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The Subways

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The Subways
Origin	Hertfordshire, England
Genre(s)	Indie rock, Garage rock, Post-Punk
Years active	2003–present
Label(s)	Infectious Records (UK), Sire/Warner Bros. Records (US)
Website	http://www.thesubways.net/
Members
Billy Lunn Charlotte Cooper Josh Morgan

The Subways are an English indie rock band. Their debut album, Young For Eternity, was released on 4 July, 2005 in the UK and February 14, 2006 in the US.

1 Members
2 History
3 Discography
4 External links
5 References

Members

Billy Lunn - guitar/vocals
Charlotte Cooper - bass/vocals
Josh Morgan - drums

History

Beginnings

The Subways began playing at an early age, at present, Billy is 23, Charlotte and Josh are both 21. The Subways began by playing Nirvana and punk songs in Billy and Josh's lounge, under the name of Mustardseed. They later changed their name to Platypus, and began to tour small, local venues, such as The Square in Harlow, Essex. An early CD of the band playing live was recorded at The Square which they sold at gigs. As their reputation grew, Billy in particular became annoyed with all the different names the band were coming up with. He came up with The Subways, apparently from his days hanging out. "One of the few places where I felt I could refuge and find peace in my old town of Welwyn Garden City was in a subway under the roads and pavements. I would haunt there in between breaks at work and college." Feeling the most free at that time underneath the rat-race of economic town life, he thought it only appropriate to divulge this "free essence" he felt in that subway to the band, where he felt he could truly escape from the drudgery of everyday life. It was during this time that Billy formed a close relationship with charlotte cooper.

Home recordings

The band released many demos and EPs in their early days when playing the London circuit in the UK. With every batch of new songs that The Subways would compose, Billy Lunn would insist that the band record them. However, at such a young age the group had no money with which to go into a studio to record consistently, so they came upon the idea of buying their own cheap recording system at home. Eventually, the band had their own website, http://www.thesubways.net, which Billy Lunn himself constructed and maintained, where they would put all their new songs up on the internet. Also, through the use of their own home recording system they now had roughly 8 demos worth of songs both on the internet and being sent out to local and London promoters at various venues. The Subways then began touring in the local and London area playing regularly at the Buffalo Bar in Highbury & Islington. Having the home recording system also proved useful for production. The band felt that it would not only benefit themselves, but other local bands who could not afford the studio prices, even in the Welwyn Garden City area. It was here, that Billy and Charlotte both stumbled upon the opportunity that would eventually prove significant for the band. "I was producing a local Welwyn Garden City band in my front lounge one day and I noticed that it was quite good so I asked if they were going to send it to any London venues, because I knew a few that would like it. They said that they were going to send it off to Michael Eavis who runs Glastonbury, and I asked why..." Michael Eavis that year was running an unsigned bands competition to play on the Other Stage, and The Subways decided that would be a great idea. "It was really just another address to send one of our CDs off to. All we wanted was to play shows and this was another great opportunity. The CD we sent off to Michael Eavis was literally one among a bunch of 30 that were being sent out to London promoters for a load of gigs we wanted to book. "We never expected the phone call saying that we'd won and were to play Glastonbury," said Cooper on radio.

Progression

After Glastonbury, The Subways went on to play The Carling Weekend 2004 in both Reading and Leeds, and then proceeded to play their very first (self funded) tour of the UK consisting of 35 dates. The late John Peel was the first DJ to play single "1am" on National Radio. The band signed to City Pavement & Infectious Records in late 2004. Their first album, Young For Eternity, which was released on the 4 July 2005, was produced by Lightning Seeds frontman Ian Broudie, with their debut single "Oh Yeah" reaching number 25 in the UK Music Chart in its release week 21 March 2005. The Subways appeared during the seventh episode of the third season of The O.C., The Anger Management, performing two songs, "Rock & Roll Queen" and "Oh Yeah." Also, the episode came to a close with "I Want to Hear What You Have Got to Say" playing. Some of their tracks, such as "She Sun" and "Rock & Roll Queen", are now being used on television adverts for Rimmel cosmetics featuring British supermodel Kate Moss. The Sun newspaper adverts are currently playing the song Oh Yeah in the background. The band postponed touring in April 2006 because Billy had nodules on his vocal cords. They played a "secret" gig in The Green Room in their home town of Welwyn Garden City on Friday June 16, under the alias of The Audrey Hepburns and also as support for the Foo Fighters in Manchester at the Lancashire County Cricket Ground on Sunday June 18 (along with Eagles of Death Metal, Angels & Airwaves and The Strokes), and have recently returned to touring, with Billy expected to make a full recovery. In the summer of 2006 the band travelled to North America where they made numerous appearances. These included opening for the co-headlining tour of Taking Back Sunday & Angels & Airwaves and performing on the talk shows, Late Show With David Letterman and Late Night with Conan O'Brien. On August 4, they performed at the Lollapalooza music festival, and the next day they performed at Street Scene in San Diego. On August 7, they appeared on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. On August 25, they returned to Reading and Leeds Festivals, this time on the main stage. On March 19 2007, Mean Fiddler confirmed that the band will be playing at the Reading and Leeds Festivals, this time on the Radio 1 stage. On May 15, the band announced the date on which they would start recording their second album, June 4. On this date the band began recording in Los Angeles, California with producer Butch Vig. The band had written around twenty-five tracks which were recorded over a period of several months. In August 2007 the band came back to the UK and played a series of small warm up shows showcasing their new material, before playing at the Reading and Leeds Festivals. On September 3 2007 the band returned to Los Angeles to complete work on their second album. On October 17 2007 the band finished the recording of their second album. The band's website now re-directs to their myspace page.

Discography

Studio albums

Young for Eternity
4 July 2005
#32 UK

EPs

"The Platypus EP"
"I Lost You To The City EP"
"Summertime EP"
"Rock & Roll Queen EP"
"No Heart No Soul EP"
"Young For Eternity EP"
"At 1am EP"
"Milk EP"
"Mary EP"
"Live at Birmingham Academy EP"
"The Live Videos EP" (iTunes only)
"Live and Acoustic In Magdeburg EP" (iTunes only)

Singles

All singles released in CD and 7" format on the Infectious/City Pavement record labels unless otherwise stated.

"No Heart, No Soul EP" - Bus Stop Records - First official release; was available from the Bus Stop Records website before The Subways were signed. Release of 75 copies [1]
"1am" - Transgressive Records - Limited 7" release of 500 copies
"Oh Yeah" - released 21 March 2005 - UK #25
"Rock & Roll Queen" - released 20 June 2005 - UK #22 - ITA #37
"With You" - released 12 September 2005 - UK #29
"No Goodbyes" - released 12 December 2005 - UK #27