Do you feel that soft scream coming from your bones? Is your bed calling to you? Are you sick of having to deal with one more ungrateful customer upset about a minuscule problem that you personally have no control over? If you can relate to all of these questions, the most excruciating pain is likely the minuscule size of the paycheck that hits your bank account in a world increasingly designed for only a fraction of a fraction to live comfortably.
This reality of minimum wage workers? It's fucking foul. Which is exactly what New Orleans no-wave group Special Interest have named their latest single. "Foul" is a rallying cry for the workers that keep this world running, who don't get their dues, and who end their days with an aching body. It's the third single from the band's forthcoming album Endure, which is out November 4 via Rough Trade.
“This call and response tune is a working class anthem,” guitarist Maria Elena said of the single. “Alli [Logout] and I co-wrote the lyrics and sing it together with Ruth [Mascelli] adding a classic line—foul! Ever so foul. It’s a dispatch from the dish pit! An ode to all beleaguered workers! Minimum balance savings account blues!”
Special Interest pull together the nonsensical conditions of minimum wage work with the delusions and rituals one uses to power through them. The call-and-response cries mimic the vents between coworkers, or an agitated inner monologue: "Short-staffed / Overworked / Sleep-deprived / It's an art." Special Interest continue to sharpen their hypnotic dance-punk structures with a thesis about the casual cruelties society's majority endure.
Listen to "Foul" below, and pre-order Endure here.
