The Ghost Wolves

"They play stomping blues-garage-punk possessed by who knows what kind of demon...their music has just the right overdose of voodoo punk..." - Rolling Stone Italia

"The pair tour relentlessly, showing a joy in the turn-it-up that evokes the visceral virtues of rock at its most raw and elemental." - Lenny Kaye for emusic.com

"Bodacious garage rock with a sneer" - MountainX ,Asheville NC

"The Ghost Wolves’ take on the blues-rock-duo template points in the direction of energizing showmen and musical minimalists such as Hound Dog Taylor. Carley Wolf fronts the band on bare-boned electric guitar, while her musical partner, drummer Jonny Wolf, rocks out without getting in the way. The band tours in the company of a real-life wolf, which from a distance appears friendly." - Cincinnati Courier Post


"A primal musical jewel in wolf's clothing...." - BP Fallon's Wang Dang Doodle

"Primal, grungy, lo-fi, disruptive, exhilarating..." Blurt! Online

"...for the real experience, catch them on stage where their intensity and magnetism are amplified to such levels that you might just put on a mask and let Carley call you “Grandma.” - Deli Magazine

"...they opened the evening with a roar both from the stage and, by set’s end, from the audience, too. They played so well with such obvious delight that it was impossible not to get on board." Nippertown, Albany, NY

"This duo — female singer/guitarist and male drummer — provides raw, energetic rock that sounds more like it came from the Voodoo-soaked streets of New Orleans or back alleys of New York City than the farmlands of Texas. Punk sensibility, blues style, crashing drums, scattershot harmonies and moments of folk simplicity define the band’s six-song EP, In Ya Neck!." — Jeff Hahne, Creative Loafing

"This new Texas based duo blend gritty backwoods blues with hints of Pyschobilly and folk that are conjuring up garage ghosts from the 60's and demons from the Delta. Known around the city for their energetic live show and infectious on-stage chemistry, The Ghost Wolves have been relentlessly touring their debut album, In Ya Neck!, bringing the raw and rabid rock and roll sound from their digitally unscathed record to dive bars across the plains." - Band Soup

"Vibrant delicacies plucked from a humid marsh, so damp that you might be unable to draw a deep breath...for the real experience, catch them on stage where their intensity and magnetism are amplified to such levels that you might just put on a mask and let Carley call you “Grandma." - The Deli Magazine

"The women in Ghost Wolves songs will pull knives on you and they won't be fooled by your blubbering apologies coming well after they should have come. Hell, they don't much like to give forgiveness at any time. Carley Wolf, as she's whetting her knife, sings, "You lied to the wrong woman son." Then, it's lights out." - Daytrotter

"When the Austin band finally let us off the hook and left the stage, the only thing I could think of was the fact that I wanted more. I was ready to take the tunes well into Friday morning, not well short of midnight." - Loopster Live

"Rabid Garage Blues" - Andrew Dansby, Houston Chronicle

"The Ghost wolves made a mighty punk-rock noise in a powerful opener...their spunky energy engaged the crowd so well they whipped up a noisy singalong" - Albany Daily Gazette

"Their live show is a bit of a spectacle, with Wolf, dressed all in white with a matching Warhol-esque wig, jumping around the stage as she plays. Konya is chatty between songs, making jokes and pushing the record. It's not your typical Austin act..." - Peter Mongillo, The Austin American Statesman

"The music on the duo’s debut EP “In Ya Neck” is the kind of mud-splattered, fuzz-covered, goes-to-eleven garage rock you’d expect from an act whose frontwoman is strutting across the stage in a homemade leather minidress." - The Daily Times Knoxville, TN

"The rock & roll of The Ghost Wolves has deep roots...Carley and Jonny are children of the south." - Radio FM4, Austria

"Their music is influenced by shamans, wolf dogs, and blues legend RL Burnside - that the Ghost Wolves makes it one of the most exciting newcomer band from Austin." - On3, Germany

"The two-piece band Ghost Wolves, one of several acts on the lineup from Austin, offered a twist on the White Stripes formula when drummer Jonny Wolf switched places with guitarist Carley Wolf for a song." - USA Today

"The Ghost Wolves might be a mere duo (Carley plays a vintage hollow body guitar, Jon - *Various

MCB recently dusted me off and sent me over to One Eyed Betty's to catch up with THE GHOST WOLVES from Austin, Texas. I must say, it was well worth shaking off my hibernation. And not just because they tour with a white wolf (the legend of said wolf was used to lure me in).


