Following our announcement of the upcoming Storm The Bay, No Tide, and Junes Not Faking tour, today we bring you an interview with guitarist/vocalist Will Conner of No Tide. Make sure you read on to learn about how the band started out, their new EP, and more. I Hope I Don't Get Left Outside and the band's new music video can both be found below.
First of all, can you state your name and role in No Tide?
Will: I'm Will and I sing and play guitar in No Tide.
For those unfamiliar with the band, tell us a little bit about yourselves; how did you all meet and choose the band name?
Will: We're a Pop Punk band from Lincoln, NE. We basically all met through school. I've known our bassist Evan since elementary school and our drummer Austin since towards the end of middle school. The name No Tide is kind of a shoutout to where we're from. A lot of the well known Punk and Pop Punk bands are from the coasts, where as we're right in the middle of the country with no oceans, therefore we came up with No Tide.
So in July of 2011 the band released it's debut release, Streetlights. It's not often that you see a local band kickstart with a full-length - how was the decision made to do so?
Will: To be honest not a lot of planning went into that record, we were just starting out as a band and had a bunch of songs that we recorded and just decided to throw it all out there. We weren't sure what the future of No Tide would be so we thought pretty lightly of putting it out just so we had something to sell at shows.
Back in February No Tide also released it's new EP, I Hope I Don't Get Left Outside on Anchor Eighty Four Records - what has the feedback to the new songs been like and how has it been working with the label?
Will: In our eyes we kind of consider I Hope I Don't Get Left Outside to be our first legitimate release, we had actually started out as a three piece and recorded Streetlights with only three. In the studio we ended up putting down more guitar tracks to sound like a four piece band and it was right around the time we had decided to add a fourth member. Streetlights really ended up as a transitional record into where the band is now.
The feedback was much greater from I Hope I Don't Get Left Outside as it was our first label release and I feel like we really knew what direction we were going as a band for this EP. Cody, the owner of Anchor Eighty Four was very cool to us from the start, and it was exciting to us that he was as interested in our new songs as he was when we first shopped the record to him. He has and continues to hook us up with a lot of great opportunities. It seems as though people really started to take notice of us after we put out the EP, kids singing along at shows and things like that definitely let us know that people were getting into it.
Can you describe how it felt having Jay Maas mix and master the EP?
Will: It was incredible to me and the rest of the band. Jay Maas worked on a ton of records from bands we love that we really look up to and are influenced by, so the fact that he did our record for us was just great. We originally hit him up about doing the record over email and he hit us back right away which was really cool and things just took off from there. We owe him a lot for getting the record to sound just the way we wanted, it's hard to bring the ideas for a recording you have in your head to life and he did just that.
How did writing and recording the EP compare to Streetlights? Do you guys often meet in the same room to write and record or does it all come together later?
Will: As I mentioned before we didn't put a ton of thought into Streetlights before putting it out, and that's the main difference between that and our new EP. We took quite a bit more time perfecting the arrangements and writing the songs for I Hope I Don't Get Left Outside. We practice twice a week in Evan's basement and that's where the songs came together. The way we have always done it is I will write the basic skeleton and chords to a song with some lyrics and a melody, maybe a verse and a chorus, and I'll bring it to practice and we toss ideas around and build off of it. We aren't the type of band to write in the studio, by the time we get in to record anything the songs are completely written and we all know exactly what we're going to play.
Are there any intentions on pressing the EP in the future or will it remain digital?
Will: We have the EP on CD right now and will have it available on tour, but we are also working towards getting a 7" vinyl pressed in the near future.
Personally I haven't encountered too many bands from the Nebraska area - what's the local scene like in Lincoln?
Will: We have a most likely surprising amount of bands in Lincoln and Omaha to people who aren't from here. In Lincoln we probably have around 10 specifically Pop Punk bands. The scene has a lot to offer but it's hard to get people out to local shows. Whenever big acts come through people come out of the woodwork and we'd like to make that happen for the local shows more often. There are a lot of Hardcore bands in Omaha as well, some friends of ours from our hometown play in a Hardcore band called Bent Life and they recently announced they have a record coming out on 6131 Records.
We recently announced the band's upcoming tour with Storm The Bay - have you guys done much touring in the past? What're you looking forward to the most about the tour?
Will: We have done shows all over the midwest from Texas to Minnesota, but this will be our first tour out to the coast. This is our first longer tour we've done and we're excited to see the east coast and share the experience with our label mates in Storm The Bay as well. The main thing we're excited about is having a solid record to tour on and see where it takes us. We plan on touring as much as we can.
Thanks for doing this, do you have any last words?
Will: Thanks a lot for having me! Hope to see some new friends on tour in June, and I gotta do this for all the friends bands who have helped us out over the years.
Check out - in no particular order
The JV Allstars
The Last Slice
Thieves
Ages
Junes Not Faking
Bent Life
A Summer Better Than Yours
Tierra Park
Interview by Mario Parra
Exclusive: Life On The Sideline EP announcement, music video premiere
Since releasing Honesty Is A Dying Breed two years ago, Life On The Sideline has remained active on the road and is now ready to unveil its upcoming EP, Never Settle. To kick things off, we're premiering the music video for the band's new single, "Echo", which tells the sad story of a young girl reminiscing times spent with her deceased partner. While not a pop punk song per se, it's as catchy as one with an infectious chorus that you'll inevitably get stuck in your head. The band's sound could be compared to that of Transit's and The Early November's. Fans can pre-order the EP on iTunes and CD here, before it's released on June 7th. […]
