Every now and again you see the usual tripe that rock music is dead. No it isn't, otherwise people wouldn't continue to pick up instruments, write and play tunes that they love.

New Valley Wolves come from the school of playing loud and furiously.

They are unashamedly rock out and make no apologies for it. Over the past three years, Dublin duo Jonny Lucey and Baz Joyce have been building to the point of getting their début album out, a labour of their musical passion.

Trying to juggle full time jobs, relationships and responsibilities with maintaining a hectic gigging schedule and recording schedule is something you can only do if you've got understanding friends and family plus that burning hunger to be in a band.

Lucey acknowledged this "It aint easy. We’re both working full-time jobs and have lots of other stuff going on outside of the band too. But when you love something you’ll always find the time for it. The goal is to be able to sustain a living out of music, but it takes more than talent and ambition to achieve that – there’s an element of dumb luck involved and being in the right place at the right time and having the right person see you.

"We’re happy the way we’re progressing though. It takes a lot of effort, but most of the time it doesn't feel like work – and one good show can make a mountain of shit worth the climb."

Having spent their time in various other bands and not going anywhere, Lucey and Joyce made the decision to form New Valley Wolves back in 2012. Both felt the zest and zeal that accompanies being in a new band  with the feeling that they can really do something. They quickly put out the carnivorous single Fire In The Blood and were gigging hard around the country.

That urge that nothing could stop them soon gave way to  the realisation for Lucey that they needed to take a breather and take things a little slower.

"It’s not that recording the album was more complicated than we thought, we just got really really busy. We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to get the album out quickly. We were gigging all over the country, working 9 to 5, writing new songs and trying to fit in time to get to the studio. Eventually, we just said ‘Fuck it’ and took all that built up pressure off ourselves – we didn’t want to rush it and did not want to stop gigging. We’ve produced a better album as a result."

Over the course of three years, it was inevitable that some songs written during the initial flurry of song-writing would not make the cut "Yeh, there was a handful of songs that we recorded in the early days that got cut. The thing about this album is that it charts us as a band right from our beginning. Fire in The Blood and Athens were the very first songs we ever recorded together. Both are on the album. Other songs we had written in the three and a bit years got cut because we outgrew them or felt that they didn’t represent us properly." 

The ultimate test is to see how new tunes go down at live shows. If people haven't heard a song before and take to it in the same fashion as more well established tunes then you know it's a keeper. As far as Lucey is concerned "it’s survival of the fittest and only the best of the best made it onto the album. Have you ever seen the movie Bloodsport with Jean Claude Van Damme? It was basically like that except with songs."

The New Valley Wolves songs are industrial sized slabs of riffs, crashing symbals and snares. The two members influences act as counterweights to each other ensuring that they don't simply end up sounding like a facsimile of their individual musical inspirations.

Lucey agreed on this "though it’s something we’re always aware of, avoiding the odd aping hasn't been a major issue for us. Again it helps that we come from such different music backgrounds. Baz will always take an idea in a different direction to how I would have and vice versa – which is awesome. We always try new things with song structures and make sure our tunes each have their own distinct character. All of this shit comes naturally to us, it’s nothing we fret and worry about really. For me my biggest influences are bands like QOTSA, BRMC, Grinderman (anything with Nick Cave lyrically), Rage Against The Machine. Baz was heavily influenced by The Stone Roses, Friendly Fires, The Foo Fighters and Humanzi." 

It's a fine line paying homage to your musical idols whilst being distinguishable enough to appear unique. Lucey though is confident that New Valley Wolves have managed to maintain that balance. Being a two piece band , it would be very easy to lump them as another The Black Keys or Royal Blood.

"Our sound makes us different. It’s very easy for people to compare us with the bands mentioned (above). The fact that we both come from different music backgrounds with different influences gives us a sound that’s our own. The way we structure our tunes and the sounds we use set us apart. Being a two piece we have to be economical with our arrangements and we do this in our own unique way. Every song is a reflection of some combined aspect of our personalities.

"Our sound is heavy as fuck but you can still dance to it – and dance you will!". Not that Lucey minds being compared to music he loves "when people do compare us to Death From Above 1979 and Royal Blood etc we take it as a compliment because those bands are fuckin’ deadly. We’re not trying to be the ‘Irish Royal Blood’, we just aim to make music that excites us and that we’re proud of."

New Valley Wolves have a reputation as a seriously hard working band, not afraid to trek all around the country to play live. It wouldn't be normal if there were not a few sure tales from their days on the road that The Hardy Bucks would be proud of.  "Yeh there’s definitely a few wild tales of woe and adventure from touring. The thing that hits us the most though is the characters you meet along the way. The crazy fuckers living in the cities, towns and parishes around Ireland who come to our gigs."

It would have been disservice to GoldenPlec readers to not press for more detail and Lucey was only to happy to oblige "One time in Cork City there was a full on bar brawl during one of our shows, we ended up helping in running a couple of dickheads out of the venue with a kick in the ass for good measure. Got a few free pints for that – bonus."

That's sounds like something straight out of Hardy Bucks. But Lucey wasn't finished yet "This one time after a gig deep in the Midlands we stayed in possibly the biggest stoner in Ireland’s gaff. He didn’t know his own address the next day for our taxi and told the driver to go up a road until he heard the bees nest and take the next left."

But it's festivals where the most source of fun were to be found. Well fun if it involves not sleeping, losing your band mate and not having anywhere to stay "We had a fuckin’ blast playing RoryFest a while back. It’s still one of our favourite shows to date. We rocked a tight set in front of a massive crowd and then went on an absolute rampage for the rest of the day. Baz the fucker ended up falling asleep in a mate’s tent (which we couldn’t find), with the car keys in his pocket which meant I had nowhere to sleep. Luckily our Road Manager Deasy managed to borrow a tent off some fella who had fallen asleep outside his own one. By the time we finally had somewhere to lay our weary heads it was feckin’ time to leave."

For Lucey and Joyce, those memories stick vividly i their minds but right now, it's all about New Valley wolves preparing for their album launch "Our main focus right now is the album - launching 'Refusal is Our Weapon' and getting it onto as many radars as humanly possible in order to do it justice. In terms of gigs, we’ve got a fairly major appearance at Sea Sessions lined up.  We’ll probably hit London at some stage during the summer and maybe further afield.

"Our ambitions and hopes for 2015 are to reach a wider audience, play bigger shows and take over the motherfuckin’ world."