Metros singer Saul Adamczewski is not having a good day the afternoon of this interview. The Metros have just had to cancel a two-week tour due to an alcohol-related injury suffered by drummer Freddi Hyde-Thompson. On top of that, Adamczewski had a bag with all his clothes stolen the night before at a pub, after his girlfriend had washed them for him. Despite such grave misfortunes, however, the 19-year-old remains optimistic about the band’s near future.

“Now we’ll be in top condition for the festivals,” he says, referring to the break they can now take from performing after the drummer’s fall down some stairs.

And they’ll need to be in top condition because The Metros are indeed playing quite a number of major festivals this summer. The South London pop/punk quintet are set to appear at Glastonbury, Subway Picnic Rocks, Reading and Leeds, Z008, Oxegen and T in the Park, to name a few.

“I’m not a massive fan of big festivals just cause there’s too many wankers there,” says Adamczewski. “I’m looking forward to the small ones most.”

This isn’t to say that smaller festivals are free of wankers, but that this summer’s line-up at one festival in particular, Z008, will feature an act Adamczewski really wants to see - Chas & Dave.

“I think they’re pretty much our musical predecessors,” says the singer.

Tongue-in-cheek influences aside, in reality the punk/pop band from Peckham, South London list Squeeze, The Libertines and Ian Dury and the Blockheads as acts holding major sway on their music. Baxter Dury, son of Ian, produced some of their demos and in 2006 The Metros were signed to label 1965 Records. The band released their first single, Education Pt. 2, last March and have just put out their follow-up this June, Last Of The Lookers (the video for which shows the band’s unruly cool-teen attitude as they interrupt the singer at the loo and champagne-swigging girls frolic around). As co-founder of the band alongside guitarist Jak Payne, Adamczewski is the principal writer of their songs about life in South London, the failures of the system and general teenage rowdiness.

“They’re just stories. They’re just about us and our mates,” he says, with no intention of finding some deep meaning in his tunes. “Writing songs is the best part of being in a band. It’s my favorite part of it really,” he admits.

Adamczewski’s raspy South London brawl is detectable in his vocals, which, given the nature of his songs, are more like talking than proper singing (“Not like Mariah Carey or anything like that”).

The stolen laundry bag aside, Adamczewski is keeping a cool head about his life’s recent developments. There is no hint of the usual eagerness characteristic of so many indie acts, and this despite two released singles, one album coming out in September (he thinks) and a summer full of festivals to be played.

“I’ve no plans of taking over the world or becoming the next biggest band,” he says. “I think we just wanna be able to carry on doing this and not have to have jobs; just keep playing as long as we can do it and are happy to do it.”

He is only 19, after all. A couple of years ago these guys couldn’t even drink (legally at least), so they see no rush to compete with the myriad bands trying to break into the market. What drives The Metros, or at least Adamczewski, at the moment, are things that teenagers (like the ones in their audiences) can definitely relate to.

“We just did it to get free beer, get some friends, become more popular… that was the kind of game plan in the beginning,” he admits in a rather matter-of-fact tone. “We always talked about being, like, famous or whatever, but only in the same way you would wanna be a football player or wanna be a Spice Girl or something like that. I’m not gonna put all my eggs in one basket. I’m not gonna say ‘I’m gonna be big or I’m gonna be a failure.’ I don’t really think past like lunchtime.”

And lunchtime it is. He probably won’t find his stolen clothes, but at this point it already seems like that is now just another concern he has waved aside.

Christina Cromeyer Dieke