Hometown heroes Tides of Man left the bay area this fall to follow Long Island veterans, The Sleeping, across the country on yet another national tour for the these Tampa natives. REAX was able to catch with up lead singer, Tilian Pearson, after their show at the 1982 lounge in Gainesville and talk about the band’s success after signing to Rise Records. These guys aren’t home for long, so see them while they sweep through their home state this week.


Florida dates:
Tour with The Sleeping and PMToday
Nov. 13: at The Orpheum, Ybor
Nov. 14: at Backbooth, Orlando
Nov. 14: at the Talent Farm, Pembroke Pines
Nov. 17: at Jack Rabbits, Jacksonville

REAX: So you’re touring with The Sleeping. How’s it going so far?
Tilian Pearson: It’s been pretty good so far, it’s like one of the first - well, not really - our last few tours were the first ones without any other hardcore acts on it, which is neat. PM Today is the the tour too, they’re part of our label (Rise Records) and the one band that is closest and genre. The bands are good and the guys are nice. We’re playing a mixture of small bars, sometimes we’re playing venues that way too big for this tour, like we played the Glasshouse in Southern California. There were a few hundred kids there which was awesome. Definitely the highlight of the tour.

REAX: Do you have any good stories from the road yet?
Pearson: Well, the guys from The Sleeping are from the Long Island area and they got us all hooked on this gambling dice game, Cee-lo. You throw in a couple of bucks and toss the dice. We’re all addicted to it now that The Sleeping got us started on it.

REAX: Is this your first tour with a band as big as The Sleeping? How did it all happen?
Pearson: We did a Johnny Craig tour in March and the opening act on it was rapper Mod Son (Derek Smith) the drummer for Scary Kids Scaring Kids. He took us out with the bassist from The Sleeping and we all just became friends from there. Then they asked us to be on this tour. It’s awesome.

We did a Johnny Craig tour in March the opening act was Modson rapper from Minn. Played drums in scary kids scary kids, took out bassist, became friends from there, they asked us to do it .

REAX: You guys just dropped your second full length with Rise Records. What sort of response are you getting from the album?
Pearson: Technically this is our second release with Rise, but the first one we did on our own a little over two years ago. We raised the money to record that album ourselves, then Rise picked us up and bought the rights to put it out.

We’re getting a lot better of a response than the first one. That first album was more of a concept album, with long, drawn out songs that didn’t catch quite as well as the new one. It’s been pretty good so far. We’re finally getting some kind of buzz and starting to pull our own weight. We’ve been our touring for a year and we’re seeing for the first time a significant draw at shows just from ourselves.

REAX: How would you describe your sound to someone who may have never heard of Tides of Man before?
Pearson: That really depends on how old they are. I guess it’s progressive indie rock, but the newer stuff is more structured so I don’t know if the progressive tag would work on there. We get compared to bands like Circa Survive, Deerhunter, Coheed and Cambria and all that stuff.

REAX: So there’s been a bit of a line up change. A guitarist left and you you’ve picked up another. What happened and how’s the new guy doing so far?
Pearson: Yeah, Adam officially left in May and we did a tour as a four piece right after that. Then we picked up a new guitarist for the tour after that with Karnivool, but it didn’t work out. We tried out Dan Miller from the Rival Armada (Tampa) on this tour and it’s working really well, a lot better than what we expected actually. We all really like him and he’s a good guitarist. The final tryout will be to see if we’re able to write new stuff with him.

Adam got married and had a kid after we started the band, which was a big distraction. We weren’t making enough money to support a family or anything like that, we were barely making enough to eat on the road. When it came time to record Dreamhouse he was really sidetracked, we all decided that it would be better if we tried to find someone else. The split was a gradual thing, not a big deal at all.

REAX: You’re one of our hometown bands. Since you’re from Florida, you’ve played the best venues in the state. What are some of your favorite places to play in Florida?
Pearson: State Theatre for sure is the best in St. Pete. They have the best sound, the backstage area is really good and they have a nice stage to play on. But mainly because of their sound. It’s better than any other place in town.

We also like The Orpheum too, which is also in Tampa. We didn’t tour much before we started touring the country - we just recorded our album, got picked up on tour within a couple of months and didn’t have a chance to build our local or regional fan base all that much. We were on a national tour before we played as far north as Jacksonville.

REAX: ''What does the future look like for Tides of Man?
Pearson: Well we just shot a music video right before we left for tour. It was really awesome, a lot of cool lighting ideas and everything, it should be out in a few weeks. Then we have another tour that goes from the end of November right up till Christmas. We have the holidays off and start a couple of bigger tours that start up through May. Not sure if I can tell you much more than that though.