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I’m Retarded, You’re Fucking Stupid came out earlier this year and introduced Special Forces 805 to a much wider audience. Looking back at the record now, which parts of it feel most representative of where the band was at when it was written?

special forces because it was the first song we fully made together. It’s got our ethos ingrained in it which is to be yourself no matter what people call you. All

The songs are short, direct and often tackle subjects that could easily become overly serious or heavy. How do you find the balance between saying something meaningful and keeping the music immediate, chaotic and fun?

Our main focus has always been doing this number one to have fun, and number two to talk about issues that we care about. So I feel like the two of those we kind of just do our best to put them together, you know. Tyle

We’re fed up with overly serious beat down hardcore type dudes who think everything is corny all the time and tell people how to “mosh correctly” / gatekeep. So our focus is to stray away from that and make it accessible to everyone. Jose

There’s a strong sense of personality throughout the record. When a new song starts taking shape, does the music usually come first, or does an idea, experience or line of lyrics set everything in motion?

Definitely both of those, it’s a blend for sure. Micah

There’s a few songs where we come in, having an idea for. There’s also a lot of songs where we just like, all right, let’s take a few minutes just to jam something out, and if we end up really fucking with it, then we just try to see if we can expand more onto that. A lot of songs come through just by jamming that we build off of. Tyler

Sigma Ligma was definitely an idea first, while Red Hill and Billionaire Boutique were both jammed out. Jose

“Your Voice” and “Cerebral Ballzy” approach disability and identity from different angles. How much of the songwriting process involves figuring out exactly what needs to be said, as opposed to simply getting the feeling out?

Your Voice for sure was a “this needs to be said” type song. Our scene was just totally run by like indie / shitty alt rock cover bands all the time, and so the whole point was that there’s a lot of fucking shit happening right now and no one’s saying anything about anything. It just felt necessary, especially when we first had our first concert. I distinctly wanted to start with Your Voice because it’s like setting the stage for everything else. Jose

Cerebral Ballsy. That shit was like I heard a joke, someone said, oh, you’ve got cerebral ballsy, and I was like, okay, that’s a fun song idea, and I have all these feelings about being disabled. I express being disabled in Special Forces, but Cerebral Ballsy goes more into how the stroke has affected me specifically, and so then it’s kind of like how Ian McKay wrote Straight Edge, and then had other songs to explain what he meant by it more. So I feel like that was where those lyrics were coming from, especially the Stolen Valor line. “Call me Stolen Valor, but you were to blame” is a way to basically say that a lot of people don’t see me as disabled, but they’re kind of ignorant for saying it I’m faking it or not disabled enough to “count”. Jose

The album title is deliberately confrontational. What conversations did the title create around the band, and was provoking a reaction part of the intention?

That was the entire intention, I didn’t really love it at first but it’s just grown on me because of how confrontational it is and like in your face. Tyler

Yes, that was the total intention. And Reily especially was terrified by it. But now, I mean, I don’t want to speak for y’all, but everyone who comes up to me, at least, says “I had to listen to your album because they were like, ‘What the fuck does that mean?'” Jose

Yeah yeah it was the right move, I was on the fence too, I was like, “No we’re not gonna get famous and no, no one is going to ever really see it, so like, it’s probably fine”. Micah

I hated it at first. I love it now though, The Growlers have listened to it and shouted us out. It’s just how it affects you. I think all of our titles, even our name have the same thing about them. It’s just like how you can interpret special forces. Reily

“Red Hill” takes the band outside the more personal material and into a much wider political and environmental subject. What makes an issue feel important enough to turn into a Special Forces song rather than simply something to talk about?

Why? I think a lot of it was getting inspired by the Dead Kennedys and how they would talk about swept under the rug topics, or things that were happening underneath the surface. So I was like, oh well, maybe I should write one that no one would immediately think to speak about. It’s a very interesting multi-layer issue with land, culture, the military, and how people on the islands have been affected. Jose

Hardcore has always had a connection between music, community and confrontation. What does that relationship look like from inside the Special Forces 805 world, particularly when the songs are dealing with subjects that can divide people?

I actually feel like the community is pretty lovely, even though it looks insane, at the end of the day, everyone just is going feral and unleashing themselves. Reily

The community’s good, and it’s all about unity and loving / supporting each other. I feel like we try to foster that. Micah

The live side of the band has developed its own identity, with El Toro becoming part of the experience. What happens at a Special Forces show that can’t really be captured on a recording?

More passion more energy. Reily

If you come to a special forces show, we’re gonna make you get into it no matter what. Micah

The mentality of the live show for sure is not like oh there’s the band and then there’s the crowd. It’s like one force, one special force haha. Jose

“Live Studio Sessions” gives the songs another life outside the original album recordings. Did performing the material repeatedly change the way the songs felt or revealed anything about them that wasn’t obvious during the original recording?

I mean, one thing about the live recordings, I definitely feel like they had some more old school kind of punk vibe to them, just because of the way that they were recorded. But also, we couldn’t hear Tyler. Jose

Your Voice, for instance, we got a little tired of, but we had really good opportunities too to record those live sessions for free so we were like we might as well just use the opportunity to see if we can make some fun out of it. Tyler

Some of the songs got a little faster. Micah

San Luis Obispo has its own punk and hardcore history, but every local scene has its own personality. What is happening around the band right now that people outside the area probably don’t see?

I’d probably say just how close and meaningful the connections within SLO are. I can go to 10 different shows in LA and none of them will feel nearly as united as the SLO scene, maybe its just a small town thing, but growing up in SB it wasn’t like this over there either. Jose

The band has already established a distinctive sound, visual identity and live world with its first releases. How much of that was intentional from the beginning, and how much has simply developed along the way?

