The first thing you notice on seeing The Strypes play is what a phenomenal live band they are, wailing and howling and strutting like a raw rhythm and blues band. The second thing you notice is the crowd – recently, the band have been packing out rooms around the country, and with audiences flecked with rock royalty. And the third thing you notice is their age. The Strypes are a proper phenomenon. Four boys aged 15 and 17, they are players with chops way beyond their years, the hard-earned result of years spent honing their craft in Irish pubs, hotels and music halls, where they’d often play for up to two and a half hours at a time. “The Irish pub band ethos is play for really long, or you’re no good,” says guitarist Josh. “And sometimes there’d be five people there, and they’d just want to hear play ‘Whiskey In The Jar’,” says drummer Evan. “So we developed a trick to make them pay attention – we play really LOUD!” Bassist Pete O’Hanlon, drummer Evan Walsh and guitarist Josh McClorey have known each other as long as they can remember, growing up together in Cavan, a small, pleasant, working class town near the border with Northern Ireland. And for just as long, they’ve been delving into the record collections of their parents. It’s in the black plastic grooves of their parents’ LPs that they became fans of a series of artists not commonly discussed among their peers: Doctor Feelgood and Dave Edmunds, Howlin’ Wolf and Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters and ‘Baby Face’ Leroy Foster. They can talk at great length – and frothy enthusiasm – about all of them. “We started off listening to Stiff Records and The Stones and the ‘60s bands, then it was listen to this, listen to this, and then it kind of went back to the '50s – and then the '40s, '30s and '20s…,” says Ross. They’re not retro snobs – they like Jack White, The Black Keys, Arctic Monkeys, Jake Bugg, Miles Kane and more – but they do place themselves in direct opposition to the X Factor artists and manufactured pop. “The X Factor is not about people wanting to be an artist and share music, it’s just get rich quick, 15 minutes of fame,” says bassist Pete. “There’s no artist satisfaction – it’s just going through the motions of getting famous for a couple of months or years. It’s artificial.” In falling in love with this music, they started doing what generations of blues lovers did before them – playing the music themselves, assembling into a crack guitar, bass and drums formation. Singer Ross Farrelly was the last to join, recruited after he appeared solo on the same bill as the band. He donned his trademark Ray Ban shades at his first group performance and the image stuck. “It started because I was nervous – I wore them so I wouldn't be able to see anybody,” he says. “Then it just became a thing – I become a completely different person on stage.”