Words: Chris Gaughan
Photo: Courtesy Tides of Man
Synchronicity. It’s a funny word. It’s the experience of two totally unrelated events that, when put together, just ooze with meaning. Sometimes it pops up unexpectedly and other times it just hovers around a person, place, or conversation. It’s like catching an interview with a band that’s just arrived from a tour and is just about to depart on another. It could just be a coincidence, right? How about if the last show that band played was also the first venue that they ever played? Did I mention the band's recent album comes from a quote by Montesquieu, the 18 th-century social critic about whom I just wrote a paper last week, and that their major motivating theme is the rise and fall of civilizations?
Meet Tides of Man.
I have to admit, from seeing their promotional shots, I was a little intimidated. Kudos has to be given to their label, because it was doing its job way too well. Their promotion was good. Their online presence is polished and professional. Their images are highly commercial and look like they were designed for consumption. Their MySpace page is riddled with comments from angsty female tweens who are showing too much cleavage and writing wholly in netspeak. I was prepared for Coheed and Cambria clones. I was prepared for too much fashion and not enough depth. What I got when I met the guys was delightfully unexpected. I wasn’t prepared for two awkward guys that just really like to play music and who actually seemed a little nervous.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with two of the band members, Adam Sene (guitar) and Tilian Pearson (guitar and vocals), on a late August night at King Corona in Tampa's Ybor City district. What really caught me off guard about Sene and Pearson was their humility, though it’s easily understandable. Life as professional musicians is an entirely new thing to these two guys, and it showed. The first thing Sene mentioned when asked about their recent tour was missing his son. When asked why they stay in Tampa, their response was to ask, “Why would we leave?”
Like most of the band, they’re both 22. They joked about bassist Alan Jaye being the grandpa of the group at the ripe old age of 27. The band itself is young, too, having just released its freshman album Empire Theory on Rise Records in July. The band’s musical identity is a little awkward as well. Sene would describe the music of Empire Theory as classical indie rock, while Pearson, a little embarrassed, spoke about his current interest in tech metal. When discussing where they got the idea for a band name, they resorted to metaphors that had nothing to do with music at all.
“Tides of Man came from an idea we got from a photo shoot,“ Pearson said. “We were standing on these rocks by the water and the waves were splashing against them. That’s when we knew what our band was about. It was about the ebb and flow of the tides as a symbol of the rise and fall of empires. How everything is cyclical and civilizations both rise and fall.”
When speaking about their recent album, Sene got just as abstract:
“The experiences that inform the way I write songs aren’t even experiences at all. They’re the ways I almost went.”
“Yeah,” Pearson chimed in. “Some people have their heart broken or have these terrible experiences, and go write a song about them. Music doesn’t have to be just that.”
“Exactly,” Sene continued. “Empire theory isn’t even about real experiences. It’s about experiences that almost happened.”
Confusing metaphors aside, the album showcases a musical confidence and aptitude. The kind that gets you picked up by the same label that hosts The Bled. It was recorded in Atlanta in the same studio that has seen the likes of Lydia, Copeland, and Manchester Orchestra. The music is orchestral and the story it tells is compelling, with the overall sound being something that seems like it would translate very well into a live setting. Recently having returned from touring with Asking Alexandria, A Static Lullaby, and Vanna, the guys are looking forward to Rise’s upcoming Squash the Beef Tour. Squash the Beef is a four-week endeavor that sees them playing all across the country on the same bill as Emarosa, Dance Gavin Dance, and Of Mice and Men.
Getting signed is the dream of almost any band I’ve ever met, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The guys maintain that creative control of their music is the most important thing to them, with innovation a close second.
“Seventy years after the invention of rock,” Pearson pontificates, “is there still stuff to be done? Of course. In terms of melodies, movements and progressions. There’s definitely still uses of the guitar to be explored.”
See what I mean? They’re genuine. They really just like to play music that appeals to them. It just so happens that the music that appeals to them is readily marketable to the Hot Topic generation. It also just so happens that they’re marketable, and have no problem with being marketed. It's just another of the synchronous circumstances that seem to follow these guys around.
Rise Records' Squash The Beef Tour has Tides of Man touring the West Coast throughout February. They return to Florida for shows October 5 at Orlando's Social, October 6 at Ft. Lauderdale's Culture Room, and October 7 at St. Petersburg's State Theatre.
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