Tidal Suns

The following is an excerpt from an article in the Christmas 2005 issue of Irelands leading music magazine, HotPress, highlighting the emergence of an exciting new scene in the Cork city...

"Of course, the one possible downside of any boom is that it could make it more difficult for individual acts to grab the attention. Mark Flavin, drummer with fun-loving pop-rockers Tidal Suns, will have no truck with that argument.

“I think it makes it better,” he states. “There are more gigs going on, and the more people that start going to gigs, the better. If they go to one or two and like it, then they’ll go to another two and really get into it. It’ll just get bigger. That's the way it's heading at the moment.” - HotPress

By Mark
04/04/2006
It’s my first Saturday off in what seems like ages and I’ve spent most of it wandering around Cork trying to promote the next Drop-d gig as best I can. A bag full of posters and hundreds of flyers have been scattered across venues, pubs, coffee shops and anywhere that will let me put them up. I also met quite a few interesting musicians and got some positive feedback. I’d forgotten that this city is so vibrant on a Saturday. So I’m happy, content and almost satisfied that I’ve got something of a job halfway done at least. Now time to do that other thing I had planned.

As I enter The Quad somewhere post 5pm the dim light hits me and I spot the full band from Tidal Suns waiting for me to interview them, with guitarist and singer Terry O’Brien working behind the bar, in a more positive mood than myself! Tidal Suns have played at the previous Drop-d gig and also at our Launch gig back in October and did well with their back to basics rock’n’roll.


Mark: Define you sound…
TS: Well we don’t really know ourselves; we’ll leave that up to you! We’ve been described as anything from rock to alternative to classic 70’s rock to grungy to heavy rock…you see where I’m going. We don’t really think we’re that heavy and thought we might be a cross over between Indie and Rock. Call us what you want, we don’t mind as long as your listening to our music and enjoy it!

Mark: Who would you consider as influences?
TS: Well Tom loves The Beatles Tessie’s into Weezer and bands like that. We’re big fans of Led Zepplin too. But we all like a few bands like Oasis, Rage Against The Machine, Radiohead are brilliant, The Rolling Stones have definitely had an influence and are respected. We count ourselves as an influence on the band also.

Mark: Who are the creative ones in the band and how does a song come to shape?
TS: Well Tom and Terry doing most of the writing and they’ll bring something to the rest of the band and well try to put something together from there. Usually Tom throws in some beautiful riffs and then we decide on whether the bass should be simple or over the top.
...one of us brings the bones of a song forward and we see what we can do with.
...We usually practice it a lot and then probably change it coming up to a gig just to be awkward!

Mark: What was your best gig so far?
TS: We’ve really enjoyed a lot of our gigs but the one that we remember most is the Cork Rocks gig. We got a really good response that night and the crowd were really up for it. There was a good atmosphere

Mark: When is the new EP due out and where did you record it?
TS: We recorded the EP in BPM Studios over a few days. We put a lot of effort into it and made sure we had a good idea of what we were doing before we went in there as we wanted to get value for our money. We recorded a few songs before and we knew that we should be really prepared before we went in because otherwise you just end up taking too long to record or not putting down enough songs or just rushing through the recording process to get them all done. If you rush through things then the quality is not as good and then you’re not as happy with the recording. We knew what we wanted before we went in there so we felt more prepared and had a much better idea of what we wanted. We re-recorded the songs from out first EP and did a few more new ones. We’re not too sure on the running order of the tracks yet or even which ones are going to make it on. We thought about leaving all seven on the EP but decided against it. Basically we know two songs that we want to put on it but that’s all for now.

Mark: What is your opinion on the Cork scene at the moment and have you got any favourites amongst the bands?
TS: Cork is doing really at the moment and it’s getting a bit of attention, which is definitely due. There are some really good bands there. There is a feeling amongst certain people that a few bands in Cork could get signed. If one band got signed we think it could really open it up. If just one band got signed it could pave the way for more to get signed, it would just take that bit of attention for record companies to sit up and to see what’s really going on in the scene here right now. If you look back to over a decade ago, when the likes of The Sultans of Ping and The Frank and Walters got signed, a lot of bands from Cork started to get noticed and there was a more concentrated focus on what was happening here. If something like that could happen again it would be great and it would spur bands on. It would also lead to bands trying to do better for themselves and even more bands springing up which would strengthen the scene again.
We like a lot of bands in Cork at the moment especially those who we’ve played with. We like Snowman a lot there’s a few more there but we don’t really want to get drawn into liking one band more than the other.

Mark: Any advice for bands starting out?
TS: Practice your asses off before you do anything. R - Drop-D eZine