“You know the scene in The Simpsons where everything goes silent and there’s like a tumbleweed rolling across the set and someone is coughing? That was it. We got out and I heard someone say, ‘Who’s that?’, and everything just went quiet. It was like high noon or something. That was our ARIA experience,” Wolf & Cub frontman Joel Byrne recalls.

An ARIA nomination in 2007 for best independent release saw these Adelaide boys step outside their comfort zone. While Byrne and co. seem to push the musical envelope daily with their psychedelic rock, they maintain that we ain’t seen nothing yet. “There’s not a lot that we won’t do,” Byrne attests. “Before if someone had have suggested to us that we had a stringent criteria of what we don’t do. Wolf & Cub don’t do that, we don’t do that. There was a rule book, but I think next record we’re willing to try anything. You know if something gets suggested to us we’re going to try it.”

Wolf & Cub have used their momentum built from celebrated EPs and solid fan bases, to score some pretty sweet supports and festivals slots. The band was handpicked by Josh Homme to support Queens Of The Stone Age on their ‘Lullabies to Paralyse’ tour, dished up some rock action with Spoon and then most recently supported the Kaiser Chiefs as they took an Angry Mob around Australia.

So what have this canine quartet been up to since? Apart from being nominated for that ARIA, they’ve been releasing a new single, recording a new album and organising a new tour. Not bad for a group of guys from Adelaide. The new single One to the Other is a neat little package. With the most defined vocals of Wolf & Cub’s recordings to date, and a hooky chorus, the single seems to be taking a step in the radio-friendly direction. That is definitely not a bad thing. The driving force of the new single promises that the album to come is going to blow our unprepared minds.

“The song never used to have that chorus, so we were like, ‘Does it need something?’ We were like, ‘We like it how it is’, then we were sort of decided to take it a little bit further and really push it. That’s what we were going to do with a lot of songs on the new record.”

A lot has happened in the pack since releasing Vessels in 2006. Probably most notable is the departure of drummer Adam Edwards in late 2007. “I think Adam just decided that it wasn’t that he didn’t want to be in this particular band, or play music in this band, it’s just that he didn’t want to be in a band full stop. It came to a point, the apex of his dissatisfaction of being in the band, when we were overseas on a long trip. It got too much for him. As soon as he got back he just decided he didn’t want to be in the band anymore.”

In search of a replacement, Wolf & Cub posted a call on MySpace. They found a replacement in the drummer from Adelaide band Artax Mission, Marvin Hammond. “He was always our first choice to be in the band when Adam left, but it wasn’t something that we thought would be viable or possible. Because he played in Artax Mission, and out of respect for those guys, we had no intentions of asking him. But eventually Artex Mission broke up, so it seemed natural that he join our band, and it’s been a happy marriage ever since.

“[It’s great] how natural it feels to be playing with Marvin and how easily he adapted to the band and the social aspects of being in this band. The three of us sort of have a weird rapport with each other. We’re weird guys. We have a weird sense of humour and you can either be insulted by us or not, but he has seemed to fit in really well. The worst thing would be if you had a guy that played pretty well but you didn’t really get along very well socially.”

The new album, which is due for release hopefully early next year, will be produced by Bumblebeez frontman Chris Colona. Working with Colona is something that Byrne believes will loosen up the Wolf & Cub sound. “I think his whole philosophy and his whole aim – which is something that I completely agree with – is to take the tracks that we’ve got and give them a little more room to breath. That’s something we tend not to do. When we play our stuff we don’t have a lot of dynamic, we don’t have a lot of ups and downs. We just get as much shit as we can get into four minutes and fill up every space with something. But I think our next stuff is going to be a little freer. I think the groove is going to be a little more lucid.”

With an album in the making, a new single hitting the airwaves and an intimate string of shows underway, Wolf & Cub are sitting pretty as a lead dog in the Australian music pack.

“I think the thing about being in this band now is that I cherish it a lot more than I used to. I respect the band a lot more now than when I was making Vessels. I was making excuses and downplaying a lot that we had done, but now I’m a little more respectful of what we have accomplished and respectful of the guys in the band. It’s going to make for a more exciting record and a more exciting live show.”

The One to the Other single is out Saturday 5 July. Two shows remain on Wolf & Cub’s national tour.

Friday July 4 – Northcote Social Club, Melbourne
Saturday July 5 – Eds Castle, Adelaide