The walls are plastered with posters of The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix and more. It’s not the man-cave of some middle-aged classic rock dude, but the bedroom of 19-year-old Jay Millar, the singer, songwriter and lead guitarist with The Gnomes.

He still lives with his parents in Frankston, a 40-minute drive south of Melbourne on Port Phillip Bay.

“Frankston has kind of a bad reputation as being rough because it’s at the end of the railway line and it’s very working class,” says Millar. “But it has this great music scene that revolves around a place called Singing Bird, which has rehearsal rooms, a recording studio and a live venue.”

Despite his tender years, Millar has been writing, recording and releasing his own music (along with spirited cover versions of everything from The Easybeats’ She’s So Fine to The Kaisers’ She’s Gonna Two Time) on Bandcamp for a couple of years, both under his own name and using the moniker Gnome.

The Gnomes – Millar on lead vocals and guitar, Ned Capp on second guitar, Olly Katsianis on bass and Ethan Robins on drums – have only been together around a year, with all the musicians coming from the Singing Bird scene.

Millar had recorded the entire debut album from The Gnomes by himself, playing and singing everything on it, but as the group’s sound developed, he decided to re-record it with the band.

The raw energy radiating from the songs is undeniable and there’s little doubt about his influences – I’ll Be There has buoyant early-Beatles harmonies and Merseybeat chiming guitars; Flippin’ Stomp crosses the Monkees with 1960s Nuggets-style garage rock; I Like It has a shuddering chord progression which suggests The Kinks and The Easybeats.

“I just find it really inspiring to listen to all those bands from back then,” says Millar. “I’m grateful I’m at an age where I have Google and Spotify, because I can trace the influences of bands I like and then I can quickly find so much music.