1. Many music fans are aware that you won 'The Best New Band' competition at Glastonbury 2004, and that in terms of recognition, this was an extremely significant moment for The Subways. Can you tell us how this happened, and what changed for you afterwards?
Billy: "Cool, yeah! Well we all used to produce our old demos at home, like on an 8-Track or 16-Track you know - whichever, we've got both, and we used to have local bands come round, and I'd make CDs for them. I was mastering a CD for one band, and I asked them what they were going to do with the CD, once I'd finished mastering it, and they said they were going to send it off to Michael Eavis. If they did, and if he liked the CD, he'd ask them to go up to Glastonbury and play in front of him, and then, if he really liked them, he'd put them on at Glastonbury. So you know, I nicked the details off of them. But, we used to send out over 30 demos a month, to all of the London promoters and local promoters, so it was just another address really, that we sent a CD off to - which was Michael at Glastonbury. They liked the CD, so we went up and we played, and to us you know, it was just kind of another gig mixed in with all of the London gigs. We had a period where we were doing 2 or 3 London dates a week, and this was while Charlotte was doing her A-Levels, and me and Josh were working. So we went up to Glastonbury for the Friday, and came back on the Saturday to carry on with our London shows. Then, they really liked it and wanted us to play at Glastonbury, having seen us play up there."
Charlotte: "Yeah, but we played Pilton you mean?"
Billy: "Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry - I'm getting in trouble (laughing)."
Charlotte: "Sorry (laughing)."
Billy: "But yeah, we played Pilton, which is a Working Mans Club. There were 6 bands out of 2000 I think, and they picked us, so that's pretty much how it came about."

2. You said that see yourselves as, "The Sound of the next decade or so - The Subways Sound - and not The Sound of 2005"?
Charlotte: "Exactly! We didn't particularly want to fit into any scene, and I don't think our music does, as there's lots of different influences in there - it's not just pop, and it's not just rock 'n' roll."
Billy: "Especially on the album, it's very diverse. When we went into the studio, the first thing we said to Ian Broudie was, this is what we don't want, "A one-dimensional album full of very stylised music." So that opened all the doors you know - we used Hammond Organs, Wurlitzer's, Bongos, Tambourines - you mess with the formula! We've always made music on the basis of abandoning our sense of style, so we're not limiting ourselves to anything totally. I mean Charlotte and me, are into Kylie Minogue as much as we're into Nirvana, or Simon and Garfunkel as much as we're into Slipknot - so yeah, messing around with the formula. We don't want to be tied down to the sound of 2005 with this (pausing), actually, I always feel like saying, "This is The Subways Sound" when we're on stage, but that would be very Johnny Borrell of me (laughing)."
Charlotte: "Yeah (laughing)."

3. Which bands / records, had the biggest influence on you as you were growing up, and are you inspired by any of your contemporaries?
Charlotte: "There are loads of different bands that I find inspiring - but for me when I was growing up, it was definitely Muse - the first 2 albums and they were the first big gigs that I ever went to as well! Now, we just listen to anything. I mean at the moment, I like a bit of Depeche Mode (pausing), I'm kind of discovering older bands, as I wasn't around when they came out the first time, which is really nice."
Billy: "For me, Supersonic by Oasis made me want to play the guitar. The Prodigy, all of my sister's Happy Hardcore compilations, all of the Dreamscape compilations - they made me want to move and dance, and really get into music. It would be all beats, but they'd be one song on the entire compilation, where the melody would just grip you. I mean on my iPod, I've been listening to a Happy Hardcore compilation, and it's probably about 15 years old, but it's so fresh and the melodies are so catchy, that you can still listen to it now."
Charlotte: "Yeah, it makes you want to dance, even if you're sitting in the van (laughing), you just want to dance."
Billy: "Yeah. My Dad used to play me AC/DC and Deep Purple, and my Mum used to play me Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, The Ronnettes, The Carpenters - that kind of stuff."

