I Want To Hear What You've Got To Say
2005. Discovering The Subways.
“Every venue is an adventure, every lyric I scream is the truth. Every night is the best night of my life.”
April 2005. I'm in the school library, flicking through the latest issue of Rocksound UK (I need to work on my English, it's my baccalauréat year after all) when I stumble upon a Camden Crawl live report. A picture captures my attention. Three youngsters looking like they're taking a small stage by storm: two guys, and a girl rocking a Fender Precision bass. They're called The Subways.
I don't know it yet, but this band is about to change the entire trajectory of my life.
“Young For Eternity is a time capsule of teenage love and rage, yet still relevant twenty years later”
It's an exciting time for the band. Billy Lunn, Charlotte Cooper and Josh Morgan are barely twenty and they've just released ‘Oh Yeah’, the first single off their debut album Young For Eternity; they're bringing their fast, scrappy energy all around Europe. That summer, we're all on the cusp of something bigger: them, taking over the world, and me, piecing together who I am becoming. After buying the single off HMV (I vaguely remember calling them - those were the days) I pool the little savings I have in order to secure a ticket to the Paris festival Rock en Seine, where they're due to play that August. And thus starts a love affair that spans two decades, three countries and countless gigs (34 at the time of writing this entry).
The burgeoning early-2000s indie landscape is dominated by wealthy people who are way older than me and a carefully curated aesthetic - I do love the music but I struggle to connect with the popular kids in the crowd.
With The Subways, it's different.
We're pretty much the same age. They reference bands I adore: Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, Nirvana, Deftones, Ash. They're unapologetic pop lovers who cite Kylie Minogue freely (their cover of ‘In My Arms’ is an absolute gem). In the hipster landscape of music journalism snobs and wannabe poets, it's a revelation. Being in their orbit is exhilarating - It's the glorious time of online forums, where I meet friends for a season and friends for life. It's also the first time I see musicians being so accessible and friendly, thanks to the likes of MySpace and message boards.
Young For Eternity is a time capsule of teenage love and rage, yet still relevant twenty years later. There's the youthful bravado of living fast and loud ('Oh Yeah', 'City Pavement'), grand love gestures mixed with nostalgia ('With You', 'No Goodbyes'), the punk sounds of 'Holiday' and the title track, and the noisy textures of 'Somewhere', the album closer (a sonic palette they will explore more on their sophomore album, All or Nothing).
The angst of the opener 'I Wanna Hear What You've Got To Say' is a firm favourite. The trademark back-and-forth between Billy and Charlotte carries through the track, ferocious guitars and relentless drums bring it to anthemic highs. "Another day is here and I am still alive" speaks to me as a 19-year-old wrestling with feelings that are way too big to handle. (As a 39-year-old living through countless unprecedented times, it does hit different).
The Young For Eternity era is like no other - with a band who were giving the best performance of its life, over and over again. I see them in Lille in September 2006, feeling this was their best gig to date, only for them to top it the following day at Fête de L'Humanité. The energy on and off-stage is electric. From Paris to my hometown of Reims, London to Dour, Harlow to La Roche, every venue is an adventure, every lyric I scream is the truth. Every night is the best night of my life.
The Subways provide the score and the backdrop to a lot of my firsts: first time falling in love (and subsequently, first time getting my heart absolutely shattered, in a random train station, miles away from home); first time travelling abroad on my own at twenty - a summer I will never forget, walking around London, feeling free, feeling like it makes sense.
“In 2005, a Subways gig was a refuge from my own chaos. In 2025, it's a triumph of life.”
A friend I meet at a gig creates The Metropolitans, the first (and only) French website and street team dedicated to The Subways, and invites me to maintain the community, pushing me to take my music writing more seriously. To this day, The Subways remain the band I've interviewed the most (a whopping five times, through video and written articles).
With this new project, friendships grow stronger, traditions are held on both sides of the channel for years to come: holiday meet-ups, inside jokes only we can get, random road trips to see each other, requests to play obscure b-sides. I become a familiar face in the crowd. There are meetings with record labels and promoters, backstage passes handed over when I can barely afford to eat. Some friends become more to me. Some become less. The gigs are an anchor, online banter and MSN chat camaraderie get me through some of my worst times. We exchange mixtapes. There are afterparties, DJ sets, last-minute trips to London; late nights at my place, piled on a mattress where secrets and music are shared. I write better, more often. I become fluent, both in English and in sarcasm. I open my heart too many times, and yet their music catches me at every fall.
The Subways also open a door to bands I love dearly, one of them being the reason I attend Brighton's Great Escape Festival in 2009, another life-defining moment. When it's time to make choices a few years later, there's no hesitation about where I'm going to go. I wouldn't be living in the UK if it weren't for them. I wouldn't be the person I am without the music, and the people I met through the band.
Over the next decade, Young For Eternity features in various milestones: the engagements, the weddings, the babies born and sweetly nicknamed little Rock & Roll Queens. I proudly play ‘No Goodbyes’ when I leave my French studio flat for the last time. Heartbreaks have gotten quieter, replaced with both the hellscape of corporate existence and the calm of suburban life.
Still, at every tour, I try to be front row, screaming "My head is spinning around, I don't know what to do" at the top of my lungs. For a night I get to live fast, just like I did at nineteen. In 2005, a Subways gig was a refuge from my own chaos. In 2025, it's a triumph of life, a safe house where old friends and long-lost forum members collide for a moment.
"My best days are with you.”
Happy 20th anniversary Young For Eternity. Thank you for making me, me.
(Please, play ‘You Got Me’ next time?)
The Subways are Billy Lunn, Charlotte Cooper and Camille Phillips.
I Want To Hear What You've Got To Say was written by The Subways.
The Subways are touring later this year to celebrate 20 years of YFE. Catch them live and learn more here
This is so cool. I kinda don’t like this band at all but I loved reading this. So good, made me appreciate it them via you.