The other night (1/31/14) I had the chance to see Tidal Arms perform at Saint Vitus Bar. This band is truly amazing and if you haven’t heard of them, please check out their music HERE and like them on Facebook HERE. I also had the honor of chatting with Guitarist/Vocalist/Producer Tom Tierney, so without further adieu, lets get into the dirt!
MA: Please state your name, what you do in Tidal Arms and for new readers/listeners what other artists do you often get compared to (FFO)?
TT: My name is Tom Tierney, and I play guitar and sing in Tidal Arms. We get a lot of comparisons, and I don’t really know which are the most fitting. We’ve had folks compare us to Engine Down,Harvey Milk, Grizzly Bear, Cave In, Don Caballero, Electric Wizard… our friend Sam from Meek is Murder calls is “Nirvana on PCP.” Who’s to say!
MA: You guys just released a new album late 2013 which seems to be a very refined album in comparison to your 2011 album ‘The Sun Exploding’. Can you explain the transition from one record to the next and why you guys took this heavier, sludgier route (which by the way I love very much!)?
TT: The new record is definitely much heavier. I think when we first started the band, we wanted to make a heavy rock record that was nuanced and subtle and had detail and emotion, with
a bunch of sparse, clean moments. We had fun with it and still love those songs and that record. In touring to support it, I think we just had so much fun playing the heavier songs that that’s what came out more this time around. We write by improvising, then taking the rad moments from the jams and turning them into songs. I think we were just jamming more heavy riffs because heavy riffs are fun!
MA: Being that we have an in-house recording studio and take large hand in a lot of recording processes, we’re always very interested in other artists that do the same. Can you please tell us what you feel to be the pros and cons of self producing your record?
TT: Recording yourself is a delicate process. A big pro is that we’re in our own space, so there’s
a sort of home-field advantage. We wrote the songs in our live room, so the music knows how to live in there. Another benefit is that we have the freedom to try out weird ideas, like putting a microphone in a tub of water (in a plastic bag) and getting the sound of reverb in water for a drum part, or something similarly insane, like tracking vocals with a microcassette recorder. That freedom can also be a curse. You can go down a rabbit hole of experimentation and take forever on something – sometimes options are bad for creativity. Ultimately, the biggest con is that sometimes, you can lose the big picture amongst the details. In the end though, I love recording music, and it’s really fun recording music with your best buds.
MA: When recording “The Sun Exploding” and the self titled, would you say there were significant learning experiences from one album to the next? If so, what are some key alterations you performed that you felt highly hindered and/or improved the recording process and experience?
TT: One thing we learned from The Sun Exploding was that if you’re going to put up a dirty, skuzzy microphone on something, also make sure to put up a mic that sounds big and warm and “good.” Second, all three of us can sing, so on top of collaborating on some of the lyrical content, we added more two and three-part screaming moments. Another big thing is that on “The Sun Exploding,” there aren’t any doubled guitars – all the guitars are just one single performance. I really wanted it to feel natural, like our trio playing live. At the end of the day though, for heavy music, it just sounds fucking huge to double or even quadruple track guitars. On the new record, I doubled all of the distorted guitars, but there’s only one or two places where there’s more than one guitar part being played.
MA: Your music is extremely vibey meaning it seems almost impossible to record to a click/grid and perform to a click. Are there certain methods you use during rehearsals in order to really lock in with each other through such a loose backbone?
TT: We don’t practice to a click, but most of our songs start with the groove first, so that’s the thing we’re thinking of from square one. As for tracking, we’ll record certain parts with a click, and other rubato/flex-time parts have to be done off the grid. A song like Molasses or Mad Glacier would be impossible to play all the way through with mojo and feel on the grid. On the other hand, a song like Gooski’s Ladder was tracked to a click, then we’d have the click cut out at the end, for the doomy sludgefest.
MA: You yet again pressed some really sweet vinyl (I have the smoke edition), can you tell the readers a bit about the process of pressing vinyl, what company you decided to go with and anything speed bumps you may have run into along the way?
TT: We love vinyl, and it’s been good to us. This record was put out by Black Numbers, a small vinyl record label. They took care of the pressing. In the past, we used Pirate’s Press and Erika Records. Vinyl can be a long process, which is the big hurdle. Our first 7”, “Hair and Teeth/Flooded Meadows”, had a slew of problems in the test pressings. At first, the tunes were fast and higher pitched, then they were scratched, and we went through several rounds of sending it back to the plant before it was right. It’s a much harder thing than hitting “upload” to bandcamp!
MA: Are you planning on doing more touring in 2014?
TT: Definitely. We just signed with a booking agent, Andy Rice of Outliers Talent Agency, and we’re making plans now. Any dope, mega sick bands that want to take us out, apply within.
MA: If you were to pick one band that you think you would fit most with aesthetically with and one band you think you may have the most fun with on a tour, who would they be?
TT: I feel like a schoolgirl talking about boys. I know we would all jump at the chance to tour with Mutoid Man. It seems like we share a cocktail of groovy/psych-y sludge, blasty/shreddy hardcore, “out” chord changes, and spacious surf rock. It’s hard to find bands that we share a similar vibe with, and they’re one of our favorites. We’d have a ton of fun on tour with a so many rad bands, but some that I know would be really fun would be Meek is Murder, Pigs, Junius, City of Ships, Sofy Major – bands whose music we love (and would be more or less appropriate) and are full of awesome dudes.
MA: Out of the 3 of you, who would you say has the best stage moves, and can you attempt to describe it in a nutshell?
TT: Oh man, this is a good one. I’m stuck behind a microphone for most of the set, so I can
count myself out. I think it’s a tie between Fran and Patrick. They both look pretty fucking menacing up there. Fran looks like some sort of wild beast with 8 limbs, conjuring some gnarly monster. He uses his whole body while drumming, and it’s really impressive. He really winds up for each hit, especially on the rubato sections, and it conducts the whole band, as well as the head banging of the crowd. Patrick is a force to be reckoned with too – he runs around the stage, commanding attention with a pretty threatening presence. His vibe sorta reminds me of way back when Jason Newsted was cool, only we can hear his bass, and it rules.
MA: Can you please tell readers where they can find you in the world of social media and feel free to add anything else you’d like to relay to everyone.
TT: You can find us at our website, tidalarms.com, as well as the usual Facebook, twitter (@tidalarms), instagram (@tidalarms), and bandcamp (tidalarmsmusic.bandcamp.com). We love talking with friends and fans, so if you have something to tell us, ask us, or a show to invite us to play, please get in touch! Hope to see you all soon in 2014!