4. What's the story behind your name The Subways?
Billy: "That's my fault (laughing). I came up with the name The Subways when I was at college - me and my college mates, always used to hang out in-between lessons, skip classes and be stupid and naughty you know. Anyway, there was this place in the town centre of Welwyn Garden City, and it used to go underground - you'd have to go through a subway to get there. It was just below this roundabout, but you could look up and see all of the cars going round, because it was like an open top, and you could also see all of the trees round the roundabout - it was amazing, it looked beautiful! It was a great place to get really drunk or whatever, and there was a sign on the wall that said Subway. I spray-painted a 'The' at the front, and an 's' at the end, so we kind of joked that we were The Subways group or gang, or whatever (laughing). It was the most free time I felt in my life you know, I just felt totally free and worthy. I suppose when the band came about, it just felt right to take that on. The logo itself, I ripped that off from Tamla Motown (laughing) - you know where you've got the line underneath the Motown, because I was really into Tamla Motown."

5. You said that sitting around "kills" you now, and that you "want to tour constantly and release as many albums as possible." Is the idea of longevity, one of the main reasons why you chose to sign to Infectious Records?
Charlotte: "Most definitely, because it's Muse, Ash and Garbage, and they were all young bands when they started. Ash played at Glastonbury when they were doing their A-Levels, and Matt Bellamy was only 18 or 19, when he wrote Showbiz - they're like really young bands, who have had 3 or 4 albums. I think it's a kind of girl thing as well, like Shirley Manson from Garbage, and Charlotte Hatherley from Ash. But definitely, they're the bands we'd like to emulate in our career."
Billy: "Korda Marshall (MD and Founder of Infectious Records), is kind of a pioneer in terms of keeping artists on board, no matter what stage they're going through in their career. I mean, we got loads of offers over a period of 7 months or so, and it took us 7 months, to actually work the contract into how we wanted it. We just found with everyone else, that if we weren't going to make anything that was in the style, that we were in at the particular time that they wanted to sign us, then there would be no reason for us to carry on with that label. Development for artists especially, is integral, it's the Number 1 priority, because you're only as good as the last thing you wrote - you can't back pedal or anything, you've just got to keep moving on and keep thinking forward. That's why Korda was the perfect choice, because he believed in what potential we had over the next 5 albums."

6. With your debut LP, Young For Eternity, you wanted to make an album that you "love." Why did you choose Ian Broudie as the producer, and what was the recording experience like in his Liverpool studio?
Billy: "Well basically, we were playing shows, and we had all sorts of music producers come along with ideas, and they would say, "I've got this great idea about this record, I've really got a good feeling about it." We played a terrible show, the sound was terrible and Ian was there, and basically, he didn't come up to us after the show. But, we heard that he was coming out of retirement, just to produce us…"
Charlotte: "Which is very cool!"
Billy: "Which is very cool! But he didn't say anything, he just said, "I'd love to take you in the studio and see what we can do," and that was it you know. But it didn't feel like he had an initial plan. The worst thing that I feel a band can do, especially when going into the studio, is to limit themselves to a plan or a criteria - and it just felt like we were going in there, recording the songs, and seeing what the hell we came out with you know (laughing), and developing it from there. It wasn't based on a particular notion - just going in there, making art and recording it. Given who Ian's worked with before, like Echo & The Bunnymen, Big In Japan, The Coral, The Zutons, The Wedding Present - plus producing all of his own music for The Lightning Seeds, it just felt right, especially with that broad spectrum of bands. Perfect choice for us (smiling), perfect choice!"

7. Although the record has a thread running through it, there isn't a particular style that you wanted to capture, as you "believe in the abandonment of style"?
Billy: "Yeah totally! I did want to keep a thread running, and abandon this whole, "Let's make a record for this type of person" thing. We want to start the album (pausing), I mean it's a very difficult choice, because each song could start the album (laughing), but I want to start the album with a song called, I Want To Hear What You Have Got To Say, which kind of spans the entire record I feel. It's very simplistic, it's just one guitar, one bass, and one set of drums through the whole song, with two sets of vocals. Its got this punk thing, this acoustic thing, just in that one song, and I suppose we kind of opened up from that track. We've got acoustica, we've got psychedelia, we've got punk and there's sprinkles of metal - we've been really interested in Biffy Clyro and Slipknot - really loud, loud music and well-produced stuff. There's kind of epic stuff with Sigur Rós influences, as I'm really into them, but yeah totally, the abandonment of style."
Charlotte: "Yeah, like you said."

