“The least rock and roll thing you can do is just play rock and roll”, says The Subways’ Billy Lunn. “You need to mess with the formula, just to blow people’s perceptions out of the water.”

And he should know. Possibly the most hard-rocking band to explode out of Welwyn Garden City in Britain in recent years, they took the London scene by storm with grinding first single Rock & Roll Queen, Lunn yelping the simple but intimate lyrics to the first song he ever wrote. “It just said everything I needed to say”, he says. More singles and an appearance in front of 10,000 people at Glastonbury followed. Was that the biggest crowd the band’s played to? “Well actually we played to 40,000 people at the Noise and Confusion festival, that was… interesting” he says. “We had Dave Grohl in the front row watching us and he dedicated a song to us – we were blown away”.

“Forming the band in Welwyn Garden City was a hinderance, but it was also a help I think. It made you want your own voice, to strive for something better, something new. It makes you work much harder,” he laughs. “My first guitar was this ratty, rusty old thing my dad pulled down from the attic. I ran home with a copy of Supersonic from Oasis’ first album and I was waving it around saying ‘This is my band, this is my band! So Dad got this horrible guitar out and taught me my first chords and we went from there.”

Not bad, then, for a band that started out playing Nirvana covers in Lunn’s front room, under the name Mustardseed (they actually went on to come second in a local Battle of the Bands contest with a cover of Rape Me). “I love grunge,” he enthuses. “I love the punk aspect of it; those loud guitars and booming drums and huge basslines. I’m really into punk, actually, like the Ramones. I love the newer stuff too, like Green Day.” his other influences, however, are far more varied. “I love Bob Dylan, it’s quiet but it has real passion, it’s linking the brain with the heart”, he says. “Who else…Well, Oasis, Smokey Robinson, T Rex, Blondie, Muse, the Prodigy, Marvin Gaye, The Who, The Kinks, The Beatles...” And the last album he bought? “Come Down by the Dandy Warhols,” he says after some thought. “I think”.

What was it like playing at the Big Day Out? “Fantastic, we just got such a great reaction. We were backstage saying, ‘it’s alright, there won’t be anyone out there, they’ll have all gone home, and when we got out there we were blown away. We were playing at the Gold Coast recently but we’re not accustomed to the heat yet – after about two songs we were wiped out!” Any favourite acts? “I loved Wolfmother, they were really good, the crowd loved them too. It was good hanging out at the after-parties with Sleater-Kinney as well as Franz Ferdinand and the British bands…there was a real camaraderie there. We all knew each other from all the British festivals so we were just sitting in the circle off on our own.

The band has also been featured on teen soap the O.C, a program which is well known for its ability to make or break new, predominiantly indie bands. Death Cab For Cutie was featured on the show, a major contributing factor to their success, and so were the Killers.”Playing on the O.C was amazing too,” he says. “we had such a great time, just hanging out with the cast and crew. Apparently most other acts on the show don’t even leave their dressing rooms, but we… we didn’t want to take anything for granted you know? Not just with the show but with the whole success thing. That’s the key, I think.”

“We’ve actually been doing some demos in the kitchen for the second record,” he says, almost as an afterthought. “I think as we become better musicians and my songwriting improves and becomes more mature the songs will become much more complex. Charlotte and I are becoming more of a partnership too, which is good. If people keep hearing the same thing they won’t keep listening so we have to keep them guessing.”

I can’t wait. Billy Lunn was modest, unassuming and a pleasure to talk to, and I hope to repeat this experience soon.

Check out The Subways:
Thursday January 26 – Big Day Out, Sydney (sold out)
Sunday January 29 – Big Day Out, Melbourne
Friday February 3 – Big Day Out, Adelaide
Sunday February 5 – Big Day Out, Perth