Epilogue
One year later
EXCERPT FROM ROLLING STONE’S MAY COVER STORY
It would be easy to mistake the five members of global music sensation Tea Time Tantrum for a ragtag group of early twenty-year-old burnouts arguing in the corner of the deserted London pub they asked to meet in.
“Best chips in the city,” lead bassist Darcy Burton explains through a mouthful.
“She would know, she’s tried them all,” Harry O’Connell, the band’s keyboardist, adds with a playful wink.
The group erupts into teasing banter, sans moody drummer Skull Helguson, who watches with a bored expression, the only indication he’s even listening a subtle twitch of a smile when lead singer Cubby Clark refers to violinist Harry Kale as bitter roughage.
“Is it always like this?” I manage to ask the band when they pause long enough to take a breath.
“Like what?” Cubby asks, those sharp slashes of eyebrows furrowing with a frown as if the group hasn’t spent the last quarter of an hour bickering.
“This … much…” I say at last, waving at them. They share a look; a heavy pause.
Then erupt into laughter.
“Pretty much, yeah,” Cubby says. “We’re like a family.”
“A dysfunctional one, but one nonetheless,” Kale adds. No one argues the point.
The young band is rather notorious for their convoluted interpersonal dynamics, landing on the map after musician Connor McCabe blasted Cubby in a song that was just last year lauded as a masterpiece, but has since been dissected on the internet for its undertones of misogyny, toxic masculinity, and inappropriate references to his past sexual relationship with Cubby.
“It bothers me that it’s taken people this long to realize it,” Cubby states when I broach the subject of the Cancellation of Connor McCabe.
“I was ripped apart on the internet, forced to face constant reminders of this really toxic relationship, and now that I’ve finally moved on, everyone is realizing the truth of the situation and expecting me to be some spokesperson for how cruel the world can be to women.
I’ve made my peace with that chapter of my life; I’m not looking to open up old wounds. ”
Cubby, and the rest of the band, would be best described as a closed book.
After teasing a relationship between Harry and Cubby last summer, the group shocked the world by Cubby and Darcy announcing their relationship at the Jersey Shore’s Pride Festival with a now record-breaking love ballad and a passionate kiss, then going radio silent for the better part of a year.
This interview with Rolling Stone is the first they’ve agreed to sit down for since the infamous performance.
“We don’t do it to be some sort of clickbait for trolls,” Darcy says, when I ask why they’ve all taken a vow of social media silence and if the mystique of being offline is a ploy to generate interest. “The world is a painful enough place as it is. Making music forces us to confront a lot of that pain in a deeply personal way, and then people you’ve never met convince themselves they know you because of a silly photo you post on an app, then proceed to judge you for it.
We put enough of ourselves into our music; we don’t need to share every facet of our lives for mindless likes too. ”
“What was the experience last summer like for you?” I ask Harry. “There was a lot of speculation that Cubby broke your heart.”
Harry rolls his eyes, giving me his trademark smile that could win over even the most jaded of people.
“Heartbreak is such an interesting concept,” he says, leaning toward me.
He has a way of making you feel like the only person in the world when he talks to you.
“Love is an interesting concept, innit? It’s both common and the most spectacular miracle on earth.
Do I love Cubby? ’Course I do! But my love for Cubby became this public spectacle, and grew into something not ours.
Somewhere during that summer, our story was being told to us.
While the love I have for Cubby will always be real, it isn’t the love rumored or expected of us by the public.
Cubby is my best friend, the love of my platonic life.
That is no less special than the romantic love that was rumored between us. ”
“Kissing Cubby onstage would classify it as something a bit more than a rumor, no?” I ask Harry.
He gives me that smile again, this time a little sheepish. Darcy shoots him a pointed look.
“Just some fun between friends,” he says innocently, smile growing.
“Kale gives me the shift all the time!” (Note for our non-Irish readers: The shift is apparently a slang term for open-mouthed kissing, and had I known this at the time of the interview, there would have been quite a few follow-up questions).
“So this is a band of friends? Is that all?”
Cubby and Darcy share a knowing look. “Gals just being pals,” they say in unison, erupting into giggles.
“We’re all extremely close friends,” Cubby confirms, eyes scanning the group. “Darcy and I just happen to also have romantic love on top of that, and that’s all we plan on saying about the matter.”
“It’s ours to know and understand,” Darcy adds. “No one else’s.”
“What comes next for the group? Any new music on the horizon?”
They all turn giddy at the question, bursting with easily-guessed-at news. This is the most energy I’ve seen from Skull all afternoon.
“Not much,” Kale deadpans.
“Just a new album release,” Harry adds.
“And a world tour, no big deal,” Darcy says, her smile infectious.
Cubby loops her arm around Darcy’s waist, nuzzling her nose against Darcy’s cheek as she says, “With a set list full of love songs.”