York Calling Interviews FORTITUDE

I’m not normally a massive fan of live albums, but upon hearing Florida band Fortitude’s new record, Live at Lou’s really caught my attention. Fortitude is a hardcore punk band with an old school sound – find out more about their music below!

By Jane Howkins

You recently released a new record titled Live at Lou’s. What can you tell us about the record?

The record is an accumulation of 25 years of FORTITUDE OLD ETHICS FLORIDA HARDCORE with songs spanning from the late 90’s to 2019. We have had around 11 releases over the years and these songs have lasted the test of time from 1997 until now. Our set normally consists of most of these songs, but on today’s hardcore shows/bills, we usually only get about 20 minutes for set times.

How has the reception to the record been so far, and where can it be purchased?

The record really hasn’t been fully released yet, it can be purchased from the label DC×PC LIVE, our record release show will be on Friday Feb 16th & after that can be purchased at our shows & numerous record shops around Florida.

It’s a live album. What prompted the decision to release material from one of your shows?

We first found out about DC×PC LIVE doing live records from some old friends of ours from NY, a band named Two-Man Advantage. Their singer, ‘Spag’, shared a pic of their release & told me about Scott & his label & told me how to contact him.  DC×PC has been putting out live recordings for about 3 years now & we were super stoked & honored when Scott decided to do a full length vinyl for us! Once we knew the entire set was going to be recorded & used for a full length, we put together a setlist where we could showcase the progression of the music as well as keeping a nice flow of songs harmoniously together for our set.

The main thing that prompted us to do it was just talking with Scott & making it happen & the label has treated us amazingly well with the entire process. We basically are putting out the product we have wanted to for years but we just never got the opportunity until now & we are humbly grateful!

Do you have any plans to release a studio album/EP anytime soon?

Yes, most definitely! We just acquired a new drummer & we are super stoked to start writing new material over the next bunch of months – we hope to release a studio record after the summer!

The lead single is Star Spangled Hate. What can you tell us about the track? Why did you decide to release that song as the main single?

The song was written back in like 2003, it was a great track to start the record & we just felt like it helped solidify our punk rock/hardcore stance overall. Also, it seemed perfect with today’s political climate to just use this as an ice breaker & get it out there for people to know where we stand.

Do you have any more singles planned from Live at Lou’s?

Yes we do, we are currently deciding which one to release next, we hope to release it within the next couple of weeks before our record release show!

Your music has a hardcore punk sound. What/who are you most influenced by when making music? What have you been listening to recently?

We were all 80s hardcore kids, so bands from that area really shaped our sound: JUDGE, Youth Of Today, Slapshot, Sick Of It All, 7SECONDS, Killing Time/Raw Deal, Side By Side, A Chorus Of Disapproval, Youth Brigade, Suicidal Tendencies, Gorilla Biscuits, INSTED, Uniform Choice, Minor Threat. They are bands we listened to as kids, and we wanted to incorporate some of those sounds, feelings, & ethics to our music & our band. As far as recent music, tons of Florida bands right now are amazing, our scene is super beautiful at the moment, with so many bands & scenes. It’s awesome! There’s really too many to mention but if it’s FLHC I’m gonna peep it regardless. I personally listen to a lot of newer bands like Sunami, MAGNITUDE, MINDFORCE, DRAIN, SPEED, TERROR,i XweaponX, and Restraining Order, but I still love some older bands as well like Kill Your Idols, BURN, Crown Of Thorns, STRIFE, Circle Storm. I could list bands all day long that I love from every genre that could fill a book.

Do you have anything else exciting coming up over the next few months?

We have a show with SHUTDOWN at the end of February which will be our new drummer’s 1st show, & just getting an opportunity to play relevant shows is still exciting. Getting to play with a new member is super exciting for us; I really can’t wait to see what he brings to the plate. We also have some other events that we are playing this year that we can’t really announce as of yet, but just being in the scene for this long is also extremely exciting. Getting the opportunity to play with younger, newer bands is always awesome, & it seems like we are riding an upswing with not only the release of our record, but with some amazing friendships we’ve made over just the past couple of years with a lot of the young bucks in the scene. It feels really good to be able to still represent Florida hardcore & get on some shows that we are stoked to play with amazing Florida bands & great friends!

Do you have any tour dates lined up for the UK?

Not at the moment, it would be awesome but no.

Any last words for the fans?

2024 is business as usual for FORTITUDE. We still have a product we are stoked to share with everyone & are proud to still represent OLD ETHICS FLORIDA HARDCORE after 25 years & we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon!