Delivery Are A Force To Be Reckoned With On 'Force Majeure': 'We've Backed Ourselves More Than Ever'

Given the global morass that was the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a little surprising to see that some good came out of it for the music industry.

In Melbourne – which quickly became the most locked-down city in the world – one of the few ways to get by was to dive into music. While many aspiring artists aimed high but never quite got around to recording their ambitious masterpieces, the likes of James Lynch and Bec Allan were busy devising another new band – completely unaware of where the journey would take them.

While Lynch had been in the likes of The Vacant Smiles and Kosmetika and Allan had performed in Gutter Girls and Blonde Revolver, the couple launched a new group called Delivery. More punk than Lynch was used to, and less punk than Allan’s history, this musical middle-meeting was a release that allowed them to remain creative.

Fast-forward to 2021 and things moved quickly. Debut EP Yes We Do was released alongside their live debut in 2021, with the full-length album Forever Giving Handshakes Arriving the next year. Live shows around Australia and Europe soon followed, with the larger band quickly making a name for themselves as one of Australia’s next big rock exports. 

Now, 2025 is bringing with it their next album, Force Majeure, following yet another return to Europe.

Surely, with a career arc this grand, it must have been planned from the beginning, with a well-devised system for industry ascendance accompanying the journey. In truth, Delivery are taking the wins as they come and reaping the benefits of their hard work.

“I don't think anything was completely scary or shocking, but equally, nothing felt that crazy either,” Lynch says. “A lot of the wins we got early on all felt kind of like a combination of hard work that was even larger than this band's lifetime. 

“We'd all been playing in other projects for so long, learning and making friends with people, and all these things that it wasn't so shocking because it felt like it was all hard work that was snowballing up over itself.

“Even getting show offers and putting out music with this band, I feel like how well a lot of the stuff has gone so far has always just been amazing,” adds Allan. “Everything felt like a luxury in a way,” Lynch agrees.

In fact, as far as both Allan and Lynch explain, everything about the band has been a pleasant surprise. After all, for a band created in COVID to be given the opportunity to take things outside of the iso-bandroom, every single move they make is considered a huge milestone.

“When we started the band, we didn't even have ambitions to play live,” Allan says. “So everything that's happened has been quite exciting. Getting offered to play, making new music, working with lots of really cool people, and playing in Europe has been amazing.

“Starting the band during COVID, Europe felt like it would never even be an option, and now we've just announced our fourth European tour. Every time we announce it, I almost feel embarrassed,” she says. “We’re super fortunate, and there was definitely no expectation that any of that was going to happen.”

“I don't think we're a group that really takes this for granted because even just a few years ago, none of this existed for any of us,” adds Lynch.

For most bands who strike gold with their debut, the recording of a follow-up album is often fraught with fears of living up to the expectations placed upon them by fans, critics, audiences, and more. For Delivery, however, such expectations are almost more of a feature than a bug in the music-making process.

“I was really excited about it because being a music fan for my whole life, I'd read and listen to interviews where bands talk about their hard second album, and this one particular, I was like, ‘Finally, we've arrived, and we've got a chance to make an annoying second album’,” Lynch says. “Fortunately, there wasn't much pressure or stress because the whole thing was a bit of a confidence boost.

“When the first album was made with almost zero expectation, it was like, ‘Alright, now we've got room to actually see what we can do with this’,” he adds. “Fortunately, it was really quite relaxing, and the songs came together really easily. 

“There wasn't any pressure from anyone but ourselves in what we wanted to do when it came to getting another album ready,” agrees Allan. “We just wanted to keep writing music and have new music; no one was asking for it.”

Likewise, this somewhat laidback approach to a new record was also mirrored in the studio as well. With no external forces demanding a new record, Delivery were in a position where they could simply start writing and recording much like they did the first time around instead of trying to recapture the magic or improve upon things.

“I think the first time, maybe there was even a little bit more pressure because we weren't able to play live that much,” explains Allan. “Plus we were a new band, and we wanted people to know what we sounded like and what we're doing, so we were feeling a bit of a sense of urgency to show people who we were and capture that. 

“Whereas with this second one, it's like, ‘Okay, people know who we are, I think they like it, let's keep it moving’.”

“The first record we pretty much recorded right after all the COVID lockdowns had fully ended, so the point of it was to make like an album that feels like the live band because we haven't had the opportunity to do this,” explains Lynch. “The whole thing was recorded with the five of us in our rehearsal room, and there were a few overdubs, but mostly it was as live as possible.

“Whereas this one, I was the one who kind of steered the ship on this, but I was very staunchly like, ‘Let's make an album where we don't have to worry about how we play it live’.

