Galway five-piece are quickly into their Groev

“It feels like a culmination of all the music that we’ve made so far together,” frontman Joe Sweeney says of the song.

“I suppose it is our first love song, but it feels like it’s a love song to a moment, not so much a person. You can think that way with any of our tunes so far – they all represent a different portion of life to us.”

Groev’s roots go back as far as 2019, when Sweeney and guitarist Rory O’Regan, who penned Subtle, met in their first year of college.

They practiced a couple of times alongside drummer Evan Forde in the student village at what was GMIT and is now ATU. The outfit is completed now by Jack Lennox and Forde’s brother, Keagan.

“We never really went anywhere with it,” Sweeney says. “Then five years later, I was going into my final year exams and we thought, this is the perfect opportunity to start playing music around the pubs and staying up really late.”

There is an earnestness to Groev, likely fostered by the waves of support that have rolled in their direction with every gig, single release and social media post. Sweeney says their conviction belies initial nerves.

“It kind of feels like we bypassed the feeling we were so afraid of at the start,” he explains.

“That was people making fun of you. We were very much expecting that. I come from Leitrim and we’re all from rural areas. You kind of just have this thing in over you wondering what people will think.

“But the first two songs went down really well and we ended up just bypassing that feeling. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that’s set us up for failure.”

One of the band’s big landmarks to date was the release of Tara Grove, a single named after an estate in Wellpark that took off like a rocket on streaming sites.

“I lived in Tara Grove for a couple of years,” Sweeney says.

“Myself and Rory wrote half of the first verse in that house and I remember the voice note saved [automatically] as Tara Grove. We said ‘will we just call the song that and make our life easier?’ and we never changed it.

“We’re not trying to put ourselves in the shoes of anyone else, and trying to write about other people’s lived experiences. We’re just writing what’s coming into our heads and bringing it to each other and seeing what we can make of it.

“At the moment, all the tunes are coming from a place of reflecting on times that have passed and relationships that have passed, and stuff like that. It’s a lot of reminiscing.”

Groev are happy to embrace links with big hitters in Irish folk-pop. Sweeney believes the genre is having a moment after going through a period of dormancy, partly fueled by ex-pats.

“There’s a lot of people that are abroad,” he says. “A lot of people that have moved away. They want to feel that feeling of home, even if they’re not there at the moment.”

“We all draw inspiration from different aspects of Irish music and further afield, but the way that inspiration is coming out of us definitely [fits into] that indie-folk genre of music that is so prominent at the moment.

“Myself and Rory took a lot of inspiration from, not even the music of Amble and Kingfisher, but just the gall to go for it. That’s nearly why we gave it a second chance.

"We tried at the start of 2019, left it for a while, and seeing how big Irish music is now at the moment, it gave us that second wind to give it another go.”

For evidence of the shedding of all early anxieties, you need only look at Groev’s social media, where they promote gigs and releases with a slew of creative live performance videos and sketches.

“The way I look at it is you can’t take yourself too seriously,” Sweeney says.

“Especially when what you’re trying to work at is in the arts. I feel like you have to be 100 per cent confident in what you’re doing, even if some other people mightn’t appreciate it as much as you do.

“Social media is a very tough thing. It changes so often. You really need to be on the ball and put everything you have into it. That is quite a hard thing to do. It’s quite a hard thing to be on top of the algorithm at all times.”

At the time of speaking, Groev are on the road supporting Galway singer/songwriter Jamie McIntyre on his Irish tour.

McIntyre is of course the 22-year-old singer/songwriter from Tuam.

He shot to fame with his big hit, Over Galway Town, which has over six and a half million streams and, among other milestones, he has supported Gavin James across Europe.

This is Groev’s third time accompanying him on tour, but the novelty is far from wearing off.

“The venues we’re getting to play – we played the Set Theatre in Kilkenny; we’re about to play the INEC in Killarney – you don’t really think about it until you’re there,” Sweeney says.

“It is a mad thing to be able to play these venues without that much experience under our belts. We’re very grateful for any support slot that we get.

"It definitely is a nice way to get introduced to venues like this – to turn up, do your 30 minutes and enjoy the rest of the show.”

A headliner in their own right, at the TF Royal Castlebar, is booked for May 1, with support from Jonny Moran.