Page 36 - Black Velvet Issue 84

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look forward to, you’ll get fit and healthy and loving animals with me sort of endorsing the way there were about 5 people in the room, and he
you’ll be doing it for a good cause,” and I was they treat these animals when they’re packaged, just sort of rushed past the 5 people standing
like “Great, ok, let’s try this out”. A couple of the way they treat them before they’re killed? I there in the row, rushed up to the stage, turned
weeks in I realized I could start thinking again, I suddenly thought, all these ways that I’ve been the microphone away and was like “I want to
could start processing my emotions again. Artis- living are not on really. So yeah…” manage you guys, I have to be your manager”.
tically I could put songs together again. I felt like It makes sense that Billy loves animals. He We were like, “Yeah, cool”. We were 17 years
I could actually do this record. So right up until has a dog called Daisy that inspired a song title old at the time. From there on we’ve been tour-
the end of January my friends sent me an invite on the new album. Although the song was about ing around the world, going to America, Aus-
to go to London to have a big blowout and cele- Billy’s relationship with his wife, one day when tralia, Japan, Russia, all over Europe, South
brate getting to the end of the month, and also Daisy the dog came in the house, the first Africa, and every year we’d play 2 or 3 shows at
the record had got least at the Buffalo Bar in between. Stacey who
to a certain stage ran the Buffalo Bar would ring me up, going,
in the mixes and “How ya doing? Great to speak to you again.
everything, and “I found a way to process everything. I realized Fancy doing a gig down at the Buffalo Bar?
just because we that I am an over emotional person, that’s why I am We’ve got a slot free on Wednesday”. We’d be
all wanted to go “Yeah, we’ll be down there” or “No, we can’t
out for a drink. a musician. That’s why I started writing music in the make it, sorry”. But all those memories just bot-
And I was on the first place, because I had all these pent up feelings tlenecked and burst out. All these profound ex-
train up, and I just periences that we’ve had over the years came
caught the train that could only have been exerted through the phys- out and it just felt like the anchor that weighed
back home. I ical manifestation of being on stage and acting out us down, that kept us grounded, that made us
called my wife remember who exactly we are and where we
and said “I don’t my passion as well as singing them through melody came from is going to be lost in the ether forever
want to do this, I’ll now. It’s never going to be there, and I just burst
carry on for an- and playing the guitar.” - Billy Lunn, The Subways into tears and I had to stop playing. My dog
other month,” and Daisy was just looking at me going, “What’s
so I signed up wrong?” Her sad eyes were looking up at me
with another charity, an Alzheimer’s society, to thought that came into his head was her dirty going, “What’s wrong? It’s not that bad!” I real-
push me on for that extra month, right until the muddy paws – and instantly it hit Billy that that ized how ridiculous it was, I was just weeping
end of February and by the middle of February would make a great song title. Although Billy and weeping and I just started laughing to my-
I’d realized it was the best thing for me not to hasn’t quite got his head around the fact that self realizing how silly this all was. But that’s just
drink. It was really tough. I suffer with depression fans now know who Daisy is. “It’s kind of strange how far gone we are into these places, into
quite badly anyway but obviously alcohol being because you throw the songs out there and im- these people that have changed our lives. We’re
a depressant doesn’t really help out with that. mediately if you start talking about your home heavily indebted to these people, we’re heavily
So I felt my productivity levels going up, my ap- life, which in a weird way I do keep separate, the indebted to that place, and it doesn’t deserve to
preciation for the arts just blew through the roof. fact that people know about Daisy now, and perish… and it has perished. It was just like see-
I think I just got in touch with my emotions. I she’s just this old Golden Retriever, this old Mut- ing an old friend off.”
