cried So Much in My Whole Life, featuring Savage Garden’s Darren Hayes. “It was a specific moment where I walked into the living room at home and Bolan and our two dogs, Missy and Evie, were all on the couch. It was impossibly cute, and I was just like, ‘ whoa, this is my reality right now’.
“And, yeah, I couldn’t stop crying,” Tim laughs.
Although not particularly partial to a romantic drama ( unless it involves a touch of tragedy), Tim and Sam’s love story feels as if it has been ripped from a page- turner.
So, it’s fitting that it all began with one. Sort of.
The pair briefly dated when they were 17 — both closeted at the time — but things didn’t work out and they agreed to stick to being friends. The terms of that shaky platonic agreement were upheld when they formed the group ( originally called Tim Nelson and the Cub Scouts) in 2010.
Then author Hanya Yanagihara’s mighty tome A Little Life entered the picture with a whopping great big thud. Sam discovered the break- your- heart- then- stamp- on- it- for- goodmeasure novel, about friendship and queer love, in 2016, and it gave him the nudge to tell Tim how he truly felt.
Being a prop queen, I pull a copy of the modern classic ( which I have been reading, honest) from my rucksack.
Sam says: “I remember crying in the first few pages because at that point in my life I had sort of happily resigned myself to the fact that I might just be single and on my own for ever. I was chill with that because of how incredible our family of friends was.
“I’d resigned myself to the fact that I might be single and on my own for ever”
“I was so struck by the message of friendship.
Then as the story goes along and you see how the friendship becomes something more, it echoed our journey so closely that when it got to the end, I thought: ‘ What am I doing? Why haven’t I told Tim?’
“We were on a tour of North America and after the final show we had a big celebration, so I told him that night,” the keyboardist continues.
“I said, ‘ I don’t want this to ruin our friendship, but I love you and I want to be with you’.”
Of course, the feeling was mutual. Sam was “out” at this point. “I may have just told Tim and one of our other best friends, but I’d barely said it to myself,” he reveals. Tim, however, had been wrestling with the subject of his sexuality and, in turn Sam, in song.
Tim adds: “When I was writing a lot of Bats, our second album [ released in 2017], I was giving away details about how I was feeling and our situation before we had any sort of conversation. I was in denial about what they were about.
“Looking back, these lyrics are very clear to me now, and thankfully it was clear to Sam as well because he was hearing the songs and had a good idea of where I was at.”
Angelic- faced Tim can’t bring himself to read A Little Life though. “I haven’t finished it…” he admits, with a sheepish smile. “It’s a pretty heavy read!”
The couple became engaged soon after, before tying the knot in August 2018, within a year of Australia passing its historic same- sex marriage law.
“I proposed to Tim,” Sam recalls. “We were just lying in bed having one of those happy cry- reflection moments and I just blurted it out. I had a grand plan for a proposal, but I was like, ‘ no, this is the time’.”
It’s almost cloyingly sweet… until, that is, y ou consider just how far they have come in their queer journey.
“We both grew up in very Christian households and went to a Christian school,” Tim clarifies.
“Every person that I knew was a Christian and shared these same views, and one of those views is that homosexuality is wrong.
“That set us up for an ingrained homophobia and disdain for who we are at our core.”
Sam chips in: “Selfworth and everything is entangled in that,” before Tim adds, “When there was queer representation, the people around me were usually looking at that in a negative light. That was kind of the attitude that I t ook on t oo… I thought that the more I could distance myself from anything queer, the less people would suspect that I was.”
Having long since shaken off the shackles of repression, they are proud to represent and speak up for the LGBTQ community in their music.
“We were still closeted when we put out the first album [ 2016’ s This is Our Vice]. The hurdle there was that we weren’t being who we really are, so there was a disconnect. We were trying to be this straight indie band and I feel that the best parts of Cub Sport are how queer it is,” Tim argues.
That prompts a question from Sam. “We’ve been incredibly fortunate to not, in the grand scheme of things, face any external negativity for being queer. Would you agree, Tim?”
The reply is swift. “A couple of comments, but compared with what many other artists got, we’ve been incredibly fortunate. Being white cis men, we are privileged and sharing our story is easier than, say, a trans person of colour.”
“The more I distanced myself from anything queer, the less people would suspect”
Tim and Sam’s relationship is the beating heart of Cub Sport – the band is completed by guitarist Zoe Davis and drummer Dan Puusaari – and I can’t help but wonder if Sam finds it ever so slightly unnerving to be his songwriter lover’s muse. “It feels natural, I guess,” he, ahem, muses.
“Tim writes about everything from his life and I happen to be a big part of that. It feels nice and right.
“I don’t think about it too much. I don’t try to get in the way of whatever is flowing.”
Sometimes that creativity flows beneath the sheets into their sex life, like on the song Limousine, which contains the lyrics:
I can see myself gliding on the surface now/ I can feel I need it deeper, can you show me how/ cause fucking you is like DMT.
“That was definitely an example of writing something that I was a little wary about,” Tim giggles. “My parents listen to all the music and I know mum doesn’t like Limousine! I never want to stifle my creativity, or to change what’s coming out of me of fear of who’s going to listen to it.” As for the reference to DMT – the hallucinogenic drug dimethyltryptamine – Tim discloses that he dabbled after writing the down- and- dirty ditty. “I haven’t really spoken about this in an interview before,” he confesses.
“I had watched documentaries and read a lot about DMT because it intrigued me. I have had, I guess, multiple experiences where it feels like, erm, I have left my body during sex.”
He continues: “It’s a moment of heightened connectivity where you are like your higher self. It’s a soul- mate thing. It’s very trippy. I had always imagined that that was maybe what DMT was like, where you leave your body and go to the astral realm or whatever.
“Then I tried it and realised I was not far off the mark with the lyric. It isn’t something I do very often. It’s not like drugs in a partying sense, it’s more spiritual.”
While not the first couple in the world to make music together ( Abba, Fleetwood Mac, Sonny and Cher), Tim and Sam acknowledge that mixing business with pleasure can be tricky. “There has never been any tension, [ but] it has its pros and cons.
“It’s great that all our wins are the same, but the flip side of that is any challenges or disappointments are shared,” Tim shrugs.
The band’s next step towards global domination is new album Like Nirvana, inspired by the first year of their marriage.
“There is a lot of love on there, and, over all, it feels freer and lighter, but at the same time it embraces the duality of the human experience, where there is this shadow side that never goes away,” Tim explains.
“My perspective has broadened and I’m learning to understand more than just the part of me that is joyful, touching on some of the ongoing struggles and new struggles,” he adds.
“If you feel like you completely know yourself, then maybe you’ve stopped trying to grow.”
As we drain the dregs of our drinks, the cynical unromantic in me screams for something negative. They must have niggly annoying habits that drive the other up the wall…
“I don’t think we have one,” Tim insists. “We’ve literally never had a fight,” Sam adds, and you don’t doubt him.
Before leaving the vegan- unfriendly tea room, I make sure to leave a tip for its sharp- tongued owner because sometimes you need a bit of sour to balance out all this sweet.
Without lemons you can’t make lemonade, after all.
Like Nirvana is out 8 May