'The Valves' talk about their early days, live shows, and new music

"It's cringy when you see a band rocking up to gigs with their mothers!" Jake McGuinness says laughingly - but The Valves have had the experience, having met through music classes in secondary school. Today, McGuinees and his bandmates - Jake, Aaron and Robert - are a rowdy rock group with a neat pop sensibility.

With an impressive run of live shows under their belt - most recently supporting Aslan at The Big Top in Limerick - The Valve attracted attention for their November single Running On Blind, which they plan to follow up this summer. "We've booked three days in Abbey Lane Studios in Drogheda," explains Jake.

"We're going to work on our second single - we're really excited to get back in there, because we know it's going to sound amazing!" Meanwhile, the band are sharpening their material through live performance. "I was once told that a live gig is worth a thousand rehearsals," reflects Jake.

"So you can practice as much as you want, but getting on a stage is always completely different. We've worked to get more live gigs for this exact reason - to build ourselves up. As a result of that, we're flat out now booking even more dates - every weekend up until the end of July. We're all in college now too, studying very different things - but we're still pushing on with this band."

The Valves play with Aslan at the Iveagh Gardens, Dublin on July 21.