found a way to process everything. I realized tley thing that I love so much, linking up I find
that I am an over emotional person, that’s why I that quite difficult, but it’s great, it’s great that he band have had some amazing times
am a musician. That’s why I started writing Daisy’s now famous.” Tand have many memories of events and
music in the first place, because I had all these We suggest that they should make a Sub- experiences that have blown their minds. Early
pent up feelings that could only have been ex- ways T-shirt with Daisy on it. “My wife and I on, they won the chance to play Glastonbury
erted through the physical manifestation of would love to put Daisy on a T-shirt!” Billy ex- Festival after being hand picked by Michael
being on stage and acting out my passion as claims, sounding all wide-eyed at the idea. “I’ve Eavis to play the legendary festival. They’re now
well as singing them through melody and play- actually thanked Daisy in the liner notes on the festival mainstays and have played all over the
ing the guitar. I felt like I’d fallen in love with my record. That’s so bad, isn’t it!?” he laughs. world. Although Billy tells us they always feel a
wife all over again and my family were saying to bit excluded at events like these. In fact, the
me that they’d got the old Billy back, and I do he Subways formed in 2003. They’re a song ‘We Get Around’ is about how out of the
feel like I felt when I was a kid. I have my darker Tvery close-knit trio with Billy and Josh loop they feel. “We just feel like every time we’re
moments but I find ways to get through that. But being brothers, while Charlotte and Billy were backstage at festivals we’re excluded. We see
yeah, giving up drinking has given me a new boyfriend and girlfriend for a number of years. other bands going up and high fiving each other
way, not just in life but in music as well.” They formed the band in their teens. Being from and hugging, and going ‘Hey bro, how ya doing?
We ask if it was hard to stay off the alcohol. Welwyn Garden City they’d travel into London in Haven’t seen you in a couple of weeks and
Did he have any moments where he craved a the early days to play shows with older bands. we’re just the geeky kids sat in the corner by
drink? A regular venue and favourite of theirs was the ourselves, going out front, watching the other
“There were definitely moments but these Buffalo Bar. Sadly, this closed down on New bands. If there’s anyone that we really admire
were split second moments,” Billy replies. “I’d Years Eve after being forced to shut its doors by we’re kind of douchebags, begging that we’re
crave… “I can do it, I can just have half a pint,” the landlord after 14 years. The Subways man- not worthy, so we just feel like yeah, we’re ex-
but then I’d realize that I couldn’t just have the aged to play one last show there on December cluded out of that.”
pint, I’d never just have the one drink. The kind 3rd, and while rehearsing for this show one day, That said, one musician who has opened
of person that I am, I seek out oblivion. I seek Billy burst into tears. his arms to the band is Tim Burgess of The
the abyss in some really macabre way and in He says, “The moment came when I was Charlatans. The Subways played a Save The
order for me to face that and articulate it, I need practicing these old songs that we wrote specif- Children Christmas charity show with The Char-
the clarity that sobriety brings. In order to write ically to play at the Buffalo Bar when we were latans at Union Chapel a day after their final Buf-
songs and understand the feelings that go on in kids, when we were 16, 17, 18 years old, pre- falo Bar show, in December, and Tim invited Billy
my brain I need the clarity and vision, I need to tending to be 18 years and over, leaving school to join him onstage for a song.
be able to focus and if I did just have that one and going to the Buffalo Bar and playing gigs “I’m a huge Charlatans fans anyway so it
pint, it wouldn’t just be the one pint, I’d just lose with 25 year olds. All those memories of rather was just great to be sharing the stage with the
myself in nothingness I think. I’ve realized that than going home and doing our homework, it Charlatans that evening and I talk with Tim
I’ve got an addictive personality and now I’m ad- was sort of catching the train into London and sometimes on Twitter. And it was a really, really
dicted to music, I’m addicted to my family, I’m playing rock ‘n’ roll shows. Playing all of those nerve-racking show. We usually play these loud,
addicted to literature, I’m addicted to theatre, I’m songs and rehearsing them for the last ever raucous, crazy shows and when we were asked
addicted to life. So it’s just about refocusing all show at the Buffalo Bar, the place where we feel to strip down and play acoustically it feels like
these addictive tendencies I have into positive our heart still resides. The heart of the Subways we’re going on stage completely naked, every-
ways.” is all about the Buffalo Bar. We met the people thing’s very bare bones, the stakes are ringing
Billy tells us that since abstaining from alco- there who changed our lives forever, who sup- around you, especially at Union Chapel, with its
hol, he’s also even given up eating meat. “Since ported us through so much. We met our man- really high ceiling, beautiful setting, if you make
I quit drinking I’ve turned vegetarian as well. ager who is still with us today down there, when a mistake it rings round you. Luckily we didn’t
Since I quit drinking I can see everything so he was working as a sound engineer on the PA make too many mistakes but it’s always in the
clearly and I love animals. How can I equate my system. At one gig we were 2 or 3 songs in, back of your head, ‘don’t make a mistake –
THE SUBWAYS