8. Is it also true, that Billy's mantra is "passion over technique"?
Charlotte: "We kind of learnt our instruments together, so its always been kind of passion first, and the technicality later, but we're getting to a better level now, as we've been playing for longer. But, I think to have our passion, is definitely important for us, because that's how the songwriting comes about, be it through stream of consciousness, or playing whatever we play."
Billy: "If you look at Shakespeare's manuscripts and scriptures, you'll see that he never actually scribbled anything out, it was all stream of consciousness, and it almost looks like sometimes, he doesn't have exactly 10 syllables in the line, and he messes around with the formula sometimes. It almost looks like he's never really been sculptured, been taught you know - it's not very academic, but it's beautiful. I feel that when we make music, we don't necessarily concentrate on how we play it, it's really how we're trying to display emotion - it's all emotion! Technique is important, but its got to be unique."
Charlotte: "It tends to come afterwards as well - like we'll write a song, and one of us may think that they can do something else with their part, so we'll take it away, and then maybe kind of work on more technical things and bring it back. But it's always the song first!"
Billy: "I mean yeah, Josh could do a solo, I could do a 30 minute-long solo, Charlotte could do it as well, but we don't, purely because it's all about the song. Cutting the crap out and just putting us on one page. Eventually, I do see us really working through the formula, and maybe messing around with stuff."
Charlotte: "It's definitely something that you can do in the studio, and we were able to get the time. Ian had this great storage of all these different instruments, so it was a great time to experiment in the studio. You can play around with stuff, and all you do is mute the track if it doesn't sound good."
Billy: "For me, one thing especially, encapsulates the idea of passion over technique. I think it's really important for a guitarist (pausing), it might seem a bit weird, but when I go into a guitar shop and I'm trying out a guitar, unless you're totally and utterly self-confident, or you're brilliant and you can go in there and twiddle around with a guitar. I always find, that people are telling me that my thumb's always over the edge, and I don't hold the plectrum right. But, I really feel, especially in terms of talking about yourself (pausing), it's like an English teacher coming into a log cabin, where a poet's sitting over a pad scribbling down ideas, and they're going, "Come on, your hand writing's terrible, how is anyone going to read that? Come on, develop your sense of sentence structure." Then the poet says, "Look, I'm talking here - I'm doing stuff" (laughing). You know, they mess up the system. So I honestly feel that that's the way it is, there's a system, a way that our minds I work, and I suppose when it comes to musical instruments, it's never really going to be speculated or scrutinised. I hope not anyway."

9. What are the main themes of your lyrics?
Billy: "Love, life and work - Young For Eternity, I wrote that at work! I was working in a hotel at the time and I had to write out receipts, because I used to collect all of the dirty sheets from the hotel rooms, and pack them away - and the lyrics just came. I turned over a receipt that I was meant to be handing in, and wrote the lyrics and stuffed it in my pocket, and I got the sack because of it (laughing). There's no particular theme that I tend to cover - it's not like I've gone, "I hate work, I'm going to write an album about work and everyone's going to totally understand it." It's more sitting down, after some kind of event, and being very neutral about the situation. If I'm in a mental kind of state (pausing), if I'm in a state of relaxation, or anger, or anything, I can't communicate and that's why I lash out. I'm not a violent person, but you know, I do, and I suppose I can only really reflect back on it, once its happened. When I was at work, I'd work 6 hours collecting all of the sheets up, and then I'd sit down and would write the receipts out, and I suppose it was the only time for me to really reflect, and that really kind of encapsulates the way I was. It's just time and moment, stream of consciousness, that's it - there's no compromises, that's how it happens."

