Joey Valence & Brae: “Nobody wants to dance anymore… Let’s bring that life back into the culture”

“Where we’re from has nothing to do with our musical tastes,” laughs Brae – real name Braedan Lugue – closing the door on K!’s line of questioning.

He’s not being evasive. Brae and his musical partner Joseph Bertolino – aka Joey Valence – are a likeable pair. Shooting the breeze in a Los Angeles hotel room on the eve of a free show in Hollywood, they’re as informal as you’d expect from guys who create music in basements, bedrooms, or wherever inspiration strikes them.

“We’ve been making all the songs with just a laptop and a microphone,” says Brae of their gleeful brand of old-school hip-hop. “Wherever we are, we’re making stuff. It’s on-the-go.”

Brae is right, though. State College in central Pennsylvania, home to the main campus of Pennsylvania State University, is better known as a seat of learning than a hotbed of sonic invention. It is, however, where Brae and Joey first crossed paths, bonding over their shared sense of humour and love of electronic music – specifically Daft Punk, Skrillex and Knife Party.

The latter act are of particular interest and brings Joey Valence & Brae’s story closer to the present, as that band is made up of another duo, Rob Swire and Gareth McGrillen, two members of Pendulum, who JVB collaborated with on last year’s throbbingly heavy single Napalm.

“Pendulum were such a big fucking deal to me,” enthuses Joey of the Aussies, who initially reached out via DM on Instagram. “As much as we love hip-hop, we’ve always thought it was cool to see other scenes gravitate towards the sound of electronic music, because everyone’s attracted to energy.”

This fixation on energy as a galvanising force is one of the key reasons Joey Valence & Brae have become the latest additions to a crossover club, which features acts that might not immediately sound like part of K!’s world but possess undeniable qualities that grant them honorary membership. Other members include Pendulum, of course, and the act JVB are most commonly compared to: New York legends the Beastie Boys.

“They write all our music,” jokes Joey, before acknowledging a compliment he’s had time to process. “It’s awesome to be compared to one of the greatest of all time. I think their attitude and the way they approach music is very similar to us, and we’ve been able to adapt it and bring in all our own inspirations.”

There is something enjoyably immodest about Joey Valence & Brae. Hip-hop has historically been characterised by bravado, though these two aren’t aggressive in their self-regard. Instead, their confidence means they’ll discuss the Beastie Boys, one of the most influential rap groups of all time, as being similar to them, rather than the other way around. If it wasn’t for the nonchalance, you’d put it down to braggadocio. As it is, you sense they truly believe themselves worthy of such praise.

Perhaps it’s the steep trajectory of their ascent that’s to blame. They did, after all, appear on The Ellen Show a year after they started releasing music, which, even with the controversy surrounding its host, Ellen DeGeneres, still pulled in some 1.5 million viewers. The lads were a greener prospect back then – it was Brae’s mum sending the TikTok video of their track Double Jump, which received 17 million views, that secured them the spot.

In the 2020 Apple TV documentary Beastie Boys Story, fans were surprised to learn that ‘Beastie’ was a backronym created by the late, great Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch that stands for ‘Boys Entering Anarchistic States Towards Excellence’. But while their social consciousness was (eventually) focused on everything from Tibetan independence to animal rights, JVB have their sights set on what you imagine to be a more achievable goal: getting people to cut the rug.

“Nobody wants to dance anymore,” Brae notes. “You go to places where people are supposed to dance and nobody’s moving – it sucks ass!”

Joey nods in agreement. “About a year ago, we went out in our college town and to a club, asking ourselves, ‘Why are they not playing club music? And when they eventually do, why are me and him the only fucking people on the dancefloor? Are people too cool to dance now, or is it that people don’t like the music?’ We wondered why we were at this point where we don’t want to have fun anymore. Let’s bring that life back into the culture. That’s what this album is about.”

The album in question, the duo’s third, is the recently released HYPERYOUTH. And true to Joey’s word, it pushes back against the dying of the strobe lights – with dancing used as a metaphor for the sense of abandon we lose as life goes on. The title-track, for instance, comes laden with samples from their collective record collections, from Ice Cube to Skrillex, and a punchiness tailor-made for live performances, while reminding us to continue making hay while the sun shines – ‘’Cause this the kinda shit that we do when we’re young.’

Meanwhile, PARTY’S OVER, with its boomer-skewing slow dance instrumental, makes no bones about the perils of growing up (‘’Cause then everybody went and grew up / Might as well put the noose up’) and being the potential death knell of good times (‘I just wanna play Xbox / I don’t care ’bout your wristwatch’).