Carley and Jonny Wolf make up the duo, and meeting these two quiet-seeming kids gave no indication of what I was in for. Their shy politeness and slight frames made me think I might be in for some shoegazing later (hey, you never know these days)...but the wolf was no lie. I naturally arrived with enough time for a beer before showtime, so they had a few minutes to take me out back and introduce me to their tour manager and best friend: Winter the Wolf. As the silky-white canine almost the size of myself stretched and yawned at my feet, Carley explained that her family has raised generations of these lovely beasts and that Winter goes wherever they do. The image of this friendly family became even more surreal as dusk fell.


The Ghost Wolves stepped onto the stage underneath the daily specials in front of a demure audience. Carley dressed in all white; Jonny in all black, quietly grabbed their tools, gave each other a half-smile and then BLAMM! They went off like a shotgun! The two filled the room with a powerful noise that made patrons stop talking and turn in their seats. Carley wailed and howled and shredded her guitar like it deserved death; Jonny brought the Texas thunder with his drums. Undeniably entertaining, the band forced the whole room to wake up, take notice and have a good time. Their modest smiles were now wide grins and you could tell
they live to do this.



Their sound is a unique, punky-folky-bluesy mix with an old-west vibe. Hard to pinpoint, really, but definitely rock & roll (absolutely no shoegazing. Haha). When I read about the band, I saw that they are most commonly likened to the White Stripes. Though there are some similarities, I don't think that's entirely fair. Carley is not merely an afterthought just there to fill in the gaps; she is a masterful talent with a huge stage presence. Jonny does not overshadow her or hog the spotlight; they share their high-energy performance like a team and make a sound bigger than themselves. They've got their own costumes, style and story...they have a frickin' wolf! I believe they have created their own scene and I very much enjoyed watching them come to life. Their audience did too, by the end of their set they had the crowd stomping their shoes on Betty's wooden floor and clapping along to
the driving beat.


Overall this band is FUN! Check out The Ghost Wolves to see what's so infectious about them right here and here on MCB. Pick up In Ya Neck! And if you can catch one of their shows, don't miss out. Gonna be a Big Star!


- Motor City Blog

Tra i nomi che ho scoperto recentemente, i Ghost Wolves sono quelli che si avvicinano di più al modello White Stripes. Texani di Austin, suonano blues-garage-punk stomposo posseduto da chissà quale demone. Il primo a parlarmi di loro è stato Alejandro Escovedo e questo dovrebbe bastare e avanzare, ma Carley Wolf (voce e chitarra) e Jonny Wolf (voce e batteria) riescono a far dimenticare il cliché "lei+lui che suonano rock and roll", perché lavorano sì bene sul fronte dell'immagine licantropa (date un occhio al videoclip qui sotto), ma soprattutto perché la loro musica ha quella giusta over-dose di voodoo punk che non guasta mai. Fuzz, teschio col sombrero e due maracas incrociate. I Ghost Wolves hanno fuori un album - In Ya Neck! - e, prima o poi, verranno in tour in Europa per trasformare tutti noi in lupi mannari morti viventi.

ENGLISH:

"Among the new discoveries, Ghost wolves is the band that is closer to the "whites stripes approach. They are from austin, tx and they play a powerful blues-garage-punk possessed by some kind of demon. The first one to introduce me to their music has been Alejandro Escovedo, this in itself would be enough. But Carley Wolf (vocals and guitar) and Jonny Wolf (vocals and drums) they make you forget about the cliche' "she+he playing rock and roll" because they created a great lycanthropic image (check out the video below) but also because their music has that big dose of voodoo punk that we need, a skull with a sombrero and two cross-shakers. Ghost wolves has an album out In Ya Neck! and sooner or later they'll come to europe to turn all of us into werewolves." - Rolling Stone Italia

Austin, Tex.-based guitar-drum duo The Ghost Wolves perform everything with a wink, but this is no novelty act. Carley and Jonny Wolf — an onstage force of nature and offstage couple — neither depend on nor eschew modernity. Their aesthetic feels culled from some bygone era, but when? The rockabilly '50s? The punk '70s? Or are is this stripped-down but fully-electrified pair a hint of what the future holds?



