Tim Hughes talks to an unsung hero of the Oxford music scene – Charly Coombes – ahead of the UK festival debut of his new band.

ANYONE with older siblings will know what it’s like to grow up in their shadow.

But how much worse it must be if those brothers happen to be global rock stars. It says a lot about Charly Coombes that it doesn’t really bother him.

The younger brother of Supergrass frontmen Gaz and Rob, Charly has never been content to sit around on the sidelines, forging his own interesting and successful career as a gigging artist before joining the family band, and – at the same time – setting up his latest venture Charly Coombes & the New Breed.

“Supergrass has helped and hindered me at different times,” he says, talking from his home in Wheatley while the rest of the band roll up for a trip to London for a gig that night.

“Some people like to think I’ve hung on to the coat tails of that band, but I’ve always been doing my own thing.”

And he’s not kidding. Cutting his teeth more than a decade ago with bands like Tumbleweed and Four Way Trauma, he joined indie-rockers 22-20s (of Devil in Me fame), going on to support Oasis. He has, more recently, also performed with Oxford singer-songwriter Richard Walters He became involved with Supergrass while filling in for Rob on keys on the Road to Rouen tour, and then providing guitar, percussion and backing vocals.

He joined the lads on sixth studio album Diamond Hoo Ha, and stepped in when bassist Mick Quinn injured himself while on holiday in France – joining the band for their Christmas homecoming gigs at Oxford Town Hall.

Oh – and under the pseudonym Chas Harrison, he directed Supergrass’s tour videos – and even a rockumentary for Gaz’s side project the Diamond Hoo Ha Men.

Now busy gigging with the New Breed, which he formed last year, he remains part of the final Supergrass line-up until their farewell gig in Paris on June 11.

“Supergrass has been a big part of my life, as it’s what my brothers do,” he explains.

“I am still involved, but that has coincided with this project,” he says. “I have never really felt like a member of Supergrass – but they are a passionate, energetic band, and it’s been fun.”

But it is being at the helm of his own band – alongside Dave Ashworth on guitar, Jake Roos on bass and Rory Kirkpatrick on drums, which has got him excited, and earned him and his mates a slot at this weekend’s Wychwood Festival, at Cheltenham racecourse.

“I’ve been writing songs since the age of 11,” he says. “And this is something I’ve always wanted to do.”

The band wasted no time getting their soul-infused rock & roll out there, cutting EP Panic, and completing a US tour which saw them playing a set with Dave Grohl and Rami Jaffee of Foo Fighters, appearing at the South-by-Southwest festival in Austin, Texas – and gigging at a bar owned by 24 star and Hollywood badboy Kiefer Sutherland in Los Angeles.

“He was a little bit worse for wear,” says Charly of the Jack Bauer actor, who has a ferocious reputation for drunken hell-raising. “He was dancing in the front row – and we had a few drinks with him after.”

Music has always been in his blood – with him making his first forays across the piano keyboard at the age of five.

That lifelong love runs through the music of the New Breed.

“I’ve always been heavily into soul and Motown, but also into British acts - like The Clash, David Bowie and The Smiths – and American rock. So we’re not quite indie and not quite rock, and are well away from any cliquey scene.”

This weekend’s Wychwood Festival gig will be followed by a headline slot at an Oxford Bands and Cocktails night at Oxford castle on August 1, and – before that – a return to Truck Festival, which takes place at Hill Farm, Steventon, from July 23-25.

“This will be the third time I’ll have played Truck,” he recalls. “I played the first with Tumbleweed, then last year with Supergrass – which was amazing.”

* Charly Coombes & the New Breed play Wychwood Festival at Cheltenham racecourse this weekend.