At the start of the year, The Rubens were just another young band with an undeniably catchy track and a collective head full of dreams. By the end of it, they will be standing tall on the Australian musical landscape, their guitar-led rhythm and blues vision delivered as smoothly as a glass of aged whiskey neat, their nonchalant demeanour cooler than the suited man that's sipping it. It's all rather impressive from a quartet of unassuming young blokes from Menangle, a tiny NSW village 70 kilometres from Sydney.

Days before the release of their self-titled debut, Time Off catches Sam Margin on the way out to Warrnambool for the first date of the album launch tour. The frontman is questioned whether this indeed feels like the most important week in the band's short career.

“Yeah, it has to be doesn't it?” he reckons. “Every week has kind of felt like that to me. There have constantly been little milestones reached and important things happening, but I think as far as important weeks go this is it. There's so much going on – we've got the album release, there's the triple j feature album and the tour's beginning, so there's three big things going down which is awesome.

“When we first started, I mean the idea of getting the triple j feature album was a dream, and now we've done that, we've played Splendour In The Grass – there's been so many things that have happened to us. And even when it was starting to kick off for us at triple j, we weren't really expecting it to keep on going, y'know what I mean? We were just content that we had people coming to our shows, so for things to just keep on escalating it's quite unbelievable, and it's great because it keeps us on our toes and it keeps reminding us how lucky we are. We're still surprised at the turnouts at shows, we're genuinely overwhelmed with the crowds – it keeps it really fresh.”

With plenty of airplay, tracks such as Don't Ever Want To Be Found, Lay It Down and My Gun already feel homely and familiar. There's a timeless nature to the band's songs that's rare in a downloadable world, and with each track on the record coming in under four minutes, it's clear the Sydneysiders are making every second count. Considering the meticulous work that's gone into crafting the songs over the past 18 months, it's surprising that Margin's favourite track on the record is in fact the last that was put down and the only one written during their stint in New York with Grammy Award winning producer David Kahne (Tony Bennett, Sublime, Lana Del Rey).

“For me, Never Be The Same is standout,” he says, regarding his personal highpoint on the record. “That hasn't been played on the radio yet, but I'm thinking a couple of singles down the line it hopefully will be. And that sound is a little bit different to what people might associate us with. It's not so much bluesy but more of a ballad perhaps more influenced by Coldplay. But listening to it [the album] there's a few different genres happening – there's some hip hop vibes going on and soul stuff in Look Good, Feel Good, and then there's some Tracy Chapman-style rock'n'roll on The Day You Went Away. Then there's all the singles that everyone's heard. One of our goals when making the album was to make sure that it didn't get boring or repetitive, and I think we've achieved that.”

Walking beside Margin for every step of The Rubens' journey have been his two brothers Zac [guitar] and Elliott [keys], and best friend Scott Baldwin [drums]. But don't go thinking their personal story involves a family bus and mass sing-alongs on annual camping trips. In fact, it's about as far removed from those rock'n'roll fairytale ideals as you'd think.

“We didn't ever play together until we started the band; we never even played in the same room,” Margin confesses. “Then the day we started the band we began playing together. A lot of people think that we've played together forever so we were already gelled, but we had to learn to play together. [We] never really thought to play together – we never wanted to.”

Although many of their musical touchstones are obvious on their record, many fans would be surprised to know that The Rubens are in fact big fans of hip hop. Although from a linear viewpoint rock'n'roll might seem at odds with the gritty rhymes of the streets, Margin is quick to connect the two.

“Both have their blues roots, and I'm all about the beat really. I just love the hip hop beats and they're quite similar to a lot of rock beats, just the simplicity in them and I think they gel together really well,” he adds. “I really like that hip hop beats have the same balls – there's so much bottom end and they just pulse. I'm into the idea of using that hip hop kick drum and placing it underneath that recorded kick drum just to give it that little extra 'oomph'. That's the main influence, is just making those drums feel big so they hit you.”

Margin points to BlacRoc, the silky smooth collaboration between lonely boys The Black Keys and the posse from Roc-A-Fella Records as the pinnacle amalgamation of these seemingly disparate worlds. “That's the perfect example and that's what inspired me the most when it came to recording drums [on the record] – that was the benchmark, that album.” But as for confirming the rumour that the guys managed to get their hands on a few of Diddy's beats while in New York City, the frontman remains coyly tight lipped. “No comment. No comment on that one,” he states with a laugh.

At the time of his interview with Time Off, the 22-year-old Margin was blissfully unaware that The Rubens' album was going to smash into the ARIA Top 3, barely beaten by P!nk and The Killers. But you only need have flicked on the radio or read some blogs to realise a legitimate groundswell of popularity has developed for the band. With this initial success and a summer of shows to continue throwing fuel on the fire, the quartet are looking towards 2013 as the year of The Rubens.

“Yeah, of course we are,” Margin playfully mocks before a level of seriousness appears behind his voice. “We've got to be – it's our job. We're thinking this year has been all about Australia. Next year we think is when we're going to branch out and start looking towards America and Europe. We've been booked for a few festivals that haven't been announced yet – we've got a few up our sleeve for Australia over the summer. Then we'll start looking overseas.”

The Rubens will be playing the following shows:

Wednesday 10 October - Hoey Moey, Coffs Harbour NSW
Thursday 11 October - Coolangatta Hotel, Gold Coast QLD
Friday 12 October - The Hi-Fi, Brisbane QLD
Saturday 13 October - Great Northern, Byron Bay NSW