Their new single, "Getchya Hip Thrust," comes with a B-side — and what a Bb-side it is. The fuzzy, grinding "Black Crow" features Irish DJ/artist/rock royal BP Fallon. Fallon, along with working in words and photography, was a publicist for Thin Lizzy and T. Rex. He's toured with Zeppelin, U2 and The Kills and recorded a 7-inch on Jack White's Third Man Records.

Listen here:
<a href="http://theghostwolves.bandcamp.com/album/getchya-hip-thrust-black-crow-single-featuring-bp-fallon">Getchya Hip Thrust/Black Crow Single (featuring BP Fallon) by The Ghost Wolves with special guest BP Fallon</a>


Fallon's delivery on "The Crow" is spoken word more than sung vocal. His voice just slightly registers an Irish accent and his tone, warmer and more amused than a snarl, is a fitting companion to Carley's girlish vocal. Johnny sings too, while a tambourine snaps and the guitar growls. It's dark and just menacing enough, but also playful. The Ghost Wolves rock like pros, without taking themselves too seriously.

The single itself is no slouch of a song. "Getchya Hip Thrust" is the Ghost Wolves at their finest. Bodacious garage rock with a sneer of slide over guitar strings, kick drum thick and angry, and Carley's almost-cutesy-were-she-not-such-a-badass vocal: all pout and spit and bite. I don't even know what it means to get one's hip thrust, but the Ghost Wolves sell it. (Pre-order the limited edition single here.)

You can learn more about the Ghost Wolves here and here, and watch a video interview with the band below. Or get your own hip thrust when the band makes its way back to Asheville next week for a Thursday, Sept. 27, 10 p.m. show at The Get Down.
- Mountain X

In Ya Neck," the debut release from Austin, Texas based duo, the Ghost Wolves is an incendiary six-tune EP responsible for puttin' the shake in your shimmy and the roll within your rock. Lead singer and guitarist, Carley "Carazy" Wolf, and drummer Jonathan "Little Hammer" Konya, have clearly done their homework and are channeling their inner delta blues knowledge and throwing those roots into a cement mixer with '60s-esque garage rock — spinning it in such a fashion that certainly draws comparison to early White Stripes and Black Keys output.

Such comparisons are all fine and well, but at the end of the day the aural sonic assault that bashes past your eardrums is an entity all of their own. Wolf's charismatic trebly howl, paired with her toothy grit and wail guitar playing is the perfect compatriotic compliment to Konya's competent and confident skin pounding tendencies. The Ghost Wolves are out to get ya, draw you in, and keep haunting you long after you've taken the headphones off.


WHAT Ghost Wolves with Gnarlemagne

WHERE Stone Church Meeting House, 5 Granite St., Newmarket

WHEN Friday, Sept. 2

COST $5

CONTACT 659-7700, www.stonechurchrocks.com

The two wolves, from a singular standpoint, come from a more acoustic based background, but with a mutual appreciation to explore and expound upon something more electric and bombastic, they united as one — and the end product is an experience that yearns to be cranked up loudly. "In Ya Neck" belongs in ya head. Straight up.

"At some point in late 2009, Carley reached a point where the acoustic sound wasn't doing it for her anymore," said Konya in a recent interview. "She had just kind of had her fill of that sound, and she started getting a hankering for the electric guitar. This hankering was compounded by some experiences we had at the time. First, we were both involved in a record by a rock 'n' roll band called The Happen-Ins, which featured some very gritty electric guitar work, by some of our favorite musicians from Austin.

"Also, not too long after this, Carley did a tour through Europe on the upright bass with a rock-a-billy guitarist/singer from Houston named Johnny Falstaff, who had been a musical hero of hers since she was a teenager. And he really kills it on the Telecaster, with the B-Bender and all that! I would go out to their warm up shows state-side and watch, and I loved it too. For the past few years, I had also been performing at a lot of Bluegrass festivals and digging on that sound, but always wanting to play some heavy drums along to it! Like, Del McCoury meets John Bonham! So for the two of us, who were both used to performing in the acoustic spectrum, these experiences really started to draw us in an electric direction. It just clicked, in a lot of ways."

