Rachel Fraser heads to Newcastle to catch up with The Subways who turn out to be better than the sandwich variety…
i want to hear what you have got to say | disco beats | can’t go wrong with a bit of kylie
The Subways have been making headlines across the UK all summer and with their infectious rock ‘n’ roll, although it would be fair to say their music’s comprised more of the former than the latter. Rachel Fraser met up with Bassist Charlotte and drummer Josh before they played at Newcastle Uni to see probe them on their appearance on The OC, their apparent obsession with Kylie and making a “disco” record…

I want to hear what you have got to say…
You’ve had a busy summer playing festivals all over the world, what would you say the highlights were?
Charlotte – We had a great summer of festivals. We played a couple of dates in Japan which was amazing with about 12,000 people at each gig just jumping up and down and some of the UK festivals were great as well – T in the Park, Glastonbury, Guilfest and Reading and Leeds which was our highlight because the album was out then.

Given John Peel’s death and his association with Glastonbury, what was it like playing the John Peel stage there this year.
That was amazing. It’s always a great atmosphere at Glastonbury. This year there was kind of camaraderie between everyone because of the tents washing away and everything

Rumour is this summer you also flew out to America to record an appearance on T.V. show ‘The OC’?
Yes we did. We did a performance on there, they’ve got this club they all go to and some of the cast members are just hanging out in there and we are just playing in the background. It was amazing experience. We were only there for a day to record it but it was nice and we’re going back over there once we’ve finished this UK tour to do a small US tour and a few small club dates

The media always hype the importance of ‘breaking America’. Is this something that’s important for you to do?
I don’t think it’s a case of breaking America, it’s a case of going there and applying the same philosophy as we used in the UK. Just play as much as you can to as many people in as many places as you can. Then we’ll see where we go from there. We’re not one of those triumphant bands that say ‘we’re going to break America’ with a ‘we’re gonna get them’ philosophy. We just want to play over there.

If you do get successful in the US, how would you respond to people who will inevitably claim it’s due to ‘The OC’ appearence?
I think some people are like that and are going to say ‘oh they only made it big because of the OC’. That will be one of the things we do over there but if we are big in America it will because we’ve played a lot of tour dates over there, worked hard and done a lot of press. When people say things like that I think it’s kind of sad, we’ve been offered this opportunity – we’re not going to say no to it are we?

As you’ve mentioned, you’ve built up a fan base through touring, much of which has been supporting other bands like Razorlight. Now you are headlining, how important to you are the support bands on tour?
We do choose our own bands to come on tour. The two we’ve had on this tour, the Rifles and the Kooks, we chose because we thought they were good bands and we have a great time on tour with them. We like to have a band with us that we get on with.

Disco beats…
After you’ve finished touring, is it time to head back into the studio?
We’ve got a lot of songs prepared for the next album. We’re really excited about them because they are totally different to anything we have ever done before and we’re just excited to get into the studio and try them to see how they come out.

Your first album was produced by Ian Broudie (Lightening Seeds, producer of the Coral and the Zutons), how was he to work with?
He was a great person to work with, he was such a mentor to us. He really guided us through musically and emotionally. It was an intense experience, we’d never really been much in a studio before and then we were stuck in there for six weeks and he was really helpful.

What’s changed since you recorded the first album, Young for Eternity?
On the first album every song is different and on the second album I think it’s more pronounced, the poppy songs are poppier, the heavy songs are heavier, we’ve got more acoustic, more mellow songs.

Do you see it as a natural progression musically?
Yeah, I think it is. I think we are a lot more mature now. Things are different since the first album.

In terms of progression have you incorporated new styles and influences?
Josh – Yeah we’re writing a disco song at the moment actually and it’s really cool, really mental. We didn’t choose to write it but we’ve just been listening to loads of Kylie, mixed with the Prodigy, mixed with other stuff. You naturally write music like that and it’s a real poppy song. We’ve also been working on a real, actually I can’t relate it to any band, but there’s another song that’s like that as well. The new stuff is really exciting, definitely.

Can’t go wrong with a bit of Kylie…
You mention Kylie in a lot of interviews which is unusual for a ‘rock’ band. Is it important to be influenced by different kinds of music?
Charlotte – Definitely. The worst thing you can do is say, ‘oh I don’t like pop music’ or ‘I don’t like R and B’. There’s some great artists out there. I don’t think you can dismiss a whole genre of music.

Hearing a wide variety of music must have been hard growing up in a suburban place like Welyn Garden City. How did you get into the music scene in a place like that?
Well it was just that we were always hanging out together and when you are hanging out with people who are into their music it’s was a natural progression to start playing music ourselves and though we are from a town and there’s not much going on there and there’s no venues, you had to travel out and we were more than willing to do that. Perhaps that’s why we’ve made it and some of the other Welyn bands haven’t. We were willing to go to London three times a week and to work really hard to get where we’ve got to.

And finally, the rock scene is very male dominated. Do you find it difficult to be recognized as a musician rather than a token ‘girl in a band’?
I think it is something that’s strange and I don’t really know why there are so few girls in the rock industry and I know in the venues that we go to and among the crew I’m treated no different from the other two because I’m a girl musician. I’m treated as an equal musician and I think there is this thing that girls are treated badly and I don’t think they are. I think the press can pick up on it, they’ll write about how Billy and Josh are
playing and then they’ll write that Charlotte was wearing a short skirt and its kind of annoying because I am playing there as well but I think people are kind of getting away from that now and getting over the fact that girls do play as well, its not such a big deal anymore.