“I mean, we're a band with three guitars, and sometimes the reality is that live, three guitars is awesome, but sometimes in recording, you don't need three guitars playing at the exact same time,” he adds. “So then it got a bit more about being more clever about the arrangements.”

In addition to being an opportunity to become a bit more clever with the arrangements, Delivery’s second album has also given Allan and Lynch a chance to work with other musicians this time around. Though the founding pair remain, they're now joined by Jordan Oakley and Scarlett Maloney on guitar and backing vocals, with the prolific Liam Kenny on drums. Thankfully, there’s no bad blood behind a lineup shift such as this.

“The long story short is that things were kind of moving faster than everyone had signed up for,” Lynch explains. “When we made a band with no expectations, everyone's got full-time jobs and careers they've been working on, partners, and things like that, so when touring began becoming a bigger focus for the band, we knew that wasn't going to be achievable for everyone else. 

“So a big factor was that we really wanted to make that an album as a group to really honour what the five of us had done together,” he adds. “Fortunately, once the album was done and we were really lucky to get a record label getting interested, that meant that a lot of those touring opportunities were really coming to life, so we had to figure out how we can take this album on the road and get it out to as many people as possible.

“It really has been kind of a passing of the baton or whatever it is where we've made an album with one group, and then there's a new group that is trying to see how far we can take it.”

For anyone who listens to Force Majeure, there’s definitely a feeling of growth at play. On the one hand, it’s the general growth that any band encounters as the years pass and they become more comfortable with their sound, but on the other, it’s the sound of a group such as Delivery asserting themselves as accomplished musicians who have something to say.

Force Majeure is a statement of their post-punk-inspired sound, their dedication to musical evolution, and making a record that is as fun to play as it is to listen to. However, some folks out there might be wondering just how Delivery ended up adopting a legal term for the title of their new album. In typical fashion, it’s all quite fitting.

“Weirdly, I didn't really think of it as a legal term when it came up,” Lynch explains. It's actually in a song lyric, and the song lyric is the character in the song describing themselves as a force majeure, which I thought was kind of funny because there's a level of boldness in that claim, but it’s also so ridiculous that you can't take a person that thinks that seriously.

“It just felt like a suitable title for a Delivery album because we're a rock and roll band in 2024, and there’s a history of rock and roll that has that kind of overconfidence,” he adds. “I think we're quite a self-aware band in that sense too, where it's like you have this ‘bigger-than-yourself’ energy, but then at the same time, you've got to be self-aware that at the end of the day, you're just playing rock songs.”

It doesn’t end there, though, because while Force Majeure might just be the sound of a band playing rock songs, it’s an opportunity for the listener and the band to escape from the drudgery of modern life. Though not overtly commenting on current events with obnoxious obviousness, it’s a record that emerges at a time when some rock songs are just what we need to use as respite.

“I guess it's a political album in a way,” Lynch adds. “If you think about what a force majeure is, the end of the world may well and truly be coming, but equally, Force Majeure feels like a very fun way to invite that along, rather than be pulling your hair out, I guess.”

Apart from adding a sense of levity to an impending apocalypse, Force Majeure is the sound of a group who have hit their stride. While they might have started with no expectations, Forever Giving Handshakes found them finding their feet, but their second effort has seen them write an album that shows the power of backing their own decisions.

“The lyrics are stronger than we've ever written, some of the lyrics are more thoughtful and very much the right kind of thinking for the time, and musically, we've been able to do things a bit bolder than ever,” Lynch explains. 

“There was a time a few years ago where maybe irony was cool, and I remember people saying to me, ‘Guitar solos suck’, or whatever it was, and in my mind, I was like, ‘No, they don't’,” he adds. “So it's cool being able to say that if we're going to do a guitar solo, let's make it go as hard as possible, or we're definitely going to go a different way, where it’s more soft or something.

“Maybe we're a bit more of a confident band; we've backed ourselves more than ever, which is cool.”

With 2024 coming to a close and Delivery already planning to kick things off in a major way with the release of Force Majeure, they’re hard at work making more plans for their continual growth and global domination. Already, they’ve got an appearance at SXSW in Texas booked in, and if their history is anything to go by, we’ll be seeing plenty more shows and new music from Delivery before long.

“Underneath the surface, there’s also a little bit of ambition to get the next album done,” Allan says. “I think there'll be writing, recording, lots and lots of touring, lots of playing shows, and lots of fun.”

“The first six months of the year have already filled up quite insanely,” adds Lynch. “I think we'll just kind of let the train keep charging, and hopefully, we can hang on. Hopefully, in that regard, there'll be some more music coming soon as well.”

Delivery’s Force Majeure is released on January 17th.