The Ghost Wolves will be making their debut area appearance at the Stone Church Meeting House in Newmarket on Friday, Sept. 2. If their live show is anything like their recorded work, once the music starts it will inevitably seep its way into your bloodstream and take over your very being. Body parts will begin to surrender themselves into what will amount to a sea of bobbing and flailing. Again, the Ghost Wolves are out to get ya. And it's pretty much guaranteed they'll get the job done.
- Seacoast Online

The Ghost Wolves from Austin, Tex. might be a mere duo (Carley plays a vintage hollow body guitar, Jonny thrashes the drums and they both sing) but they play hard enough for a full band. Playing second in a four-band showcase (including the Krektones, Alligator Indian and ER Airplane) at Jack of the Wood last Friday, the Ghost Wolves had the crowd on its feet. But first they stopped by Dirty Jacks to talk to Xpress about how they met, what inspires them, why they dress in black and white, and what it's like to tour with Winter, their wolf-hybrid.

Video by Dane Smith. The song clip is "Curl Up and Dye" from new EP In Ya Neck!. - Mountain X

Austin, Texas, duo The Ghost Wolves are scheduled to howl into town Sept. 24-25 for performances on the WDVX Blue Plate Special and at Preservation Pub.

Check out their bluesy rock sounds via the Ghost Wolves Bandcamp page. The "guitar/drum blues/rock explosion" will perform on the Blue Plate Special noon-1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24, and hit the Preservation Pub stage on Sunday evening, Sept. 24.
- Knox News

I don’t try to hide the fact that I regularly read lots of other Austin music blogs – what some might call our “competitors.” These blogs often turn me on to tons of great local artists, and thus provide material for this site. My favorite of these sites – Austin Town Hall – last week posted this video of the Ghost Wolves that they helped to produce. And of course I was immediately taken with this group: Carley Wolf is a compelling frontwoman, and Jonathan Konya offers a great complement on drums. So I went over to their bandcamp page and picked up the In Ya Neck! EP they released earlier this month.

The Ghost Wolves - Curl Up and Dye



The Ghost Wolves are comprised of only Konya and Wolf, and their sound is appropriately raw for such a small group. They record with seemingly no overdubs, relying on Wolf’s heavy distortion and Konya’s emphatic drumming to fill out a sound that could have sounded far sparser than it does. Clearly, comparisons to the White Stripes abound: male/female duo, no bass, distorted blues-rock. And they aren’t entirely unwarranted. “Broke Joke” has the feel of some of the Meg/Jack duets like “It’s True That We Love One Another” (which I know also features Holly Golightly), but carries a lot more bite. “The Snake and Jake Shake” is also a pretty straightforward blues, revealing similar influences to the Stripes. Yet the opening two tracks are where the Ghost Wolves really carve out their own exciting sound. “Gonna Live” is a simple bluesy stomp written by the Vulgarians’ Michelle Glaw that builds into a huge, cathartic shout-along by the end. Wolf channels My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden on her vocal performance, and the whole thing retains a rootsy feel reminiscent of the video linked to above. “Curl Up and Dye” has a much faster, more vicious feel to it, bordering on punk. These are the two best songs on In Ya Neck!, establishing Ghost Wolves as a blistering force to be reckoned with.

The Ghost Wolves are enjoying a Monday night residency at the Lakeside Lounge in New York City all through September, and will be back in Austin on October 15th at Skinny’s Ballroom (holy shit, that place has been booking great shows recently!). In the meantime, hit up their bandcamp site to get a copy of the EP.

-Carter
- OVRLD

The Ghost Wolves, a stripped-down guitar/drums duo from Austin, Texas, have a feral take on transgressive rock ‘n’ roll. Carley Wolf works the distorto strings and Jonathan Konya pounds away at the skins, equal parts garage-a-billy and blues a la howling canine. They even have the dog to prove it: Carley’s father began breeding wolf hybrids more than 30 years ago, and a pet on the head of Winter, a 125-pound Arctic mixed breed that travels with them, shows that their pack is not only loyal but capable of a good nuzzle in the muzzle. One particular slide solo of Carley’s from their recent SXSW show scratched me behind the ears, wagged my tail, and made me chase a ball. The pair tour relentlessly, showing a joy in the turn-it-up that evokes the visceral virtues of rock at its most raw and elemental: “Curl Up and Dye,” the flat-out bash of “Snake and Jake Shake,” the hypnotic “First Love.” Hell, I even bought the T-shirt.