10. Kurt Cobain often said that for him, "music came first" and "lyrics were secondary." As a songwriter, do you feel the same way, or are both equally important to you?
Billy: "We make music first as a group - I actually make a riff, then take it to everybody and they develop it. So music does come first, but it's putting them together, kind of incorporating them. I mean it could happen one way, where I've written a tune and that tune puts me in a particular mood, and I start writing in that mood - the melody may affect me in a certain way, and I'll write in a certain way. Or, I'll come up with a riff and we'll play it, and I'll go, "I've got some great lyrics for this song." But sometimes, I even write on the way to the studio, purely because I'm sitting in the car relaxing, and thinking that this is a great theme for a song."
Charlotte: "He changes them along the way as well. Like one day, he'll just suddenly change the lyrics at a gig, and me and Josh are like, "Hey, that's pretty cool" (laughing)."
Billy: "When I'm walking along the street, I'll pull out a piece of paper and write down something (laughing), and I'll even listen back to the album and go, "Why didn't I do that?" For a period, I was in the vocal booth with 10 Budweiser's at a time, and I didn't come out until I'd finished them, and then I'd listen back to the lyrics the next day, and I'd really hate them (laughing). Purely because I was in a state of, "This sounds great, I'm working with it, it sounds really cool," and you listen back and you think, it's just not me, it's just not me. Then I would rewrite them there, go in, and do them great you know. But it was a very strange concept, it didn't agree with me at all (laughing)."

11. If you could cover one song, what would it be, and is there a band / artist that you would like to see cover one of your songs?
Billy: "Oh God, we've got so many artists that we'd love to cover!"
Charlotte: "We're thinking of doing a Kylie cover at Glastonbury, to celebrate the fact that she's headlining (laughing)."
Billy: "We'd like to do a Depeche Mode cover."
Charlotte: "We're thinking about the Happy Hardcore song, Take Me Away."
Billy: "Take Me Away, yeah. Be My Baby by The Ronnettes…"
Charlotte: "We did used to do that didn't we? (looking at Billy)."
Billy: "We did used to do that. Wouldn't It Be Nice by The Beach Boys. My God, there's so many - you know when you draw a blank? I would love The Chemical Bothers to do a song of ours, or Ian Brown to mix."
Charlotte: "I think with the mixes, it would be nice to hear a Graham Coxon mix, that would be cool!"
Billy: "Yeah that would be cool!"

12. The Subways' live performances, are renowned for their high energy and grit. Is it important to you all, to give so much of yourselves - both emotionally & visually - every time you play?
Charlotte: "Definitely, because we love what we're doing so much, and the songs mean a lot to us, so we feel that to justify playing them, we have to sort of just go crazy - we put our all into it!"
Billy: "It's like we're shrouded in a fog - I mean we don't go on initially thinking, "Let's rock out!" For the first 5 songs, I could be standing on the spot, purely because I'm feeling it so much and I'm feeling that that's the right thing to do. Last night, it took me a couple of songs to really kind of think, "Yeah let's go with it." But it's purely because we love the songs so much - we're spilling our guts really, and it wouldn't be justifiable to the songs, unless we worked our asses off for them, do you know what I mean? Stuff like Somewhere, especially in the verses, is very melancholic and dreamy, and sometimes I fall over."
Charlotte: "Yeah, yeah (laughing)."
Billy: "Purely because it's so dreamy, my legs just go from beneath me (laughing). Anything that's reflective of soul, we feel in every inch of our bones, and it's very hard to stay still when it kind of possesses you. It's not like we go on and say, "Let's do it!" (laughing)."
Charlotte: "It's just what happens, it's hard to explain - but I couldn't stand still on stage I don't think, and I don't think I would be able to play."
Billy: "I can understand why people stay still, but there are a lot of bands that are making such good music, and they're just rooted to the spot, and for me, it almost feels like they're not feeling it. They probably are…"
Charlotte: "In a different way?"
Billy: "Yeah, I don't know. I actually like looking at artists sometimes, where they don't move, but you can see it in their bodies and faces. Like Steve McQueen, when he did a scene - he didn't need a lot of action, he didn't need a lot of dialogue, it was just in his body, in his bones, and you could tell."

