Today we’d like to introduce you to Felix Romero.
Hi Felix, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
We knew each other well before we started playing music together. We’d keep running into each other at shows around town—Hotel Vegas, 13th Floor, Central Machine Works, Mohawk, and plenty of other places. At first we were familiar faces, then friends, and eventually bandmates. We were already part of the same Austin music scene, so when we began making music together, there was a natural understanding of what we wanted Side Yard to feel like.
The sound comes from that same spirit: psychedelic, garage, punk, and experimental rock, with room for humor, grit, and a little defiance. We want the songs to feel lived in and immediate, with personality left intact. Side Yard is a band of friends making the kind of music we want to hear—and building something together in the city and scene that brought us into each other’s orbit.
We have a couple of singles coming in the next few months, and our debut album, *Third Culture UAP*, is set for February. We’re also looking ahead to recording more music early next year.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Austin has no shortage of talented musicians. The harder thing is finding people you actually want to spend your time with: people you can make decisions with, work through disagreements with, and keep showing up beside when rehearsal runs long or an idea takes a while to come together. We already knew and liked each other as people before we became bandmates, so Side Yard grew from a real friendship rather than just a search for players who could fill out a lineup.
We’re proud of that. Everyone in Side Yard is a damn good hang, and that makes a difference in how the band feels. There’s room to laugh, be honest about what’s working, and take a musical idea somewhere unexpected without worrying that it has to come out perfectly the first time. We can follow a riff when it gets strange, let a song keep some of its rough edges, and trust that we’ll find our way through it together. That chemistry is part of the sound: Side Yard feels like a group of friends making music in the same room, not people trying to fit themselves into a formula.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Side Yard makes psychedelic, garage, punk, and experimental rock. We like music with some dirt under its nails: songs that can get loud, strange, funny, or a little unruly, while still feeling human and direct. We’re not trying to polish away every odd edge. We want the music to have character and a pulse.
The songs draw from the lives and contradictions around us: work, money, identity, frustration, absurdity, and the effort to keep going. There’s seriousness in that, but there’s humor too. Sometimes laughing at the strange parts of life is its own kind of therapy.
When someone hears our music, we hope they can picture Austin after dark—not the postcard version, but the lived-in one: people coming out of a show, the heat still hanging in the air, a weird conversation on the sidewalk, the sense that something ordinary could suddenly turn surreal. Side Yard is meant to feel like a place you’ve stumbled into with your friends, where things might get a little loud or strange, but you’re welcome to stay.
We’re proud that the band grew from friendships in Austin’s music scene and that we’ve built a shared sound together. What sets us apart is that mix of closeness and unpredictability: we know each other well enough to take chances, follow an idea into unfamiliar territory, and let the songs keep their personality.
What were you like growing up?
I was born on a small ranch in Guanajuato, Mexico, and lived there until I was four, when my family moved to Austin. We had humble beginnings here, living around Oltorf and South Congress back when it was still affordable. I fell in love with Austin as I grew up. There’s so much creativity in people here, and so many stories moving through the city—in conversations, in the music you hear on the street, and in the lives people are making for themselves.
My family came to the U.S. undocumented, so the way immigration has changed over the years is personal to me. There was a time when we didn’t live with the same fear of federal agents taking people from our community that people are facing now. That fear and uncertainty shape a lot of what I write about. But I’ve also come to see how those feelings connect to the wider world around us. You don’t have to be an immigrant kid to feel life pressing in on you, or to want to push back against the forces making life harder for your and your neighbors.
The circumstances aren’t all the same, but more of our feelings overlap than we sometimes realize. That’s something I hope comes through when we play: the specific stories we carry can still help people recognize something of their own in the songs.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_side_yard/