So, what do our musical guides put this squandering of our salad days down to? Well, according to THE PARTY SONG, it’s the self-consciousness of party frat boys, a particularly American aberration.

“It’s these people who are too cool to do certain things and feel the need to be part of a hivemind,” explains Joey. “We’re there to tear shit up and we don’t care what we look like doing it. I understand that’s not everyone’s personality, but I don’t understand why people feel a pressure on them that stops them expressing themselves.”

When Joey was a teenager, he’d go to Warped Tour a lot, back when Skrillex was known simply as Sonny Moore from Tampa band From First To Last. While Joey’s dad loved Metallica and Slayer, he was more of a post-hardcore and metalcore guy, introduced to the likes of Beartooth and The Amity Affliction by friends.

“I’ve always loved headbanging and responding to that hard energy,” smiles Joey. “But I also loved the songwriting aspect.”

Brae, on the other hand, was less enamoured.

“Growing up, I thought that shit was so lame,” he laughs, aware it’s unlikely to be a popular opinion. “I used to think, ‘Why would you listen to rock music?’ which was funny because my dad listened to Van Halen and AC/DC, though he listened to hip-hop too.”

Thankfully, in the past couple of years, Brae began to see the error of his ways, warming to bands like Turnstile, before taking things up a few notches in the ferocity stakes with the likes of Californian hardcore punk bands Sunami and Drain. “I love that shit so much,” he grins.

Tastes change, much like everything else in life. Why? Because, as these guys have discovered, growth and growing up are two different things.

“I feel like there are different categories of growth,” says Brae.

Chief among them is business acumen. Having released music for four years – with their debut LP Punk Tactics in 2023, followed by 2024’s No Hands – the duo have been autonomous from day one, seeking advice when they need it, but taking on strategic and touring responsibilities themselves, giving them the kind of self-sufficiency punk rockers would envy.

“As much as people can have their opinions on what we do, we do it all of ourselves, and it's 100 per cent what we want to do,” explains Joey, proudly. “We just signed with RCA [Records], which is a great partnership, but the big thing we talked about going into was not wanting to relinquish any creative control. So there’s literally something in our contract that says that we get the final say on everything.

“As soon as you step back and have people making decisions for you, that’s when it all goes flat,” continues Joey, finding his flow. “So we keep our brains wrapped around understanding everything about our business.

“We want to set ourselves up to do music for the rest of our lives. And, let’s be honest, you want to make money ’til you fucking die, so we like to set the business up in a way with smart people, people we trust and that are aligned with us.”

More excitingly, on an artistic front, Joey’s production has undoubtedly grown in confidence on HYPERYOUTH. For proof, listen to GIVE IT TO ME and WASSUP. The former provides a kaleidoscopic kick to the ears, while the latter, featuring Brooklyn rapper JPEGMAFIA, exhibits refinement without compromising on its propulsive drive.

And in singles HYPERYOUTH/LIVE RIGHT (the latter being the most obviously appealing to rock fans), JVB are putting out music that illustrates their evolution.

“Both of those songs are pretty different sounding to what we’ve done before,” suggests Brae. “The way they’ve both been received has shown us how amendable our fanbase is to our noise.”

Joey Valence & Brae aren’t averse to straying out of their comfort zone, either. In the weeks after this chat, they’ll return to Boomtown Fair, the five-day music and theatre festival near Winchester boasting 12 main stages and themed districts. “We are Boomtown,” boasts Brae of the event they first played in 2023, which has the feel of a hyped-up dystopian city, where MCs are in short supply. “I think there are only a few rappers there, but they’re going to like what we do.”

It was that attitude that served them well on Sum 41’s farewell tour, where their opening slot with the Canadian pop-punks bolstered their burgeoning fanbase. Not that Brae is surprised, shrugging and smiling as if winning over new recruits to their cause were the easiest thing in the world.

“It’s super fucking cool to flip someone’s mindset,” he says. “That’s the power of a live show. That’s where you make someone a real fan forever. When you come to one of our shows, it really is a house party for an hour straight. So, if you come from whatever the fuck it is you like, you’ll enjoy what we do, because we’re up there having the best time ever – and you can feel that.”

Meanwhile, adds Joey, in HYPERYOUTH they have a record that’s similarly filled to the brim with an intoxicating authenticity.

“We’ve tapped into some different sounds and feelings that we never have before,” smiles Joey. “I think people are really going to resonate with this.”

HYPERYOUTH is out now via RCA. Joey Valence & Brae tour the UK from October 30. This interview originally appeared in the autumn 2025 issue of the magazine.

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• Joey Valence & Brae: “Every show we play is like a giant house party”