13. Do you enjoy being on tour?
Charlotte: "We love it - it's great! Like every night it's different, and I think we're about, what 28 dates in now? (looking at Billy)."
Billy: "No, we are 30 dates in exactly (laughing)! Saturday is meant to be our end of tour gig, but it's not, we've got loads after that."
Charlotte: "Which is a good thing, because I don't like it when you see the tour dates, and there's no more coming up, it's a bit you know, depressing (laughing)."
Billy: "I mean I find rests a really bad idea - a very bad idea, because there's always the potential risk of me being stuck in a drought, in an artistic drought, and that is very self-destructive, very. I run away and I get very depressed. So to be on the road, and to be constantly moving (pausing), you know when we're at home, it almost feels like we're not stepping anywhere, it's like we're standing on this molten-hot rock (laughing), and we need to move, we need to get the hell off it! So being on tour, is what we do - it's our life, it's what we wake up to do. Same I suppose with watching films (looking at Charlotte and smiling), we're born to watch films (laughing). We're born to drink, watch films - not be ourselves for a while, that's very important. Being on tour, it's very easy to not be yourself, to be the other Billy Lunn, or the other Josh Morgan, or the other Charlotte Cooper, and I think it's very important to get out and leave yourself for a while, and go roaming the countryside of your mind. It just makes you (pausing), you know you can see things from different points of view. It's like sitting in the corner of that room, and wishing you were looking from there, and I suppose being on tour, allows you to scan the whole room and go, "this looks weird from here." It keeps me writing as well, and it keeps us focused - it keeps us alive!"
Charlotte: "Yeah, excited and passionate! We're going to Japan in the summer to do a Festival there, which will be really cool, and we're doing lots of European Festivals. These are places that we've always wanted to visit as well, and Japan looks so amazing in books and stuff, so it will be great to see it!"
Billy: "I don't want to go over to America, until we've got at least 6 or 7 singles out, and we're preparing for our second album you know - be ahead of ourselves. I think the worst thing we could do, is to release an album and head straight over to America. We want to really build up a community in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland…"
Charlotte: "France and Germany - kind of do it like that."
Billy: "Building a community is important, and I feel we'd just be hopping, skipping and jumping, if we went over to America on our first album - we haven't earned it, we want to earn our bread."
Charlotte: "We'll just do the same there, as we've done here, do a few tours just to build it up. This is our second UK Tour…"
Billy: "No less than 50 dates, no less than 50 dates on our first US Tour. There's no point doing a load of dates here, and then going to America for 6 dates, and then not going back for the next 4 months, it would be pointless."
Charlotte: "You need to build it up don't you."

14. The Subways love movies and books - do you have any recommendations for us?
Billy: "Yes (laughing)!"
Charlotte: "I've just read Audrey Hepburn's Biography, which was interesting, that was really good - seeing all of the things she experienced. I'm reading The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown at the moment, and it's really exciting, because it's right near the end (laughing)."
Billy: "Alex Garland, The Beach. After watching the movie, a lot of people think of Richard the character, as American, but he's very English, he can be very funny - and that's what I'm doing, I'm kind of looking at the protagonist, as a very English, sarcastic, Vietnamese-obsessed person. So yeah, very funny. Women by Bukowski. He writes incredible, very funny and very sad - very sad, novels."
Charlotte: "What films have we watched recently? (looking at Billy). Oh, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, that's a great one, it's lovely."
Billy: "The Great Escape, The Getaway - I love Steve McQueen, it's just his eyes and his minimalist approach. It's almost like he doesn't (pausing), I suppose it links in with us, in that there's not notes flying everywhere (mimicking machine gun sound), you can adapt yourself and it's about audience participation. When you're in the audience, you almost have to apply yourself to engage yourself. We don't want everyone just watching and enjoying it, and loving the music (pausing), loving the music is important, but we want the audience to feel as though they're a part of something, that we're doing on stage. That's what Steve McQueen does - you have to decipher him you know. When he says in The Great Escape (pausing), Richard Attenborough's character goes, "So you're Virgil?" and you can tell Steve McQueen has cut 3 or 4 paragraphs out, as he just turns round and goes, "Hilts." It's the funniest moment in the movie, one of the funniest moments I've ever seen in any movie. It's not meant to be funny, but he does it so well."
Charlotte: "I saw Two For The Road the other day, which is an Audrey Hepburn film, and you know how Quentin Tarantino's always mixing things up? Well, it was the first film to ever do that, and it was really interesting, it was really good."
Billy: "On Quentin Tarantino, Jackie Brown is good."
Charlotte: "Yeah, we watched that again the other day, fantastic! All the Quentin Tarantino ones, like the Kill Bill's…"
Billy: "But for me, Jackie Brown is the best (laughing), it's just so good. Good Bye, Lenin! as well."
Charlotte: "The Coen Brothers films as well, like The Big Lebowski and Fargo."
Billy: " Fargo is brilliant. Raising Arizona is incredible too, it's a brilliant movie."
Charlotte: "Yeah - there's loads, we've got loads (laughing)!"