I don’t know if we necessarily intended for this logo to become as big as it has. Like I thought it was just kind of meh when we first made it. I thought it was just to get us by, I didn’t know it would become the main fixture of all of our merchandise. That being said, I think it developed a bit more because of the reception to it, people like that its just a good figure for the band. Tyler

It’s super identifiable and easy to DIY, which is another thing that I was thinking about. Whatever logo we got, my favorite thing is to DIY patches, so having a complex design makes that harder. If we have an easy accessible design than people can basically easily recreate it in their own way. Jose

There’s a lot of room for Special Forces 805 to evolve from here. What are some ideas, sounds or directions that have been sitting in the background that could shape whatever comes next?

It’s gonna be even more badass. It’s gonna be even better quality. It’s gonna be even better songwriting and singing, better guitar and bass, better drums. Its just gonna be better. Reily

What he said. Micah

Don’t want to give too much away but yea we are trying to branch out and not limit ourselves to any one sound. That’s all for now. Jose

“Ecdysis” is a pretty striking title. Where did that word enter the conversation, and why did it feel like the right one for the song? 

We came across the word and immediately thought it fit. Ecdysis is basically shedding your skin, and that’s pretty much what the song is about. You’re trying to shed this person and everything attached to them, but they’ve become such a big part of you that it actually hurts to get rid of it. It felt like a pretty strange but accurate metaphor.

What was the starting point for “Ecdysis”? Was there a particular lyric, riff, sound or moment that unlocked it?

We actually were lucky enough to be brought a fully fleshed out demo for this song that just felt right. Obviously there were some changes but the actual main riff is genuinely still just a re amped version of the demo

The song has a restless, almost claustrophobic quality to it. Was that something you were deliberately chasing when you made it?

Yeah, definitely. I think ECDYSIS was always meant to feel uncomfortable in a way. There’s this constant feeling of tension and movement through the song, and we wanted it to feel like you’re trapped inside your own head and can’t really switch off. We didn’t want everything to be polished and comfortable. There’s a lot of push and pull between the atmospheric parts and the heavier sections, and that tension is a huge part of what makes the song feel like The Local Romance.

Was there anything about “ECDYSIS” that surprised you once you heard the finished recording?

Honestly, how big it ended up feeling. When we were writing it, we knew we had something we really liked, but hearing everything come together made it feel way more expansive than we expected. There are little details and layers that you don’t necessarily notice when you’re just playing the song in a room, so the finished version surprised us in a really good way. It feels like a pretty big step forward for the band.

When you listen back to your older material, what feels noticeably different about The Local Romance now?

I think we’re much more confident in who we are. When we started, we were still figuring out what we wanted The Local Romance to sound and feel like. Now we’re a lot more willing to lean into the heavier stuff, but we also don’t feel like everything has to be heavy all the time. We’re more comfortable with dynamics, atmosphere and letting a song breathe. ECDYSIS feels like a really good representation of where our heads are at now.

You’re playing a Halloween show at Tomcat in Brisbane. What does a The Local Romance set look like when you’re not trying to behave yourselves?

Probably a complete lack of self-control.  Halloween is definitely an excuse to make things a little more chaotic. We love playing small rooms because you can feel everything. There’s no real barrier between the band and everyone in the room, so when things get hectic, they get REALLY hectic. We’re very excited to be back at tomcat though, that venue has been a key part is our bands life so we’re excited to be playing there again 

What have you learned about the band from playing small rooms that you probably wouldn’t have learned from playing bigger stages?

How important connection is. When you’re playing a tiny room and you can basically see every person’s face, you realise pretty quickly that you can’t hide behind anything. If the band is locked in, everyone feels it. If we’re not, everyone feels that too. It’s taught us to really feed off each other and the crowd rather than just going through the motions. Some of our favourite shows have been in rooms where the audience is right there in front of us (shout out blah bar in Lismore)

Brisbane has a lot of bands doing their own thing at the moment. Who are you listening to locally, and who should more people be paying attention to?

There are honestly so many. Brisbane has such a good heavy scene at the moment, and one of the best things about it is how different everyone sounds. We’ve been lucky enough to cross paths with some seriously talented bands and musicians, and I think there’s a really strong community here if you actually get out and see shows.

We’d definitely encourage people to go down to local gigs rather than just waiting for the bigger touring bands to come through. There’s some ridiculous talent coming out of Brisbane right now, and a lot of it is happening in tiny rooms.

If we’re talking about Brisbane / Queensland bands there’s so many favourites bigger bands such as Headwreck , Zuko, Same Pains and Total Buzzkill we all really like, but there’s bands like Cardboard Cutouts , itsacrylic and nervous light too! Flowers to everyone tbh 

Is there a song you’ve written that tells us something about The Local Romance that “ECDYSIS” doesn’t?

Still The Same probably does. ECDYSIS is very much about tension and transformation, whereas Still The Same is a lot more vulnerable. It starts off quite stripped back and gradually builds into something much bigger, and I think that says a lot about us as a band.

We’ve never wanted to just be the band that writes heavy songs for the sake of being heavy. The emotional side is just as important to us. If we can make someone feel something before absolutely smashing them with a riff, then we’re pretty happy.

What’s coming up for The Local Romance that you’re genuinely excited about?

Honestly, everything at the moment. ECDYSIS is out now, and it feels like the start of a really exciting next chapter for us. We’ve got more shows coming up, more music that we’re working on, and we’re really focused on pushing the band further outside of Brisbane.

We’re still very much in that stage where every opportunity feels massive, whether that’s playing a new room, meeting another band, getting onto a bigger show or having someone discover us for the first time. We’re just keen to keep building and see how far we can take it.

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