Meet Wolves of Youth, an indie rock band consisting of four cool young lads from Bundoran, Co. Donegal: Garry Doherty (Guitar/Lead Vocals), Stephen Shelly (Guitar/Vocals), Ciaran/’Smoothy’ O’Reilly (Bass/Vocals) and Danny McGettigan (Drums/ Vocals).They've just released their new video 'It's Not For You'. Their dynamic rock sound will make you feel (a) young, (b) wild and (c) free.
When did you start the band?
Garry: We started the band three years ago, we were playing at a party in Smoothy’s (Ciaran) hometown.
Why ‘Wolves Of Youth’?
Garry: One day we asked ourselves: ‘What do we want this band to be?’, we thought about sheep but we’re not followers, so then it became ‘wolves’.
Ciaran: And ‘youth’ is just that... We don’t want to get old!
How could you describe your sound?
Garry: We play music that is catchy! We just want people to dance and be able to sing! We want to play music that we would like to hear at a gig - when you feel a good energy and everybody’s singing along!
What are your influences?
Garry: We have a lot of them! The main ones are Kings of Leon, Biffy Clyro, Catfish And The Bottlemen, The Academic and All Tvvins.
Danny: These are our influences, but we don’t want to sound like them. We just pick up things.
Describe your creative process...
Danny: We’re writing the songs together, we start with an instrumental. Sometimes Garry comes with lyrics, and Smoothy starts playing bass, and then it just happens. We can write a song in half a day, then we take a break and start jamming and a totally new and different song comes out! We just leave our phones recording, and we keep playing and playing. The inspiration just comes out. We don’t even think about it.
Garry: We grew up with music, and we all have different musical influences that we bring on the table: for example Danny is a little bit more into heavy metal. As for the songs, we write about sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll - and that’s it! We do everything by ourselves and we work hard, that’s the best way to do it - we’re not pushed, and we don’t do things because we have to.
How did you begin to make records?
Garry: We made a friend in the Irish Music Party Community on Twitter. It all came from a tweet. He listened to our work and told us ‘We should work together!’. And that’s where it all started. We began to record with the amazing Philip Magee and that’s where we are now.
What's the most challenging part of doing what you do?
Garry: Getting more and more gigs, because you have to keep playing and keep going.
What have been the highlights to date?
Garry: We played in different big festivals across Ireland like Sea Sessions, Electric Picnic, Indiependence and Bare In The Woods. Our tunes have been played on the radio, we were really surprised you know, we were played between big bands that do the things we want to do! We also did a cover on RTE 2FM, we were invited. Actually, tonight (at Whelan’s gig) is the first time we got a feedback: people started to sing our songs... we never had this before!
What are your plans for the future?
Ciaran: World domination!! No. Seriously, a few more gigs and festivals are coming up, our new single is out... We mainly want to headline festivals, get as big as we possibly can - and not only in Ireland!
Wolves of Youth’s new single It’s Not For You is out now. They play the Bare In The Woods festival in June.