15. Returning to your music - is it true that you hope your album will "take people on a journey," and that your songs will, as you've previously mentioned, help "build a community"?
Billy: "Definitely!"
Charlotte: "That's definitely what we want to do! I love our website (www.thesubways.net) - we've got this forum, and we're up to nearly 1,400 members now!"
Billy: "We looked at it on our day off, what 2 or 3 days ago? (looking at Charlotte), and the last time we checked it, there was like an extra 900 people…"
Charlotte: "It's going up all the time, and it's really nice, because you can see everybody meeting up at gigs and stuff, and they've all become friends."
Billy: "There's little clusters of people, who know each other from the forum kind of thing."
Charlotte: "Yeah."
Billy: "I never took to University, as I wasn't a very social fabric kind of person - I don't know, I tried to be, and I really wanted to be, but I couldn't. I was a bit strange, so I took to music and everyone else went to University. But now, I'm meeting up with all of these people on the road - all over the country, and I tell you what, it's the most beautiful experience. I had 2 real friends at school, and the rest (pausing), well I used to get stones thrown at me and stuff. But, I met up with 1 of my friends a few days ago, and it was one of the most beautiful experiences in my entire life - I've never felt so fulfilled! Because he looked at me as though I was normal, and that I was getting somewhere, but at school it never really felt like that. It was just a beautiful, beautiful experience, it was so lovely!"
Charlotte: "We've made lots of friends in the fans too, and some of them come to several shows on the tour, and it's really nice to meet up with them again - every gig they come to is really cool!"
Billy: "But the album (pausing), it's not that I don't want it to be really well-received, it's that I don't want it to be hoisted. I want people to develop into liking it, into feeling like they associate with the songs you know. It's like with all of my favourite albums, they've grown on me. Its not been like the hit album of 2003, its been an album that I've listened to and gone, I really get this - I'm really starting to understand what these people are saying, in every corner of the songs. So I want people to take their time over it, especially (pausing), I'm already writing the second album, I've got some really interesting ideas for that one. But yeah, I'd be happy for people to just really feel like it links with them - not just in 2005, but until the very last time they listen to it, hopefully when they pass it down to the kids or whatever."

16. Would you agree, that ultimately, you don't want to limit yourselves, and that with your label as with your fans, you "want to shock them into a great sense of what will they come up with next"?
Charlotte: "Yeah definitely, that would be cool. We try to make every song different, and I think already, that Oh Yeah is nothing like 1AM - I think we've left that garage-rock sound behind us now. 1AM is the only kind of song that's really like that, which we have anyway."
Billy: "Yeah."
Charlotte: "Hopefully with the next single, we'll do some different things, and then with the album, everyone will see the whole lot together."
Billy: "I just can't wait for people to listen to the album, and almost (pausing), eat their words. Because the worst thing that people have done with this band, is create a perception after only listening to 1 track. I will never, ever make that sort of judgement on any band. Even before I was in a band, I would never, ever make that judgement - it would take me a few songs you know. I listened to Girls & Boys by Blur, and I liked it, and then I listened to Parklife and I loved it! I didn't buy the album after the first single, and I didn't buy it after the second single, it took me a while to really feel like that record grasped me, and I want people to kind of be the same - wait a while (laughing) - develop yourselves with the album! Limitation - abandon it, abandon it! I mean I'm into Snoop Dogg, so hopefully he's going to come with us on the second album (laughing)."
Charlotte: "That would be really cool (laughing)!"
Billy: "Fo' shizzle (laughing)!"

17. Lastly, chips or cream buns?
Charlotte: "Chips (without any hesitation)!"
Billy: "Ooh, that's really hard (laughing + thinking)."
Charlotte: "You've made me feel like having chips or cream buns now (laughing)."
Billy: "I'm so sorry (laughing + still thinking)…"
Charlotte: "How about you get the cream buns, and I'll share my chips with you?"
Billy: "OK, we'll share it - yeah, cool! (laughing)."

A very special thanks to Billy, Charlotte and Josh, to The Subways' Tour Manager Chris, and to James @ Pomona, for all of their time and help.