Returning to the North East in support of Ash, Lee Allcock caught up with The Subways bassist, Charlotte, to speak about Germany, local bands and more.
You’re heading out on a European tour with Ash. How are you feeling?
I’ve been a huge fan of Ash for years. When we started out, they were one of the bands that really inspired me. Charlotte doesn’t play with them anymore, but she was one of my biggest women inspirations when I first started playing. And they have so many classic songs and big tunes. I’m just excited that I get to play with them every night.
And how does a British crowd differ from a European crowd?
For us, we’ve found a bit of a home in Europe – especially Germany which is very much like our second home. We always get a really good response and have played some cool festivals. So we’re looking forward to taking Ash with us.
And where are you most looking forward to visiting on this tour? Is there a particular city or town you love the most?
There are quite a lot of venues on this tour that we haven’t played before actually, and considering how long we’ve been going, that’s pretty surprising. There’s a venue in Prague called Lucerna Music Bar. It’s quite an unusual venue because the stage is circular, so everybody is around with you, and that’s pretty unique.
You’ve been together now for over 15 years. Can you believe how fast the time has gone?
No – it’s been crazy. It’s been half my life now. But we still love it and we’re so grateful that we still get to play in the UK and tour Europe. You never know what’s around the corner in this industry so that’s what keeps things exciting.
What have been some of your favourite moments over the last 15 years?
When we go on stage at a festival and there are way more people than you expect – that’s always a highlight of mine. Even now, it’s always such a nice surprise to see people coming out to see you. And if they all know the songs and have a big party with us, that’s what it’s all about. But that initial moment when you walk out and see the crowd, it takes your breath away.
And what have you learned over the years?
I’ve learnt to try and go with the flow a bit more as it’s difficult to control things when you don’t know what’s going to happen. Obviously covid was a huge surprise and something nobody could have predicted, but Covid gave me a chance to really appreciate it all as you don’t know when it’s going to stop. We genuinely still love touring and writing and recording songs and I just need to enjoy the moment a little bit more.
I know we’ve spoken about the European dates, but we can’t wait to have you back in Newcastle. What can gig-goers expect?
We’re really excited about coming back to the North East as we’ve had some great shows over the years. We played Newcastle just before everything went crazy with covid, and we played Sunderland recently and that was our favourite show on the tour.
I was actually at that show. I saw Billy in the crowd and it looked like he loved the support acts…
Yeah, we had Gaffa Tape Sandy on tour with us and then local band BigFatBig. We love Gaffa Tape Sandy and we all loved checking out the support bands throughout that tour. We were like “Let’s get dinner really quick so we can catch the support bands.”
You can catch The Subways supporting Ash at NX, Newcastle on Saturday 7th October. Tickets, priced at £25.00, are available from ticketweb.uk.
