The Subways Take Us To Their Dark Side

Other than death, possibly one of the worst things that can happen to a band is for their lead singer to lose their voice. On the eve of The Subways global gigging circuit back in April, Billy Lunn developed nodules on his vocal chords, resulting in the band cancelling a sold out gig at Bristol Academy, three French shows, some European festivals and a full North American tour after the doctor ordered him to rest for two months. Now, The Subways are back to their fully functional ways, emerging back onto the scene with a refreshed view of the music scene.

After recently completing a string of dates across the Atlantic (including an appearance at Chicago’s Lollapalooza festival), Gigwise caught up with drummer Josh Morgan ahead of their impending UK tour to talk about big changes to The Subways’ sound and success in the US.

“We’ve got a metal song now!” Josh exclaims when asked if their sound has changed since their glittering debut album ‘Young For Eternity’. “We’ve gone really heavy! We’ve matured a lot musically and it’s a lot more experimental and nutty.” Admitting that they are now faced with the task of choosing from almost twenty tracks and hundreds of B-sides they wrote during their time off, their next offering is going to be an interesting one. Whilst indie music is currently experiencing an electronic phase, The Subways have obviously been taking notes from their new best friends Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) and cranked things up a notch or two. Their support slot for Taking Back Sunday’s massive U.S tour probably helped too.

On the surface, The Subways could be your average band: Billy on vocals, his cute fiancée Charlotte Cooper on guitar, and Billy’s younger brother, Josh on drums. But underneath the innocent facade is a carefully constructed operation that is steadily gaining momentum with a simple game plan: Non-stop gigging plus minimum airplay plus minimal hype equals a rapidly growing underground fanbase. “We’ve been kind of quiet with the little underground thing we’ve got going, we just don’t want to promote too much with this album because we’d just sink away completely,” confesses Josh, the strategic brain of the group. “People would be sick of us! We’re trying to do that in both countries (UK and US), like build up real slow, not get radio play – that’s what we’re aiming for. When radios wanna play us we’re like ‘No! No! Keep it off!’” Sounds unusual, but it’s actually worked for them so far, considering their single ‘Rock n Roll Queen’ exceeded 200,000 sales and downloads in America and appeared on a Rimmel advertisement complimenting Kate Moss’s ruby pout.