Read more: http://www.emusic.com/music-news/review/album/the-ghost-wolves-in-ya-neck/#ixzz28U8TJ7I4 - Emusic

In January, Jonathan Konya and Carley Wolf traveled to a lakeside cabin in East Texas to play music together. Tucked away near the town of Normangee, the place was isolated, 18 miles from the nearest grocery store, with eagles and other birds the only neighbors. It was ideal for getting away from the distractions of the city and for rehearsing.

"It's more of a summer community, so there was nobody out there," Konya says. "We could just turn up as loud as we wanted. We got a PA and a bunch of gear and just set up shop."

The two musicians — Konya is a drummer and Wolf plays the guitar, among other things — had been dating for a few years but hadn't spent much time performing together, in part because Konya was busy as a member of Austin Americana group the Belleville Outfit. While they were away, Konya received a call that the band, which he co-founded while at school in New Orleans, was breaking up after three years. Vocalist/violinist Phoebe Hunt was leaving to pursue a solo career, and the other members decided not to find a replacement. It didn't come as a complete surprise to Konya — they had been drifting apart — but it was difficult to deal with nonetheless.

"It brings up a lot of emotions, something that you've been in the thick of for so long," he says. "It was like a relationship ending; you go through the depression and denial and all of that stuff."

As upsetting as it was, the end of his band also meant that he and Wolf could focus more on their own music. They worked for 12 hours each day, listening to albums, trying to write songs and figuring out what kind of sound the new band would have. Among other things, Konya and Wolf share a love for older American fare, including traditional mountain music and anything else one might find on recordings made by Alan and John Lomax.

Despite their traditional tastes, they returned to Austin after a month in the woods with something more forceful and electric on their hands. They called the new band, a two piece guitar-and-drums duo, the Ghost Wolves, named for an arctic wolf-dog hybrid that lived on Wolf's family farm in the Hill Country. The resulting album, "In Ya Neck!," which is available online now (physical copies will be released in the fall) is still rooted in Americana, but with a sound much louder and closer to more contemporary rock groups such as the White Stripes. With a similar two-tone fashion sense, Konya and Wolf don't shy away from the comparison.

Wolf, who has focused on acoustic music for much of her life, had been wanting to go louder for some time. Born into a musical family in Fredericksburg, she learned the piano as a child. Her father taught her to play the guitar, and she started her first band when she was 12. Throughout her childhood she continued learning different instruments and studied music at Texas State in San Marcos. There, for her senior thesis, she made a documentary about her family's musical heritage, which stretches back to her great-grandmother in Guadalajara, a composer and teacher who ran a fine arts school.

"I was trying to see what I could find out about music through the bloodline," she says. "I tried to answer if it was a learned thing, or something you're born with, but really it was more of an exploration of my heritage and where my love for music comes from."

After graduating from college, Wolf was ready to put her acoustic past behind her. Part of that desire to plug in comes from time spent with Houston rockabilly musician Johnny Falstaff, with whom she has played the upright bass on and off since she was 15.

"I really wanted to branch out into something more electric," Wolf says. "I was really inspired by the honky-tonk guitar playing, really rocking out so hard."

Aside from the Ghost Wolves' psychedelic blues covers of traditional folk songs such as "Jack-a-Roe," one vestige of her quieter musical past that remains is her finger-picking guitar style. Though not terribly common among rock musicians, it allows Wolf to compensate for the band's lack of a bassist.

The challenge of producing a big sound with only two people is something that affects Konya's playing as well. In addition to laying on the kick drum pretty heavily, he incorporates shakers and other percussion. It's far from his work with the Belleville Outfit, which often found him playing in a fairly restrained, conservative style.

"It makes us work harder as a duo to get on stage and try to be louder than a four-piece rock band," Konya says.

This isn't the first time Konya has branched out to different styles of playing. Like Wolf, Konya, who was born in Connecticut, grew up playing music. He was encouraged by his father, who was a professional musician for a time. He played drums in the school orchestra and in rock bands through high school before moving to New Orleans. He studied music at Loyola University with New Orleans jazz drummer Johnny Vidocavich, who has performed with Dr. John, George Porter - Austin Statesman