Wayne Soper and Franky Kelly are tired of hearing the same music looped endlessly on mainstream Irish radio. Along with fellow bandmates from The Hot Sprockets, they hope their music will re-ignite passion and enthusiasm for undervalued blues and garage rock. Wayne, the Sprocket’s guitarist, told The Ballyfermot Press how he’d love to see a blues revival.

“People need to realise how important blues is. Blues started all rock’n'roll and guitar music. Ask any rock band from Oasis to The Rolling Stones and they’ll all say that blues is the source of their produce. It seems like it’s been forgotten about, especially in Ireland”.

The Hot Sprockets comprise of Wayne Soper, Timmy Cullen (also guitar), Joey Lynch (bass) and brothers Franky (harmonica) and Adrian Kelly (drums), all but Adrian add to the vocals. They are five passionate South Dubliners hoping to shake things up on the Irish music scene. After two years together, Wayne feels the band is finally getting the recognition it deserves.

“At the start we just did small gigs, we didn’t really push it enough. Then we realised you have to work hard if you want to get noticed. It’s only happening now because we’re working harder”.
Wayne and Joey originally played in another band, Soper’s Dirt, an act formed with two of Wayne’s brothers. “We weren’t like The Hot Sprockets. We were influenced by Sonic Youth and stuff like that. It was experimental, alternative rock then we just drifted apart because my older brother had two kids and he didn’t have the time to be gigging”.

When the boys came together to form The Hot Sprockets, they all agree “something just clicked”.
“Joe and I had been playing guitar for a long time but Timmy only started when the band formed and Franky only started playing harmonica the week before our first gig. It was all just for fun. Once we played the first song together though we had to keep playing, we knew it would work”. Their sound is an eclectic mix of rock, blues and country. To some it may echo the alluring sound of Kings of Leon.

The band played their first gig in Slattery’s on Capel St in 2006 and has since played regular sets with friends from the Primal Jelly Social Club in various venues throughout Dublin. The launch of their first E.P. ‘Country Dirt’ was held in Temple Bar’s Button Factory recently to a group of 300 enthusiastic fans. The lads looked every inch the quintessential rock band as the crowd chanted their catchiest numbers ‘Sleep Shake’ and ‘Solid Gold’ back at them.

Developing a new sprockets tune is very much a team effort according to Wayne.
“Tim and I will write the basics of a song on the guitar and then we sit down and play it to the rest. After that we all start to make changes. Joe would be big into the structure of the song and Franky would build on the melody with his harmonica”.

For a group of lads in their early twenties it’s curious to discover where their interest in blues rock stemmed from. “Our parents like all that stuff, my Da’ has been in a band for about thirty years, he plays harmonica,” Franky tells me. Wayne jumps in, “Franky’s Da’ has a cool old record collection and Tim’s Ma’ and Da’ are mad into blues. Tim showed me Robert Johnson for the first time about three years ago and I got really into that. I started playing slides and trying different styles of guitar. Music is kind of in my family too, my brothers taught me guitar and my uncle also wrote a song for Eurovision and… it won.”

The band is keeping busy with regular gigs and are looking forward to big things following the launch of ‘Country Dirt’. Wayne is not giving up the day-job just yet though. “I worked as a sparks when I left school and then I took a year off. Now I work in the Post Office just to get some cash. I need to save money for Christmas. It’s just me and Joey who work. Joey’s in college too”. Joey completed the Rock School course at BCFE and is now in his second year of the Music Production Diploma. Franky, Adrian and Timmy are spending all their time practicing with the band.

So what’s in store for The Hot Sprockets in 2009?
Wayne thinks for a moment… “I’d love to play in Europe. A couple of bands we know have friends that put on festivals there, garage rock festivals and alternative festivals. They’d be kind of like Castle Palooza here. To get onto them would be cool. Castle Palooza has mainly Irish bands, they should really get some bands from Europe over and then Irish bands could go over to play at the European festivals - try and connect the world more”.

With tight live performances and an impressive debut album, the musical talents of The Hot Sprockets may well take them down that road that connects the world a little bit more.