Confined to quarters during the longest lockdown in the world, a couple – who happen to be musicians – have all the time in the world and nowhere to go. Both Bec and James have been part of Melbourne’s music scene for years, with Bec involved in the punk community while James played in a string of garage/pop acts. Although they’ve been a couple for a while, they’ve never actually made music together. As it turns out, the city’s cautious approach to a global pandemic was the catalyst for Delivery – one of the most brilliant and forceful rock’n’roll bands to emerge from the southern hemisphere in years.
Bec Allan: “We started the band at a point where we couldn’t leave the house or see anyone. Locked in the same room for 24 hours, it was something to kill the time.”
James Lynch: “The lockdown persisted for nearly two years. We’d been together for six or seven years now but prior to lockdown we weren’t living together and although we were each playing in a bunch of bands, we’d never played in a band together. When lockdown happened we moved in together and decided to try to play music together as something to do.”
Initially inspired by local heroes Eddy Current Suppression Ring (Bec: “they’re the masters of no frills, honest rock’n’roll”) and bands like Seattle’s The Intelligence and The Yummy Fur from Glasgow, James and Bec began to hone a sound that nodded to their separate musical upbringings. Over the next few months, they filled the spare rooms in their house with musicians. Each bedroom, a different player. As the months passed, songs were written and a sound was honed. As could be expected given the circumstances, Delivery’s music was razor sharp, tight as hell and properly heavy, sounding like it was trying to punch its way out of the speakers.
James: “Lockdown was crazy and hard for so many people but we kind of lucked out. We thought it might be a little one off project but one thing led to another and we had a bunch of songs. By the time it was over, we’d had enough time to have a fully fledged band emerge from all of our housemates. The first bedroom over was the drummer, the next one to that was the guitarist…”
Bec: “It made it very easy for us to practise as a band. And it was very lucky that our housemates could all play instruments brilliantly.”
James: “We began really bleeding into each other’s wheelhouse when we played music together. Early on, someone said it was the most punk thing I’ve ever done and the least punk thing Bec’s ever done. That thought really stuck in our minds.”
Delivery’s first lockdown year was extremely productive. They recorded two seven inch singles (Yes We Do and Personal Effects / The Topic) and rehearsed a live band for a hometown gig made up entirely of bands formed during lockdown. Unfortunately for bands and gig goers alike, Melbourne soon locked down again. Delivery went back inside and began work on their first album, 2022’s critically acclaimed Forever Giving Handshakes.
James: “Our early tracks were absolutely a product of our environment. There was a lot of pent up energy. Initially we were together in the house working with drum machines and a tiny practise amp that all of the guitar parts were recorded on. That dictated how the band initially sounded – the tightness of the drum machine, the crappiness of the amp. By the time we recorded the album there was the five of us, playing as live as possible.”
Bec: “Over time, touring a lot really helped develop the sound. Tracks became more orchestrated, and we got a bit smarter with how we stack our instruments together. It made us think a bit more about playing to our strengths, realising that we weren’t a new band playing live for the first time ever, turning everything up to full.”
Following the release of Forever Giving Handshakes, as Delivery’s line up shifted, the band honed their sound by constant gigging. In turn, they became a key part of the Melbourne music scene they’d grown up in.
James: “The music community in Melbourne has been strong for years. We’ve been active in it for the last decade or so. There’s always been so many bands we look up to here; bands you can go and see every week. That’s been a massive influence on Delivery. Seeing your friends’ bands playing, taking notes, taking it in.”
Bec: “Just going out, seeing things and thinking, “that’s so cool” has been a guiding force for us. The fact that there’s a web of musicians, each playing in other bands that are all separate from each other but all influence one another. It’s a really positive scene.”
That positivity has clearly fed into and inspired Delivery’s second album. Force Majeure – rarely does a title so aptly describe the contents – opens with the controlled explosion of recent single Diggin’ The Hole. The track is three and a half minutes of precise forward motion that’s heavy enough to do serious damage, brilliantly breaking down into a percussive middle eight before one final burst of fireworks that feels powerful enough that it could propel the listener through a brick wall.
Follow up single Operating At A Loss starts with a rumble of drums and predatory bass before it explodes out of the speakers with the kind of punk rock new wave kick that feels like it might be preparing to propel the listener through a brick wall (extra points earned for managing to both nod to Magazine’s Shot By Both Sides and for an extensive rant about coffee in the second verse). At the points where the foot is taken off the gas, the band enter post punk territory on the New Alphabet (think Television shooting empty VB tins off the back porch) and the wonderfully Wire-ish What Else. Across the whole record four voices sing, walls of guitars bite and scratch, the rhythm section locks behind them in perfect time and the listener grabs on for dear life and just tries to keep hold.
Bec: “We were really conscious of having ebbs and flows on this album, of giving people a sonic break. We wanted to put in different moods, have different singers, slow it down, make it groovy so it wasn’t just bang-bang-bang. Breaking things up was really important.”
James: “There’s definitely something punk about keeping your cards close to your chest rather than being full on every second you’re playing. Dialling it back a bit is definitely part of our collective DNA these days. If it had been the first album, a track like The New Alphabet would have had three guitars playing the riff at the same time and you’d lose the point of it all. That’s the big difference between the first album and this one.”
Bec: “We always wanted to open the floor up to anyone who wanted to write a song for the band. It was always meant to be collaborative, whoever is in the band. It’s not our solo project, it’s always a collaboration. And while we definitely always like to make sure songs rock all the time, we always end up adding what we like to call James Lynch-isms. One of us would come up with a song with a good honest rock ’n’ roll verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure and James would listen to it and go, ‘what about if we do it this way’. It immediately added a bit of spice and flavour. It’s what makes us different.”
Force Majure is Delivery’s first album for Heavenly Recordings, a label with a long history of championing young Australian bands, from The Vines to King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and Confidence Man.
Bec: “It’s crazy being on Heavenly. They have amazing taste. For them to have listened to our album and been into it was mind blowing.”
James: “It’s extremely flattering. We were very aware of the highly esteemed company we were in, they’ve had some incredible bands from Australia. Growing up, The Vines were one of my favourite bands. Then a bit older, King Gizzard were massive for me. It wasn’t lost on us that so much music we’d loved had come out of that label and I’d never imagined we’d be mentioned in the same breath as bands like that.”
Modesty aside, it’s something Delivery are going to have to get used to. Force Majure is an urgent, joyous noise – a twelve track battering ram of an album that builds hugely on the promise of their debut and acts as a calling card from your new favourite honest rock’n’roll band.
Delivery are:
Bec Allan (bass, vox)
Liam Kenny (drums)
James Lynch (guitar, vox)
Scarlett Maloney (guitar, vox)
Jordan Oakley (guitar, vox)
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